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Copyright, 191S, by the Star Company. Great Britain Right* Reserved. Fourth of a Series of Instructive Articles by the Well* Known » Dancer Ruth St. Denis T HIS newspaper presents to-day the fourth of a series of articles by the most graceful woman in America. Miss Ruth St. Oenis is the foremost dancer in the United States. Her fame, not limited to her own country, is worldwide. Miss St. Denis has literally danced before kings, having been received and admired in the courts of Europe. She is a mistress of the art of ex pression without words, pantomime, and is deeply learned in the grace and beauty lore of the Orient. She advises her countrywomen upon a subject in which every woman is nterested, how to improve her fig ure, and tells them in clear, force- i manner and careful detail how ' ■ j can be done. She does not hesl- to point to the faults in the (igures and carriage of her country- omen, but while she tells of the evil she also describes the remedy. “This is the complex pose, the front foot showing the value of resting the weight on the sole, the back foot in the position of the straight line from toe to knee that ballet dancers use for balance.” No. 4-The Feet and Ankles By Ruth St. Denis T O develop your ankles and low er legs to the size which the symmetery of your body re quires, watch a child run. The lit- 'tle one gets over the ground quickly, running straight and silently as an Indian on the balls of the feet. A child does not run on his toes, nor on his heels. He is a good walk er because he is a natural walker. It is natural to walk on the balls of the feet, unnatural to tiptoe or walk on the heels. It is tortuous shoes that teach awkward habits of walking and standing and so make the ankles thick and the calves thin. When you have learned your les son from the child running about at play, take your next lesson from a ballet dancer. The ballet dancer’s postures so develop the ankle and leg that there is a straight line from the great toe to knee. When you have learned to form this straight line the ankles and calves will have reached their proportional size, and you will have taken that step, at least, toward attaining symmetry of the figure. Rid your mind of one foolish fear about the feet. Shoe dealers tell us all sorts of wild tales as they fit our shoes. They tell us we must wear this kind of a boot, and must not wear that, because of the dan ger of the fallen arch. Believe me, there is no such thing. The foot is crowded into shoes that are too small, and the instep is pushed out and the arch of the foot pushed up while trying to inhabit the shoe. When the tortured foot is released it relapses from the unnatural into the natural shape and because the arch is then lower than the position into which we have forced it—we really ought to be arrested for such treatment of the feet—we say the arch has fallen. Yes, I grant you— fallen into place, the place it should have been all the time. To develop the calves and ankles, wear shoes as little as possible. Go barefoot as much as circumstances will permit. Wear no stockings ex cept when you must, and wear Greek or Japanese sandals to protect the feet from cold and dampness at such times as you are without stock ings. Am I merely wasting my breath, I wonder, when I add “wear comfortable shoes?” Think of the different gait of the women who wear uncomfortable shoes and those who wear comfortable ones. It is the difference between the waddle of the elephant and the free grace of the antelope in the forest. Think about these principles I have laid down and govern your treat ment of your feet, for upon the feet rest the ankles and calves. I am not guilty of punning when I make this assertion. The foot is the command er in chief, so to speak, of the ankles and the two pairs of calves and ankles, are the little army it governs. I was standing at the foot of a hill, dreading the climb before me, one day when a truth came to me with flashing suddeness. If you are afraid of the hill it is because you do not climb it in the right way, I said to myself, announcing this truth. I set about the climb. In stead of rushing at it tempestuously or going diffidently about the climb I began it easly, thinking: "I will leave the ascent to the cushions of my feet. They will carry me up!” Instead of swaying forward on my toes which threw my weight for ward, and flung my internal organs out of place, nor on my heels which posture had the same effect, except that it tilted the body abnormally backward, I began the ascent easily and lightly on the balls of my feet. I do not exaggerate when I say that it was almost like being carried up. It at least reduced the action to a minimum. Try it while on your va cation this summer. It turns hill climbing from exhausting torture into a delight. In the dance there are many glid ing movements that may be lire L ‘‘Imitate the walk and the standing posture of the child. Instinctively, as the Indian, he runs or stands on the balls of his feet.” executed on the balls of the feet. Not l he most graceful dancing poses are made while the weight rests on the toes. And in dancing the heels are rarely used. Using the heels unduly makes Hie ankles larger and the calves smaller. Practice the walk and the standing posture of the child, for they are absolutely natural. Instinctively, as the Indian, the child runs and stands on the balls of the feet, which is the reason why the child can play so long without tiring and the Indian can run all day without apparent weariness. Do not scorn the halls of the feet. They are the padded support of your weight, the cornerstone of your body struc ture when you stand erect. The heels are mere aids in emergencies—“wheel horses” 1 rail them, borrowing a driving term—for the feet. They may be relied upon to help out, but they do not do the chief work, nor have they any initiative or leadership. If you study the dancing poses of a mistress of dancing you will note that there is a complex one that follows both principles I have laid down— one, that the support of the weight is the ball of the feet, the other that the ballet dancer’s big should iu some steps show a straight line at the front, from toe to knee. A picture of myself In an East In dian dance shows this complex pose. To develop the balls of the feet use them, and use them for what they were designed—to support the weight of the body. Nature makes no mistake. She pads the sole thick ly for that special use. When you find yourself shifting the weight on the toes or heels in walking or in ordinary dancing shift it back to the bails, where it belongs. For securing the straight line at the front of the leg from great toe to knee you will need the guidance of an experienced ballet dancer. You recently published the news of an accident that befell Miss Carol Har- riman because she was trying to rest her weight on her great toe when she was unaccustomed to it. Because sucu accidents are liable to befall those ignorant or unpracticed in tile art of balance, the straight line I have described has been named The Dead Line,” or “The Danger Line." Be as conshlernte in your care of the feet as you are of your face. A smudge on the face you regnrd as in some degree a social disgrace. Learn to regard your feet with the same reverence, and you will be no more apt to retire without thrusting your Feet into a tepid ball! of water con taining a teaspoonful of powdered borax or a teaspoonful of witch ha zel to the gallon of water than you would without demising the face af ter its contact with the dust and grime of the day. Many dancers massage their feet with mutton tallow, and every night remove the callous spots, rubbing them gently with a pumice stone. No calloused spot as large as a pin point should be allowed to remain on the feet, because it will become a growing irritant. 'Dancing strengthen* the lower leg by throw ing the weight upon the little used sinews of the salves.” Why Color Blind People Can Never Possibly See a Ghost ‘Don’t scorn the balls of the feet. They are the pad ded support of your weight, the cornerstone of the body structure when you stand erect.” Photo a* Otto jamv* SCIENCE has discovered that color v blind persons never see ghosts. Their eyes are not made the right for it. Phe scientist who has made this dis- is Dr. August Lummer, head of the y si cal Institute of the great University Breslau in Germany. ,; e holds that it is proved that persons o honestly believe that they see ghosts ! victims of optical illusions. The effort see in an almost dark place creates i effect of very strange apparitions and ice the subject, being probably also in a •vous condition, imagines that he sees ists. rhe normal eye has an arrangement of y rods and cones in the retina. The is perceive light and the cones color, len a person with a normal eye tries to i in a half dark place the cones, which s useless, interefere with the effective Jon of the rods and the confusion lates the effect of apparitions that come and go and change their shapes. The color blind person lacks the cones and his rods act with extraordinary efficiency in the dark. The color blind person sees a clear, permanent outline of things as long as there is the least amount of light present. That means that he never sees ghosts. Tn order to understand this interesting fact or theory it is necessary to study the intricate structure of the eye. The retina of the eye consists of ten layers, of w'hieh only the second layer, containing the rods and cones, Interests us. The function of the rods and cones is very different, one from the other. With the cones we perceive color, with the rods we perceive light and focus. The normal eye has about an equal num ber of cones and rods. In the totally color blind eye, however, the cones are absent In the eye that is partially color blind there are some cones, but the set of nerves communicating red and green, or yellow and blue to ‘the brain, are atrophied, a person who is red blind, is always green blind, both colors appearing black or gray; the person who is blue blind is al ways yellow blind, both colors appearing luminously white or gray. To the person who is totally color blind daylight is extremely disagreeable. This is due to the fact that being equipped only with a light-seeing apparatus, untempered, and not toned down by the color which is everywhere apparent, a sunlit landscape makes the impression of a snowclad land scape, and we all know how trying snow is to the eyes. However, in the dark the color blind person, equipped with an ap paratus very much more sensitive for glimpsing at feeble light than the normal eye, has the advantage over the normal person. A speck of paper so tiny as to be unperceived in the dark by the normal eye, will be readily perceived and cor rectly located by the color blind eye. which is able to focus in the dark, a feat which the norma) eye can never accom plish, because in the normal eye only cones—the color seeing instruments—are contained in that spot of the eye which brings into focus all objects apprehended by vision, while in the color blind eye this spot is equipped with rods. Upon this fact, the Inability of the nor mal eye to focus even such objects in the dark which are sufficiently luminous and large of area to be seen, depends the see ing of ghosts and spooks. No room is entirely dark. Through some slit in the shutter, some crack in the wall a ray of light is certain to find its way into a room. Falling upon a large surface, say a nightgown hung against the wall, or a petticoat thrown over a chair, it attracts the attention of the person who has been awakened with a shock by some slight noise, the nibbling of a mouse, or the flip-flapping of a bat or bird. Sitting up in bed, with beating heart, the person who has been rudely aroused from slumber stares at the object which con fronts him. Now another peculiarity of the cones is that they look at objects in a straight line, while the rods see things sideways. Accustomed as the normal eye is to focus with the cones at play, it tries to look straight at the object which it sees. But we cannot see.colors In the dark, for tiie sense of color is due to the absorption of some rays of the sun’s spectrum and the reflection or transmission of others, and the cones, consequently are entirely pow erless to help their owner in determining not only the color and nature of the ob ject but even its exact location. The rods try valiantly to do their work. They glance sideways at the object, and the ob ject is seen not very plainly, but in an uncertain, flickering sort of way. Determined to make out what IT is the eye strains hard to look at the strange tbmg in a straight line. In doing this the action of the rods is suspended for the moment and the helpless cones are turned upon it instead. Of course, they see noth ing, and the object in consequence seems to disappear. This is repeated in rapid succession. The nerves, irritated by being rudely awakened, aggravated by the elu siveness of the object which extinguishes itself and reappears with will-o'-the-wisp ease, help the eye in investing its tor mentor with shape and substance of a ghost. The illusion of a spook is per fect, and it will take a man with strong nerves, Indeed, to resist the hallucination that he is actually entertaining a visitor from another world. On the other hand, the color blind man, as we have seen, is furnished only with rods, the organs which give perception of light and dark and the form of objects His sight in a dark place is not hampered by the presence of cones in his retina. If he see anything at all he see a perna- nent, dark object, not a wavering, fluctuat ing, ghost-like object. f )