Читать книгу The Art of Ballet онлайн

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But the sense of “fair play” is so admirable, and so truly British a characteristic, that one may usually rely on it for a considerate hearing. Possible dissentients may be the more inclined to grant this if they are informed at the outset that this book has no specially persuasive purpose, and that I am content that it should be mainly accounted a record of fact.

One of the facts which it chronicles is that Ballet, whether an “art” or not, has existed, in some form or another, for about two thousand years. An interest which can show so long a record may yet not be of such surpassing importance, let us say, as Statecraft or Religion; but one which has thus long and widely appealed to the æsthetic sense of mankind can hardly be considered worthless. It were a vast and complex matter to decide the relative values of the various “arts,” and, certainly this book is no endeavour to pronounce thereon, nor to persuade any that Ballet is the greatest, though it is unquestionably one of the oldest of the arts. But it will suffice to offer the opinion that, whether it has reached its highest level or not as yet Ballet is an art in itself; one that in the past has had so many judicious and sympathetic exponents, and has so long a record of existence, that there is really some justification for the expenditure of casual leisure by any who cares to play the chronicler or to read such chronicle.