It is at Vienna, which has more feminine grace and beauty to the square
mile than any other city in the world, that the art of dancing is to be
seen in its greatest perfection. No wonder that it is the home of the
Waltz-King, Johann Strauss; and that a Viennese feuilletonist has shown
the deepest insight into the psychology of the dance in an article from
which the following excerpts are taken:—
"The waltz has a creative, a rejuvenating power, which no other dance
possesses. The skipping polka is characterised by a certain stiffness
and angularity, a rhythm rather sober and old-fashioned. The galop is a
wild hurricane, which moves along rudely and threatens to blow over
everything that comes in its way; it is the most brutal of all dances,
an enemy of all tender and refined feelings, a bacchanalian rushing up
and down....
"The waltz, therefore, remains as the only true and real dance. Waltzing
is not walking, skipping, jumping, rushing, raving; it is a gentle
floating and flying; from the heaviest men it seems to take away some of
their materiality, to raise the most massive women from the ground into
the air. True, the Viennese alone know how to dance it, as they alone
know how to play it....
“The waltz insists on a personal monopoly, on being loved for its own
sake, and permits no vapid side-remarks regarding the fine weather, the
hot room, the toilets of the ladies; the couple glide along hardly
speaking a word; except that she may beg for a pause, or he,
indefatigable, insatiable, intoxicated by the music and motion, the
fragrance of flowers and ladies, invites her to a new flight around the
hall. And yet is this mute dance the most eloquent, the most expressive
and emotional, the most sensuous that could be imagined; and if the
dancer has anything to say to his partner, let him mutely confide it to
her in the sweet whirl of a waltz, for then the music is his advocate,
then every bar pleads for him, every note is a _billet-doux_, every
breath a declaration of love. Jealous husbands do not allow their wives
to waltz with another man. They are right, for the waltz is the Dance of
Love.”