```"To save a Mayd, St. George the Dragon slew;
```A pretty tale if all that's told be true;
```Most say there are no Dragons, and'tis sayd
```There was no George--pray heaven there was a Mayd."
`````Anonymous.=
[Illustration: 9129]
nd now if I have succeeded in showing the modern dance as it is and the
dancers as they are, together with the almost inevitable effects of the
evil upon those who indulge in it, my main object is accomplished. I
did not set out to deal with theories, but with facts. Indeed, did those
whose godly calling places them on the watch-towers of the church, use a
tongue of fire to lay bare this pernicious practice, and obey the divine
mandate: "Thou shalt teach my people the difference between the holy and
profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean,"
and did those whose office it is to speak to the millions through
the myriad tongued press, use a pen of flame to expose this growing
iniquity, then would this thankless task be spared me. But when=
```"Pulpits their sacred satire learn to spare,
```And vice admired to find a flatterer there,"=
then I say a layman must speak, or the stones would cry out against him.
I have no personal or pulpit popularity to preserve, would not preserve
it if I had at the price of divesting this public sensuality of its
terrors, or at the risk of not causing the types of dancers herein
painted to shrink from their own portraits.
It only remains for me, then, to make a few concluding and general
remarks.
It is often urged that dancing cannot ' be desperately wicked, because
it is "tolerated by all except those of narrow and bigotted religious
views." A greater mistake was never made, I assert that there are hosts
of men who never permit the members of their families to take part in
round dances. Nor is this the result of religious bigotry. With most of
them "religion," in the popular sense of the word, does not enter into
the question at all--they are not too _pious_, but too _chaste_ to
dance. In their eyes this familiar "laying on of hands" is essentially
indecent, and they cannot see that the fact of its being done in public
makes it any _less_ indecent. They will not allow even omnipotent
Fashion to blind them in this matter, especially when they see that the
vice is most common among those who _lead_ the fashion.
Far be it from me, however, to imply that even the most ardent votaries
of the dance are blind to its impurity. No indeed. Is there one
so-called respectable woman among them who would submit to be painted
or photographed in the attitude she assumes while dancing the latest
variety of waltz--even though her partner in the picture, instead of
being a stranger just met for the first time, were her most intimate
friend--aye, even though he were her husband? Not one of them would
submit to be thus depicted; but if some maiden _could_ be persuaded,
what a pleasing family picture it would be for her husband and children
to gaze upon in later years! Had I such an one to illustrate this book
with, the success of its mission would be assured, with the simple
drawback of the author being held amenable to an offended law for
issuing obscene pictures.
Such a representation would immediately effect the fulfillment of a
prophecy made by the writer of a recent work entitled "Saratoga in
Nineteen Hundred." In those times there is to be no more dancing. The
gentlemen, it is true, are to engage the ladies for a portion of the
evening as in these benighted days; but instead of taking her on the
floor, he will retire with her to one of a number of little private
rooms with which every respectable mansion is to be provided, and there
they will do their hugging in private. A great improvement, certainly,
upon the present plan, in such matters as decency and comfort, but
scarcely in completeness.
It will only remain for the sons and daughters of that future generation
to make dancing their religion. Let them convert their churches into
dancing-halls, and set up an appropriate image of their deity--the
Waltz--upon the altars; not the decently draped Terpsichore of the dark,
pagan past, but the reeling Bacchante--flushed, panting, dishevelled,
half-naked, half-drunk, half-mad--of the enlightened; Christian present;
let the grave priest give way to the gay master-of-ceremonies, and the
solemn benediction to the parting toast; let the orchestra occupy the
pulpit, and the "wallflowers" sit in the vestry; let the pews be swept
away, and the floors duly waxed and polished, but let not the tablets
of the dead be removed--they are the "handwriting upon the wall,"
the _mene, mene, tekel, upharsin_, most fitting for those to read
who delight in the Dance of Death. Then, when the prayerbooks are
programmes, and the hymnbooks the music of Strauss, the jingle of
the piano may mock the dumb thunder of the organ, and the whirling
congregation may immortalize a bard of to-day by singing the following
verses of his composition to the "praise and glory of"--the Waltz:=
```"In lofty cathedrals the organ may thunder
````Its echoes repeated from fresco-crowned vaults,
```And the multitude kneeling in rapture may wonder,
````But give me the music that sounds for the waltz!=
```The Angels of Heaven, in glory advancing,
````Are singing hosannahs of praise to the King;
```Unless they have women, and music, and dancing,
````Forever unheeded by me they may sing.=
```Oh! take not the sunshine that knows no to-morrow,
````The rivers of honey and fountains of bliss,
```Where the souls of the righteous may rest from their
`````sorrow--
````They have not a joy that is equal to this.=
```When the dead from their graves stand in awe and des
`````ponding,
````And the trumpet calls loud on that terrible day,
```To our names on the roll there will be no responding--
````To the music of Love we'll have floated away."=
But having brought this delectable "recreation" to the utmost pitch of
refinement of which it is susceptible--a condition it bids fair promise
to attain in a few more seasons, I feel that it is time, as Byron has
it, to "put out the light." I therefore conclude with a very brief
exhortation to my readers.
To dancers one and all I would say:
Try and see yourselves as others see you; remember that there are many
harmless pleasures that have about them no taint of filthy lust; above
all cease to believe or to assert that the modern waltz is an "innocent
amusement."
To the women, in particular, I say: Set your faces against this
abomination, which is robbing you of man's respect, and is the primal
cause of infinite misery to yourselves.
To the men I would say: Those who are the natural arbiters of what
is permissible between man and woman, have shown their weakness and
betrayed their trust; it is now for you to show your strength and redeem
your honor.
You who are unfavorable to the modern dance, I adjure not to let your
opposition be merely negative, but to work positively for the putting
down of the evil precisely as you might for the suppression of
prostitution or any other corrupting influence. For as surely as thy
soul liveth, this is "a way that seemeth good unto a man, but the end
thereof is death."
[Illustration: 5137]