_"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of
their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves."_
--Epistle to the Romans.
[Illustration: 9050]
lready I see the face of the reader grow red with indignation. "This is
a calumniator, an infamous detractor, an envious pessimist, a hater of
all that is innocently enjoyable!" cries he or she. Very well--I bow my
acknowledgements for the compliment. I have already stated in my preface
that I did not expect you to say anything else. I could be well content
to tell what I know and let you say your say in peace, but I will
nevertheless go somewhat out of my way to answer your principal
objections.
In the first place, there are certainly many who will deny my charges
_in toto_--who will declare that the waltz is very moral and healthful,
and entirely innocent and harmless, and that he who puts it in any
other light is a knave and a vile slanderer. These of my opponents I may
divide into two classes: First, those who know nothing of the matter,
who have never danced, have scarcely ever seen a modern waltz, and are
consequently unwilling to believe that such terrible things could be
going on in their very midst without their knowledge; and, secondly,
those who do know and practice the abomination, and find "the fruit of
the tree of knowledge" far too sweet to be hedged about as "forbidden."
To the first of these classes I have little to say; it is composed
mainly of "old fogies," the diversions of whose youth were innocent, and
who can see no evil that does not sprawl in all its ugliness over
the face of the community. If a courtesan accosted one of them on the
street, they would be unutterably shocked, and so they certainly would
if they on a sudden found themselves experiencing the "perfect waltz,"
though even then it is doubtful if they would not be shocked into
dumbness and grieved into inaction. But of the veiled and subtle
pleasures of the waltz they are profoundly ignorant--why should they not
be? They see no harm in it because they don't see it at all; they
are optimists through ignorance, and lift palms of deprecation at the
mention of vice which they cannot understand or attain to. To these
I say: open your eyes and look about you, even at the risk of seeing
things not exactly as you fancied them to be; or, if you _will_ remain
obstinately blind, then pray do not deny that evil exists where you do
not happen to see it with your eyes shut. I have painted the picture,
you can compare it with the reality at your leisure.
To the second class that I have mentioned, namely, those who know and
deny what they know, a far stronger condemnation is to be applied. It
is composed of the dancers * _par excellence_, both male and female--who
have tasted of the unholy pleasures of the waltz until it has become the
very sap of their lives. These are the blushing rakes and ogling prudes
who will be most bitter in their denunciation of this book and its
author; and no wonder--I only oppose the prejudices of the others, but I
contend with the passions of these. These it is who are forever
prating of the beauties and virtues of the waltz. It is an "innocent
recreation," a "healthful exercise," it is the "mother of grace" and the
"poetry of motion;" no eulogy can be too extravagant for them to bestow
upon their idol. _They_ see no harm in it, not they, and for those who
dare hint at such a thing, they have ever ready at their tongue's end
that most convenient and abused of legends: _Honi soit qui mal y pense_.
They will catch at any straw to defend their pet amusement. They will
tell you that The Preacher says "there is a time to dance," without
stopping to inquire why that ancient cynic put the words "there is a
time to mourn" in such close proximity. They will inform you that Plato,
in his Commonwealth, will have dancing-schools to be maintained, "that
young folks may meet, be acquainted, see one another, and be seen," but
they forget to mention that he will also have them dance naked, or to
quote the comments of Eusebius and Theodoret upon Plato's plan. They
think the secret of their great respect for the waltz is possessed only
by themselves, and hug the belief that by them that secret shall never
be divulged. Bah! They must dance with the gas out if there is to be any
secrecy in the matter.
* I have stated several times, and I now do so for the last
time, that by "dancers" I mean waltzers. I hope that my
meaning will not be wilfully misconstrued.
Innocent and healthful recreation forsooth! The grotesque abominations
of the old Phallic worship had a basis of clean and wholesome truth,
but as the obscene rites of that worship desecrated the principle that
inspired them, so do the pranks of the "divine waltz" libel the impulse
that stirs its wriggling devotees. The fire that riots in their veins
and the motive that actuates their haunches is an honest flame and
a decent energy when honestly and decently invoked, but if blood and
muscle would be pleased to indulge their impotent raptures in private,
the warmer virtues would not be subjected to open caricature, nor the
colder to downright outrage.
What do I mean by such insinuations? Nay, then, gentle reader, I will
not insinuate, but will boldly state that with the class with which I am
now dealing--the dancers par excellence, the modern waltz is not merely
"suggestive," as its opponents have hitherto charitably styled it, but
an open and shameless gratification of sexual desire and a cooler of
burning lust. To lookers-on it is "suggestive" enough, Heaven knows,
but to the dancers--that is to say, to the "perfect dancers"--it is an
actual realization of a certain physical ecstacy which should at least
be indulged in private, and, as some would go so far as to say, under
matrimonial restrictions. And this is the secret to which I have
alluded. It cannot even be _claimed_ as private property any longer.
"For shame!" cries the horrified (and non-waltzing) reader; "how can
you make such dreadfully false assertions! And who are these 'perfect
dancers' you talk so much about? And how came _you_ to know their
'secret' as you term it? Surely no woman of even nominal decency would
make such a horrible confession, and yet the most immaculate women
waltz, and waltz divinely!"
By your leave, I will answer these questions one at a time. Who are
these "perfect waltzers?" Of the male sex there are several types, of
which I need only mention two.
The first is your lively and handsome young man--a Hercules in brawn and
muscle--who exults in his strength and glories in his manhood. Dancing
comes naturally to him, as does everything else that requires grace and
skill. He is a ruthless hunter to whom all game is fair. The gods
have made him beautiful and strong, and the other sex recognize and
appreciate the fact. Is it to be expected of Alcibiades that he scorn
the Athenian lasses, or of Phaon the Fair that he avoid the damsels of
Mytelene? No indeed! it is for the husband and father to take care
of the women--_he_ can take care of himself. Yet even this gay social
pirate and his like might take a hint from the poet:=
```"But ye--who never felt a single thought
```For what our morals are to be, or ought;
```Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,
```Say--would you make those beauties quite so cheap?"=
But this fine animal is by no means the most common or degraded type of
ball-room humanity. It would be perhaps better if he were. In his mighty
embrace a woman would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that she
was dancing with a wholesome creature, however destitute he might be of
the finer feelings that go to make up what is called a man.
No, the most common type of the male "perfect dancer" is of a different
stamp. This is the blockhead who covers his brains with his boots--to
whom dancing is the one serious practical employment of life, and
who, it must be confessed, is most diligent and painstaking in his
profession. He is chastity's paramour--strong and lusty in the presence
of the unattainable, feeble-kneed and trembling in the glance of
invitation; in pursuit a god, in possession an incapable--satyr of
dalliance, eunuch of opportunity. This creature dances divinely. He has
given his mind to dancing, has never got it back, and is the richer for
that. He haunts "hops" and balls because his ailing virility finds a
feast in the paps and gruels of love there dispensed. It is he to whose
contaminating embrace your wi--I mean your neighbor's wife or daughter,
dear reader, is oftenest surrendered, to whet his dulled appetite for
strong meats of the bagnio--nay to coach him for offences that _must_
be nameless here. She performs her function thoroughly, conscientiously,
wholly--merges her identity in his, and lo! the Beast with two Backs!
A pretty picture is it not?---the Grand Passion Preservative dragged
into the blaze of gas to suffer pious indignities at the hand of
worshippers who worship not wisely, but too well! The true Phallos set
up at a cross-roads to receive the homage of strolling dogs--male and
female created he them! Bah! these orgies are the spawn of unmannerly
morals. They profane our civilization, and are an indecent assault upon
common sense. It is nearly as common as the dance itself, to hear the
male participants give free expression, loose tongued, to the lewd
emotions, the sensual pleasure, in which they indulge when locked in
the embrace of your wives and daughters; if this be true, if by any
possibility it can be true, that a lady however innocent in thought is
exposed to lecherous comments of this description, then is it not also
true that _every_ woman possessing a remnant of delicacy, will flee from
the dancing-hall as from a pestilence.
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