"_Il fault bien dire que la danse est quasi le comble de tous vices *
* * * c'est le commencement d'une ordure, laquelle je ne veux declarer.
Pour en parler rondement, il m'est advis que c'est une maniéré de tout
villaine et barbare * * * A quoy servent tant de saults que font ces
filles, soustenues des compagnons par soubs les bras; à fin de regimber
plus hault? Quel plaisir prennent ces sauterelles à se tormenter ainsi
et demener la pluspart des nuicts sans se soûler ou lasser de la
danse?"_ L. Vives.
[Illustration: 0081]
any will say--have said--Byron wrote against the waltz because a
physical infirmity prevented him from waltzing--that he is not a proper
person to quote as an example for others to follow. It must be conceded
that whatever his motive was, he _well knew_ what he was writing about,
and whatever his practices may have been in other respects, it is to his
credit that his sense of the proprieties of life were not so blunted as
to render him blind to this cause of gross public licentiousness.
But, unlike Byron, I have, as has been stated before, _practical
experience, and positive knowledge_ in the matter whereof I speak, and
am possessed of the most convincing assurances that my utterances will
be received with joy by thousands of husbands and fathers whose views
have been down-trodden--their sentiments disregarded, and their notions
of morality held up to scorn because they disapprove of this "innocent
amusement."
It has also been before said that this vice was "seemingly tolerated by
all," but I am proud to say that the placard posted about the streets
announcing a=
````"Sunday School Festival--dancing
````TO COMMENCE AT NINE O'CLOCK," =
does not reflect the sentiments of the entire community; that in all the
marts of business, in every avenue of trade, in counting-house and
in work-shop, men are to be found who would shrink with horror
from exposing their wives and daughters to the allurements of the
dance-hall--men who form a striking contrast to those simpering
simpletons who sympathize with their feelings, but have not the courage
to maintain the family honor by enforcing their views in the domestic
circle.
It is only a few years since the _Frankfort Journal_ announced that the
authorities had decided, in the interest of good morals, that in future
dancing-masters should not teach their art to children who had not yet
been confirmed. The teaching of dancing in boarding-houses and hotels
was also forbidden. It is not desirable that the law should interfere
with purely domestic affairs, but really it seems as if those
unfortunate parents and husbands who shudder at the evil but are awed
into silence by ridicule or open rebellion, stand in as urgent need of
the law's assistance as the Magdeburg godfathers and godmothers.
I well know that many young ladies profess entire innocence of any
impure emotions during all this "palming work."
To them let me say: If you are so sluggish in your sensibilities as
this would imply, then you are not fit subjects for the endearments of
married life, and can give but poor promise of securing your husband's
affection. But if on the other hand (as in most cases is true) you
experience the true bliss of this intoxication, then indeed will the
ground of your emotions be pretty well worked over before you reach the
hymeneal altar, and the nuptial couch will have but little to offer for
your consideration with which you are not already familiar.
A friend at my elbow remarks. "I agree with you perfectly, but my
wife likes these dances,--sees no harm in them, and her concluding and
unanswerable argument is, that if I danced them, I should like them just
as well as she does." The truth of this latter statement depends upon
your moral perceptions. There is but one answer to the former, given by
"Othello,"=
````"This is the curse of Marriage:
```We call these delicate creatures ours--
```But not their appetites."=
If you are so lax in your attention--so deficient in those qualities
which go to make a woman happy--that she seeks the embrace of other
men to supply the more than half acknowledged need--if this be true,
my friend, I leave the matter with you--it belongs to another class of
subjects, treated of by Doctor Acton of London---I refer you to his able
works.
Another says: Both my wife and I enjoy these dances. We see no
particular harm in them--"to the pure all things are pure." The very
same thing may be said by the _habitués_ of other haunts of infamy--=
```''Vice is a monster of so frightful mien,
```As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
```Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
```We first endure, then pity, then embrace."=
There is, again, a very large class of dancers who frankly allow that
there is immorality in the modern waltz, but insist that this immorality
need not be, and by them is not, practised. They dance--but very
properly, you know. These are the Pharisees who beat their breasts
in public places, crying fie! upon their neighbors, and bravo! upon
themselves.
Of course, they will tell you, there are persons who are excited
impurely by the waltz, but these are persons who would be immoral under
any circumstances. "To the pure all things are pure." It is astonishing
how apt they are with these tongue-worn aphorisms. To the pure all
things are pure,--yes, but purity is only a relative virtue whose value
is fixed by the moral standard of the individual. What would be pure to
some would be grossly impure to others, and when you place your wife or
daughter in the arms of such salacious gentry as have been described
in the foregoing pages are you not pretty much in the position of
the gentleman who when gravely informed by a guest who was taking
an unaccountably hasty leave that his (the host's) wife had lewdly
entreated him, replied: "But, my friend, that is nothing; your wife did
as much for me when I visited you last year." This gentleman, remember,
was also ready to add: "to the pure all things are pure." The Waltz
should assuredly have figured among the "pure impurities" of Petronius.
But even if it _be_ allowed that a lady can waltz virtuously, I have
already shown that in that case she must not dance _well_. And what
a pitiful spectacle, surely, is that of a lady trying "how not to do
it"--converting her natural grace into clumsiness in order that she may
do an indecent thing decently, and remain=
```"Warm but not wanton; dazzled, but not blind."=
But perhaps she _cannot_ waltz. In that case how long will it take her
to learn? Will not one single dance lower her standard of purity if her
partner happens to be one of the adepts I have described?
"But," cries the fair dancer "you must remember that no lady will
permit herself to be introduced to, or accept as a partner, any but a
gentleman, who she is sure will treat her with becoming respect."
I will not stop to inquire what her definition of a "gentleman"
is---whether the most courteous and urbane of men may not be a most
desperate roué at heart. The attitude and contact are the same in any
case, and if it needs must be that a husband is to see his wife folded
in the close embrace of another man, is it any consolation for him to
know that her partner is eligible as a rival in other respects than
his nimble feet--that he who is brushing the bloom from his peach is
at least his equal? Can you stop to consider the intellectual
accomplishments and social status of the man who has invaded the sacred
domain of your wife's chamber? No--equally unimportant is it to you, who
or what he may be--that has thus exercised a privilege reserved by all
pure-minded women for their husbands alone.
But in this matter of the selection of the fittest the ladies have set
up a man of straw, which I must proceed to demolish. In order that the
lawless contact may be impartially distributed, and that no lady may be
free to choose whose sexual magnetism she shall absorb, we have imported
from across the water a foreign variety of the abomination, by which
ingenious contrivance the color of the ribbon a lady chances to hold
determines who shall have the use of her body in the waltz, and places
her in the pitiable predicament of the "poore bryde" at ancient French
weddings, who, as we read in Christen, "State of Matrimony," must "kepe
foote with all dancers, and refuse none, how scabbed, foule, droncken,
rude, and shameless soever he be."
Nor are even the square dances any longer left as a refuge for the
more modest, for to such a pitch has the passion for this public
sexual intimacy come, that the waltz is now inseparably wedded to the
quadrille. Even the old fogies are sometimes trapped by this device.
A quadrille is called and they take their places feeling quite safe.
"First couple forward!" "Cross over!" "Change partners!" "Waltz up and
down the centre!" "Change over!" "All hands waltz round the outside!"
and before they know it their sedate notions are lost in the "waltz
quadrille." It may be said that every arrangement of the dance looks to
an "equitable" distribution of each lady's favors. It is a recognized
fact that a lady dancing repeatedly with the same gentleman shows
a marked preference thereby--and he is deemed rude and selfish who
attempts to monoplize his affianced, or shows reluctance in resigning
her to the arms of another.
[Illustration: 0092]