maha Sunday Bee Magazine Page
h
if
KouiDancitid
develops a
Deauitjuij'iq
"The Hindoo calm is ineffable. Of things that trouble h
thinks 'it does not matter. It is but for fo-day.'
He thinks not in hours, but lives."
THIS newspaper presents to-eJay the sixth of a Mrles of articles
by the moat graceful woman In America. Mln Ruth St Denla
la the foramect dancer In the United States. Her fame, not
limited to her own country, la world-wide.
, Mlaa St Denis hae literally danoed safer klnt having been re
ceived and admired In the courts of Eurepe. She le a mlatress of
the art of expreeelon without words, pantonine, and Is deeply
learned In the grace and beauty law of the Orient She advlaea her
country women upon a subject In which every woman Is Interested,
how to Improve her figure, and telle them In clear, forceful manner
and oareful detail, how this can be done. She doea not hosltnte to
point to the faults In the figure and carriage of her country women,
but while she telle of the evil ahe also describee the remedy.
No, 6 What Oriental Dancing Has
Taught Me
By Ruth St. Denis
r
T f ft painful operation to uproot
, a popular Idea, painful to tbo por
son whoso idoa is uprooted and
painful for the uprootor, yot tho
operation Is often a duty, and as
such I approach my task of making
fCTcral truo statements about tho
Japanese. .
Fallacy First That their clothes
are loose and comfortable. They
are no such thing. The kimono la
an easeful garment, yea. Bat In
Japan and among the Japanese In
this country a kimono without an
obi Is like a wife without a husband,
a day without a sun, or to go back to
the Persian philosopher of pleasure.
Omar IChayam, tho night without Its
"thousand eyes," tho stars. The obi
to its natural, unAmericanlsed state.
S' The Folly
N1NBTY women gathered In the
garden of the old Bohwab es
tate adjoining the Hall or karoo
.u other afternoon to receive the
first instruction of the Spring garden
courts by Henry drHoom Parsons, dU
rector of Department School Garden,
New York University.
Of the ninety women only two were
prepared to do practical gardening,
as titer were only two women who
had brought their apron. The women
wore tig-tit skirts, high-heeled shoe
and white kid gloves, -and when given
seeds found they could not Kneel
down or bend low to plant them, a
their skirts were too narrow. When
they tried to bend as low a their
skirts and corsets permitted they
cruld not obtain sound rooting- with
their btgh-heeled shoes.
laey took ott their kid glovei, dis
closing hands that were burdened
with rings, and were a helpless be
tore the ilinple Utile talk betore
them it If they had been ao many
babies.
They had not dressed suitably for
the occaeton. Do any of my sex these
mad days make any pretense of
uretmns to suit the occasion?
A Chicago alderman has Introduced
an ordinance to regulate the dreasea
worn by women on the streets, solely
os. moral grounds. The costliness of
the attire, its untttneas so far as
service and endurance are concerned,
he waives, lie considers only the
moral aspect of tbo dresses, gar
' menu so vulgar Jn conception and
suggestion as to cause some explana
tion for the calling of a vice com
mission. Tte girl on her way to her work
behind a counter, or bending over a
type-writer, wears garment as near
a duplicate as her purse will permit
of the jr-trnient worn by some woman
' wealth and fashion who rides In
long and heavily
padded. Moreover, it is worn Tory
tightly bound about tho waist I
dlsllko and extremely disapprove tho
corset but I must admit the obi la
Its equal in obstructing free motion,
bonce Is destructive of grace.
Fallacy SecondThat tho move
ments, of the Japanese women are
graceful. What that statement
proves Is that It you hear anything
oftea esough, you wfH believe it In
spite of the testimony of year eyes
to the contrary. It you have seea
-The waemdo" aad "The Geisha," or
It yon have stopped for a oup of tea
at one of the Japanese restaurants
in Now York or San Franolsoo you
must have seen that tho walk of
the Japanese woman Is not a walk.
of My Sex
tier automobile to a pink tea. The
business woman's dress la as low in
the neck, her heels are aa high, her
pumps as low, her stooklngs as thin.
There Is no element of vulgarity
which the woman of wealth Introduces
In her attire that Is not aped by her
sister with the flatter purse.
The blame lies not with the girl
on her way to work, but with the
woman of wealth and leisure.
The eighty-eight women who gath
ered to learn gardening In matinee
clothes were women of wealth and
high social standing, women who are
supposedly Intelligent, yet they were
as silly, and with less exouse. as the
working girl who wears a dresa on
the street that should not be worn
outside one's home, and then when
women only arc present
The "female form divine" ts not
o divine as the silly women think.
Few arms are Just plump and
shapely enough to look well bared
item the hand to the elbow. Not
one neok In five hundrod would cause
an artist In search of a model to
take a second look. Vest and ankles
and the display many women make
above them are suggestive more often
of, vulgarity than of beauty.
The woman who dresses modestly
Is credited with charms she may or
may not possess, but the woman who
dresses Immodestly proves by the ex
hibits made that she does not possess
them.
That Is Immodest" restrains no
one In these days of fashionable In
decency. "Your neck Is scrawny"
"You have an ugly arm," "Tou are
flat-footed and your ankles are thick"
mar serve as more effective weapons
In the Nwar that muat be wired
against the foolish of my snx.
An appeal o dioencv and modesty
having failed, the same results may
be obtained by appealing to vanity
Is flro yards
Copyright 11, by
"The message from the
but a hobble. She Is oven more un
graceful than tho American woman
Is when wearing her unBlashed
hobble skirt because, while Amor
Icon clothes cause a girl to rldlcu
- loualy shorten her steps, they permit
her to walk upright while the
weight and cramping bondage of tho
obi cause her to bend forward. A
Japanese woman's walk embraces
tho unlovely stoop of extreme age.
Fallacy Third That tho Japanese
know so well the art of utter relaxa
tion that they are tho most serene
of peoples on tho earth. They are
serene, yes; but not from relaxation.
Their serenenesa is the triumph of
concentration. The tendency of dif
tuseness of thought Is toward relaxa
tion. Tho trend of concentration Is
toward contraction. Japanese muscles
are practically always contracted. Tho
Was the Golden Land of Ophir in Frozen Alaska?,
ISAAC N. VAIL, tho geologist of
Pasadena, Col., In a new pam
phlet seeks to provo that "King
Solomon's Land of Ophtr" In the
Bible was really In Alaska, Mr. Yall
has attracted widespread attention
by his many scientific explanations
of puxsling biblical statements.
Surprise has often been expressed
at the enormous quantities of gold
and stiver obtained from Ophir by
the Hebrew kings. David alone ob
tained from it one hundrod thou
sand talents of gold and a thousand
thousand of silver.
Mr. Vail recently expounded his
theory that tho earth formerly pos
sessed a ring formed of water vapor
similar to that possessed by Saturn
now. This ring, spreading over a
large part of the earth, produced a
tropical climate In the polar re
gions, hence the recent existence
of mammoths and other animals re
quiring a hot climate In Siberia and
Alaska. The fall of the water
canopy caused the glacial period in
the northern and southern hemi
spheres. "I cannot see how a world can be
come tropical even up to the poles,"
saya Mr. Vail, "without the aid of a
great telluric vapor shell acting as
a greenhouse world-root Such vapor
roof a must fall and end tropic seerres,
and, as we hoc. tropic conditions end
ed repeatedly as the ages havo gon
the Star Compnnr. Great Britain Rights
Orient is absolute self-control. She keeps her powers locked
in to be used only in emergency."
Japanese contract their energies
and concentrate their minds on one
purpose. This individual habit is
tho causo of their national victories.
Do not Relieve, then, that tho
torown . skinned woman, smiling at .
you from behind the barricade of her
fan, is as limp as a kitten and as
good humored as that kitten when
it is comfortable and has been well
fed. She Is fascinating you because
she has contracted her muscles and
is directing her energies to the task
of that fascination. The message
of tho Japanese to ub Is not as wo
have thought for generations, relaxa
tion, not resistance. On the con
trary, tho message of the little na
tion, communicated by its alluring
women ns well as its silent, doughty
men, 1b that of conversation of
energy. "Contract and hold In
by. I take but a small additional step
when I Insist that a canopy, another,
and perhaps the last the earth over
saw, produced tho Edenlc and Ante
diluvian age, and, falling, closed It
with the great deluge, and later by
a vast Increase, of polar enows. I
think we have the strongest proof
that long after the flood, even down
to the birth of Christ a stupendous
mass of world vapors canopy snow
clouds hung over the northworld.
They are alluded to In the legendary
thought of every people, and far
down In time when a German
epic, the 'Nlbelungenlied,' was
penned, the memory of that north
world cloud gave that work its name,
the 'Cloud Drama,' or the 'Song of
the Cloud.' About this time also the
work of Snort Sturleson, called the
'Helmskringla,' the Ring's Home, or
Circle's Home,' was penned In Ice
land or Scandinavia and abounds In
canopy memorials,"
Mr. Vail argues that the water
belt fell In polar regions and thereby
produced a great accumulation of
Ice and snow. With the water fell
large quantities of gold, which 1b al
ways found In polar regions. Hence
the Land of Ophir must have been
in such a region. Here is the learned
geologist's argument on this point:
"'Hast thou entered into the
treasuries of the enow, or hast thou
seen the treasuries of the hail, which
I have reserved against the time of
Ileserved.
your energy. Let no atom of your
vital force escape except In the
emergencies of life," 1b what wo ore
taught albeit Indirectly and perhaps
unwillingly, by the folk of the
Island Kingdom. The 'nervous,
energy scattering women of America
should reflect on and practice the
advice.
It is the East Indians who teach
us relaxation and infinite patience.
The Indian can wait, and wait sad
wait for what he wonts. The East
Indian thinks not In hours or days
or weeks as our impatient people do,
but in lives. He has inherited the
traditions of centuries and he has
vision of the laws of life working In
exorably and changelessly, and" he
has the greatest serenity, which is
strength. His serenity says of an
event however revolutionary it ap-
trouble, against the day of battle
and warT' There can be no fuller or
stronger testimony than this from
the 38th chapter of Job. The man
who originally penned this passage
was familiar with the fact that enow
and ice contained treasure. When
and faow did he get that Information T
There are no two ways about it
Man, four thousand years ago or
more, somehow, came to know that
gold was a hidden treasure In Ihe
snow and ball (Ice) that had fallen
from tho skies. He got that informa
tion by gathering it from ancient
anow-banka and glaciers, either at
first hand in the days of Job, or the
information had come down to that
day from men who went to the
frozen north. It matters not which
way the penman got It it Is enough
to know he got It
"Now, it the sacred penman of
that day knew that there were treas
ures in the snow and ice of the
northworld, King Solomon, the
wisest of men, knew It too: .and
when he made a navy of ships at
Egion-geber, on the Red Sea, he
planned It to go to the snow-land,
where he know there was gold. It
must ever be a prominent fact that
Solomon did not build his navy to
go to &n unknown gold Held. Fleers
are not organized for that purpose,
and Solomon was no exception, and I
see no possible escape from the con
clusion that In the days of Kings
Sixth of an Instructive
Series of Articles by the
Well-Known Dancer
Ruth St.
pears to bo In his life or in ours,
"That will pass. It 1b but for to
day." So Is his patience iboundloss
and strengthmaking.
'The Indian dances are object les
sons in this etrength making pa
tience. They teach us the power of,
relaxation. The danpers Imitate the
posture of Buddhas, sitting with legs
crossed, muscles loosened, faces con
templative, attitude the apotheosis
of peace. Though an Indian dance
begins with tho subtleties and haz
ards of sex it is liable to culminate
In the poBture of power through
repose.
David and Solomon there was a land
known to all the nations as a gold
yielding region a region so amaz
ingly rich that fleets were built and
sent to gather the treasure, not to
'prospect' for it
"Those of my readers who have
not followed the trend of annular
thought from Ub beginlng will nsk
how gold became a constituent of
snow and hail. I have to remind
them that ao surely as the earth
was once In a molten condition, the
great mass of the gold now in and
on the earth's crust was vaporized
and sent as Igneous mist to the skies,
along with heated aqueous vapors,
Just as our mint furnaces send them
aloft to-day. Gold la one of the most
readily vaporized metals when as
sociated with superheated aqueous
vapors or steam. These vapors went
to the telluric heavens together ana
formed the outskirts of a vast primi
tive atmosphere. There they came
under the control of tangential force,
which caused thorn to remain on high
till the earth grew cold and solid.
There they became a part of the
earth's ring system. From that sys
tem they declined during the geo
logic ages, first becoming a succes
sion of canopies, like the great cloud
shells of the planets Jupiter and
8aturn.
"Those canopies lingered In the
heavens above the earth till recent
geologic times, and from the very
nature of things fell In the polari
Denis
"The beauty of cohn fhar
cannot be broken and
of absolute self-con
trol is tho Oriental
ideal."
Study, on the other tsxaQ,
ate posture of a jrelsha smil
ing at a visitor. Her shoulders
are drawn back; perhaps, her
faoo up turned, la tho Blmil
tude of trust her fan fluttering
Its perfumed coquetrloe, bat
her muscles are taut as the
rope that holds a straining
ocean liner at anchor.
A message, an artistta one
from the Orient every part of
it Is that the dances we hare
borrowed from that old land
whose background is of dim
uncounted centuries, Is that
every posture In such dance
means something. The Japan
ese, for InBtanoo, know that the'
straight lino represents antag
onism. When I rep reseat a
warrior ready for battle every
line of my body Is a straight -one.
Even my sword, hold erect, HI
a rectilinear challenge. In aotrre)
battle it 1b tho same. The straight
lino represents directness, Impa
tience, fury, deathful Impulse.
Curves suggest leisure, repose, the
graolous attributes, and India gives
us most of these. ,
A well-known American women,
keeps a statue of Buddha always in
the alcove of her bedroom. Thore
are many Buddhas, the starving
Buddha, the smiling Buddha, Bu6
dohs In most moodB of humanity,
sharing the sufferings of humanity
yet In all of them there 1b peaca.
There Is profound acceptance of
those conditions which cannot be
changed. This woman who keeps
the Buddha In a recess of her bed
room and was once so exceedingly
nervous that her enemies said sha
was "flighty," has acquired a qui
etude of manner and a gentleness of
speech that are marvelous. She has
absorbed the peace of the Bast
through casting her eyes upon tha
statue pf Buddha whenever Sha
was hurried or flurried.
Women can learn much of pa
tience, of locking in their energise
for use In an emergency, from a
study of the philosophies of tha
East They can learn to stand and
sit still. They can repress that ner
vousness that causes them to fidget.
They can compose themselves In a
crisis In their lives. They can. In a
word, become reasonable, and once
you havo trained yourself 'to rea
sonableness the habit solves tha
problems of your life. Reasonable
ness Is a long step that draws yon
near to happiness.
regions. As the steaming waters can
ried the gold vapors to the aklesr,
vand as centrifugal force held thenf.
inert) till canopies formed from vsx
pors condensed, vast quantities off
gold must have existed in the snow,
of every canopy. When the anowaj
fell, causing the glacial epochs, thai
gold fell with them. It must beeon-j
ceded that gold and hot vapors went,
up togother and came back together.
ThoBe vapors grew cold and precipi
tated their metals whilo under the
control of tangential energy in the
heavens. If we can imagine the
brilliant clouds now revolving around
the planet Jupiter to be snows, va
pors, cold and condensed, once
driven to the Jovian skies by the
fires of that molten orb, and laden
with precipitated metuls, as gold,
silver, etc., and reflect that these)
must fall at Jupiter's poles, we can
easily see how the enows of tha
planet are gold laden.''
Caught,
"John! John!" cried Mrs, Dnb
blelgh, shaking her husband by the
shoulder. "Wake up; there's a matt
in the housel"
"Nonsense, Susan!" retorted Dub
bleigh, shivering with apprehensloex
and hiding his head nnder the pillow.
"Nothing of the aort"
"Humph!" said Mrs. Debblelgh.
"I guess you are right I was re
ferrlnx to yr-"