708. ISADORA DUNCAN (1878-1927) American dancer whose avant garde style revolutionized modern dance, widely admired throughout Europe. Spectacular, highly-important T.L.S. "Isadora Duncan", 2pp. 4to., Nice, France, Jan. 12, 1927 to automobile manufacturing pioneer Henry Ford. Excellent content in which Duncan expresses her views on modern dance versus her own style. In small part: "...The controversy which has been raised by your championship of the old dance as opposed to modern cake-walks and Charlestons, has greatly interested me...all the so-called ball-room dancing, whether it be the old fashioned Polka and Walse, or the modern Charleston and Black Bottom, springs from the same source... The source of all is the sex instinct, and I believe that all these dances, whether of 1851 or 1927, are inadvisable in the education of children. The aim of the educator...should be to teach them movements based on youthful heroic impulses and not upon the sex instinct. The dance which should be taught to the children of every school in America is the great American dance as I discovered it, inspired by the work and courage of the first Forty-niners, inspired by the vast plains...the spontaneous American dance which sprang from the inspiration of America itself as expressed by our only Bard Walt Whitman...Movements are as potent as words for those who understand them. Just as you would not teach to a child of any free Republic the doctrines of Louis XV or George III, so you would not teach a child the servile courtesan movement of the Minuet or the coquettish sex expression of the Polka. And I would as soon think of teaching a child to repeat a string of foul language as to allow it to dance either the Charleston or the Black Bottom. Dancing for the education of a child, as I have created it, has none of these expressions...[I teach] those movements which will create beauty of form and courage, by striving after the ideal life. My dear Mr. Henry Ford, if you want to teach dancing to the children in your cities, send me an invitation...[I will teach] a dance which will express all the highest visions of America...worthy of Abraham Lincoln. Speak the word and I will come. No task would give me greater happiness..." Signed with a large, bold signature. Some curling at margins, a few scattered spots barely detract, otherwise very good. Beautifully matted with gold fillets, photo and brass biographical plaque, set into a fine gilt wood frame. $3,000-5,000