```"Transformed all wives to Dalilahs,
```Whose husbands were not for the cause;
```And turned the men to ten-horn'd cattle,
```Because they went not out to battle."
`````Samuel Butler.=
[Illustration: 9092]
one time ago a lady friend said to me: "How is it that while so many of
you gentlemen are fond of dancing until you are married, yet from that
moment few of you can be induced to dance any more. In fact it is a
fraud perpetrated upon young ladies; you fall in love with them in
the ball room, you court them there, you marry them there, and
they naturally think you will continue to take them there. But
no--thenceforth they must stay at home, or if you induced to go
occasionally, you are as cross and ill-natured about it as possible; as
though it was something dreadful. If the dancing-hall is good enough to
get a wife in, is it not good enough to take a wife to?"
My dear lady, said I, you have stated the case with a fairness not often
met with in an opponent. There can be no stronger evidence (none other
is required) to establish the sexualism of the popular dance than that
which you have just cited. The privileges of matrimony relieve the
necessity for the dance. The _lover_ is compelled to share that which
the _husband_ considers all his own. Those who, while single, were most
deeply versed in the mysteries and pleasures of the waltz are, when
married, the first to proclaim their abhorrence of it, too often, it is
true, in a mild and impotent protest, but not always.
Is the reader acquainted with Boyesen's novel called "Gunnar?" If so
he will remember that Ragnhild was to wed Lars under the pressure of
parental authority. She preferred, however, the valiant, dancing Gunnar.
"Ha! ha! ha!" cried he, "strike up a tune and that a right lusty one!"
The music struck up, he swung upon his heel, caught the girl who stood
nearest him round the waist; and whirled away with her. Suddenly
he stopped and gazed right into her face, and who should it be but
Ragnhild. She begged and tried to release herself from his arm, but he
lifted her from the floor, made another leap, and danced away, so that
the floor shook under them."
"Gunnar, Gunnar," whispered she, "please, Gunnar, let me go"--he heard
nothing. "Gunnar," begged she again, now already half surrendering,
"only think what mother would say if she were here." But now she began
to feel the spell of the dance. The walls, the roof, and the people
began to whirl round her in a strange, bewildering circle; at one moment
the music seemed to be winging its way to her from an unfathomable
depth in an inconceivable, measureless distance, and in the next it was
roaring and booming in her ears with the rush and din of an infinite
cataract of tone. Unconsciously her feet moved to its measure, her heart
beat to it, _and she forgot her scruples_, her fear, and everything but
_him_ in the bliss of the dance.
Gunnar knew how to tread the springing dance, and no one would deny him
the rank of the first dancer in the valley, so, it was a dance worth
seeing, and of the girls, there was scarcely one who did not wish
herself in the happy Ragnhild's place"--(of course they did.) After the
music had ceased, it was some time before Ragnhild fully recovered her
senses--(quite likely); she still clung fast to Gunnar's arm, the
floor seemed to be heaving and sinking under her--(quite common in such
cases), and the space was filled with a vague, distant hum." (Why not?)
Later, the gleaming knife in the hands of Lars, showed that he but too
plainly understood the nature of the performance in which his future
wife had been engaged. And the sequel well attests, that his happiness
did not increase with his knowledge. Even the vigor of a Norwegian
climate was not sufficient to cool his fury. What a promising field
for future operations must sunnier climes present for such enterprising
young gentlemen.
Follow the subject a little further and it will be seen that Ragnhild
lost more than her head in the bewildering whirl. Now let me ask any
father or mother (or husband if you will),--any man possessing a grain
of common sense, if Ragnhild was in a safe condition to be shown by
Gunnar, to one of our commodious carriages and driven to her home
(perhaps miles away) at three o'clock in the morning?=
````"Lead us not into temptation."=
Yet this is done--is permitted by very many of our so-called "prudent
parents" and while they are crying out about "social evils," are
doing all in their power to furnish recruits for the great army of the
infamous.=
````Deliver us from evil."=
There are two types of married ladies who practise, and of course enjoy,
the waltz, and lest either might discover the portrait of the other and
take offence that her own lovely face was not used to adorn these pages,
each shall have a separate notice. They will probably have already
recognized portraits of themselves in this volume, but the object here
is more particularly to distinguish between the two.
The first of these we may safely call semi-respectable--she is so partly
from necessity, partly from choice--from choice because she regards it
as the "proper thing" that her husband should dance attendance while she
dances something else, during the performance of which, the poet tells
us,=
````"The fair one's breast
```Gives all it can and bids us take the rest."=
She has not yet quite reached that stage of shamelessness when she can
carouse the entire night without some lingering regard for what Mrs.
Grundy will say; besides this, she is not quite sure of her position,
and does not know exactly how much her husband will bear. She is
afflicted with a bare suspicion that his docile nature might be over
taxed--that in the pigeon holes of his dull cranium might be found a
desire to make it rather lively if too openly slighted. "Oh, no," she
reasons, "take him along--his presence makes it all right--his smile
gives sanction to all that may happen. When he is with me who dare
complain?"
But the woman whom it would be my joy to describe, whose perfections
surpass description, is moved by no such paltry considerations. She
glories in an independence which scorns all such petty restraints. She
it is whose insight into domestic politics descries the true position,
"to go with her husband is a bore"--his very presence is a hindrance to
a full and free exercise of all the privileges of the "Boston Dip." She
can find it in her heart _now_ to laugh at the ridiculous vow she made
when playing that old-fashioned farce before the altar--the vow to
"leave all others and cleave to him alone." How much pleasanter, surely,
to cleave and cling to all others, and leave _him_ alone. She may
be "too ill" to attend with her husband; but let "Mr.
Nimblefoot"--sprightly of heel and addled of brain--come along, with
an invitation to attend a ball, and in a trice she so far recovers her
declining health as to make such an elaborate toilet that=
```"Not Cleopatra on her galley's deck,
````Displays so much of leg, or more of neck."=
Then it is, when with a disregard for neighborly comments which would
do credit to a better cause, we see her in all her naked loveliness. No
vulgar restraint upon her movements, no "greeneyed monster" to inquire
into her absence or take note of her doings. None to say=
```"Methinks the glare of yonder chandelier
```Shines much too far--or I am much too near."=
But a more detailed account of this lady and of "how it all came about,"
is it not written in the chronicles of the Courts having "original
jurisdiction" in cases of divorce?
Who, then, after reviewing this ghastly procession of moral lepers,
shall find words wherewith to express his reverence and admiration for
those pure-minded girls and women who refuse to dance--_on principle!_
No renowned hero of ancient or modern times has a better right to claim
the bays than the woman who, seeing the degradation of the modern dance,
has the independence and moral courage to avoid it. Her heroism is
greater than you might suppose, for she is sorely tempted to do wrong
on the one hand, and severely punished for doing right on the other.
Tempted--because she is as fair and graceful as her less modest sisters,
and naturally as fond of man's admiration, and as sensible of physical
pleasure as they; punished--by the sneers of women who call her "prude"
and "wall-flower," and by the slights put upon her by men who avoid her
because she "doesn't dance." In spite of the example set by those whom
she has perhaps been taught to regard as wiser and better than herself,
she yet resists the fascination of the Social Basilisk from pure pride
of womanhood, and sacrifices her inclinations upon the altar of modesty.
These are the wives and daughters who do honor to their families. Their
reward is the respect and admiration of all honorable men.
"My child," said a friend of mine to his daughter who had declined to
attend a "sociable" on the ground that dancing was improper, "my child,
I honor your judgment, and let me give you a father's advice: never
allow a man's arm to encircle your waist till you are married, _and then
only your husband's_." And this advice I re-echo to all young ladies.
[Illustration: 0103]