_"So she looks into her heart, and lo! Vacucæ sedes et 'mania arcana * *
* And the man is himself, and the woman herself, that dream of love is
over as everything else is over in life, as flowers and fury, as griefs
and pleasures are over._"
Thackeray.
_"Wir haben lang genug geliebt, und wollen endlich hassen._", George
Herwegh.
[Illustration: 9115]
ut this "innocent amusement" entails worse consequences than these. It
is the high-road to the divorce court, it has brought strife and misery
into ten thousand happy homes; truly it is the "abomination that maketh
desolation."
Take the case of the poor, dull, stupid Benedick who, like Byron with
his club foot, dances not at all. He is a splendid man of business,
perhaps, and is highly respected on change; but here, in the ball-room,
what is he? A dolt, a ninny, an old fogy, a nuisance--to be snubbed and
slighted by the woman he calls wife for every brainless popingay who
"dances divinely." He has been proud to toil from day to day to be able
to purchase costly apparel with which to adorn this far better half of
his; now he has the felicity of seeing the fine fruits of his labor
dangled about the legs of another man; he had supposed her the "wife of
_his_ bosom," yet, behold! she reclines most lovingly on the bosom of
another; she is the mother of his children, yet as she quivers in her
partner's arms, her face is troubled with=
```"The half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame."=
He has pride enough to attempt to look interested, and to affect
ignorance of his own shame, but the sham is apparent. Note how uneasily
he sits upon the benches provided for such "wallflowers" as himself.
Anyone who will take the trouble to observe him, can see that his
heart is not in the waltz in which his spouse is taking such a lively
interest. Approach him, now, and tell him that it is a very nice party,
and that he seems to be enjoying himself. "Oh very nice," he answers
with a ghastly grin intended for a smile, "I am enjoying it greatly."
But now incidentally remark that after all you have no great liking for
these "fancy dances," and see how quickly a fellow-feeling will make him
wondrous confidential, as he answers:
"To tell the truth, I don't like them at all."
Perhaps you have known him when a bachelor and have seen him dance then.
You mention this fact.
"O yes," he answers, "of course I used to dance; but can't you see that
there is a mighty deal of difference between hugging other people's
wives and daughters to music, and taking your own wife to a place where
every fellow can press her to his bosom and dangle his legs among her
petticoats? No, sir, I do not like it, and if my wife thought as I do
about it, there would be no more dancing in our family. 'I would rather
be a toad and feed on the damp vapor of a dungeon, than keep a corner in
the thing I love for others' uses.'"
Follow the conversation up and you will find that if ever Sorrow mocked
a festival by its presence it is in the person of this man. He is
not jealous, he is outraged; all the finer feelings of his nature are
trampled under foot, he is grieved and deeply wounded beyond recovery.
This is the beginning of the end; she is never the same woman to him
hereafter; he may smile and appear careless, but none the less has that
tiny satin slipper crushed all the fresh love from his heart. The second
volume of his Book of Life is opened; the first chapter thereof being
headed "Estrangement," and the last "Divorce."
And this is not an exceptional case; the writer will venture the
assertion that out of every fifty husbands who have dancing wives, there
are at least a dozen who if spoken frankly to upon the subject would
express themselves in terms of most bitter condemnation.
And what kind of men are those who do _not_ object to see their
wives made common property in this manner? Well, there is your weak
good-natured husband, who would willingly suffer any personal annoyance
rather than thwart the wishes of his beloved wife, no matter how
ill-advised those wishes may be.
The writer is personally acquainted with a young and newly-married man,
whose experience will illustrate what I have just said, though it is
true that eventually came to see the error of his ways. He had the
misfortune to marry a lady who was excessively fond of dancing. He had
never learned to waltz himself, but finding it impossible to remain a
looker-on he determined to acquire a knowledge of the intoxicating art.
He, poor fool, imagined that when he had conquered the first elements of
the dance, his wife would take particular pleasure in attending to his
further instruction. Picture, then, his surprise and disgust when on
making his _début_ in the ball-room he found that his wife would
avail herself of every pretext to leave him to shift for himself--a
conspicuous object for commiseration of the experts--while she accepted
the amorous attentions of every clodhopper who possessed the divine
accomplishment.
Were I, dear reader, to reproduce his exact words in giving expression
to his indignation at and contempt for an institution the effect of
which is to ignore the relations of husband and wife, and exalt the
accomplishments of the heel over those of the head and heart, you would
be shocked beyond measure.
All his happiness was centred in this one woman; her good opinion was
the dearest thing on earth to him. When therefore he found himself
unable to partake _with her_ of the pleasures of the dance, he tortured
himself to acquire an art which in itself had no attraction for him,
merely because he thought it would render him more pleasing in her
sight. We have seen the manner in which she encouraged his first
attempts; but the wrong was to be deeper yet. Content that her pleasure
should not be spoiled by his bad dancing, he allowed her to choose her
own partners, while he applied himself vigorously to his self-appointed
task of learning to waltz "like an angel." Exactly how he achieved
this end is not quite clear. He was not seen to practice much at the
fashionable gatherings he attended with his wife; he was too sensitive
to ridicule for that. Perhaps, like Socrates in his old age, he found
some underground Aspasia who was willing to give him lessons in the art.
But however this may be, certain it is that before long he had acquired
a degree of proficiency which was quite surprising. Now, he triumphantly
thought, his fond wife could have all the "Boston Dip" necessary for her
"healthful exercise and recreation" without submitting her charms to the
embrace of comparative strangers.
Alas, for his hopes! After walking through the stately opening quadrille
with the "partner of his joys," he discovered that as though by magic
her card had been filled by the young bloods who clustered about her;
and then for the first time he was informed that after introducing his
wife to the floor it was a breach of etiquette to monopolize her any
further--he must either sit content to see her whirl, spitted on the
same bodkin with men he had never seen before, or must turn his own
skill to the best account and=
````"Give--like her--caresses to a score."=
It is more than likely that he adopted the latter course--most of his
class do.
Those wives who are so eager, for various reasons of their own, that
their husbands should learn to dance, might draw a wholesome lesson from
the story of Caribert, king of Paris, whose wife Ingoberge would fain
prevent him from spending so much time in the hunting-field.
To this end she prepared a series of splendid festivities, which she
induced her lord to attend. Now, fairest and most graceful among the
dancers were two sisters of surpassing beauty, named Méroflède and
Marcovère. Having, at his queen's express solicitation, essayed the
"light fantastic" with these ladies, the good Caribert, who had before
no thought for any woman but his wife, suddenly became so enamored with
the skill and grace of the sisters, that he not only forswore the chase
forever, but with all possible despatch divorced Ingoberge and married
first Méroflède and then Marcovère.
And thus it is that this demon creeps between the husband and the wife,
and sooner or later separates their hearts forever. The sturdy oak
may laugh at the entering of the wedge, but his mighty trunk will
nevertheless be riven asunder by it in the end.
But there is one other type of ballroom husband, whose portrait must
not be omitted. This is the miserable, simpering, smirking creature who
fully appreciates the privilege of being permitted to furnish, in the
person of his wife, a a well draped woman for other men's amusement; who
has an idea that the lascivious embraces bestowed upon his wife are an
indirect compliment to himself; who is only too happy to be a cooler
to other men's lust in the ball-room, and is content to enjoy a kind of
matrimonial aftermath in the nuptial chamber. Can any human being fall
lower than this?
Old Fenton has told us that flattery "supples the toughest fool," but
I regard the man who thus willingly resigns his wife to the palming of
these ball-room satyrs, merely because her beauty and gorgeous raiment
bring notice upon him as the owner of so splendid an article--I regard
this beast as a pander of the vilest kind; and a most foolish pander
withal, for he simply purchases the title of cuckold at the price of his
own dishonor and his wife's open shame. He loves to hear it said that
she "dances divinely," though he knows that the horns on his forehead
are plainer to none than to the fellow who tells him so. Bah! In the
words of Mallet,=
```"He who can listen pleased to such applause
```Buys at a dearer rate than I dare purchase."=
The budding horns affixed to the husband's pow in the fierce light
of the ballroom have not the simple dignity of even the most towering
antlers prepared by the "neat-handed Phyllis" of his heart in the
domestic seclusion and subdued half-lights of a house of assignation. In
the one case he poses as a suppliant for honors to mark his importunity;
in the other his coronation is the unsought reward of modest merit.
The Waltz may not _make_ such despicable creatures as I have described
above, but it at least affords them an opportunity to parade their own
degradation.
But the modern Terpsichore has to answer for, if possible, still worse
consequences than the seducing of our maids, the debauching of our young
men, the prostitution of our wives, and the debasing of human nature,
both male and female. She is worse than a procuress, there is _blood_
upon her skirts, she is a murderess.
From the day when Herodias danced John the Baptist's head into a
trencher the dance has been the cause of violence and bloodshed. The
hate and jealousy which smoulder within the breast of the rejected
lover, and which he is struggling to extinguish, burst into flame at the
sight of her he loves folded in ecstacy upon the breast of his rival.
His cup was already full--this is _more_ than he can bear.
We may pass by Venetian masquerade and Spanish fandango--where the knife
of the avenger sends the victim's, blood spurting into the face of
his partner--and may look nearer home, at our fashionable "hops" and
"sociables," where, though the Vendetta may not be carried out upon
the floor (and instances of this are not lacking) it is nevertheless
declared, and where, though no mute form be borne out from the ball-room
to the grave, the dance is none the less a veritable Dance of Death--a
dance of murdered love and slain friendship, of stabbed and bleeding
hearts, of crushed hopes and blighted prospects, of ruined virtue and of
betrayed trust.
[Illustration: 5128]
[Illustration: 0129]