The Morris Dance is essentially a manifestation of vigour rather than of
grace. This is probably true of all country dances: it is pre-eminently
true of the Morris dance. It is, in spirit, the organized, traditional
expression of virility, sound health and animal spirits. It smacks of
cudgel-play, of quarter-staff, of wrestling, of honest fisticuffs. There
is nothing sinuous in it, nothing dreamy; nothing whatever is left to the
imagination. It is a formula based upon and arising out of the life of
man, as it is lived by men who hold much speculation upon the mystery of
our whence and whither to be unprofitable; by men of meagre fancy, but of
great kindness to the weak: by men who fight their quarrels on the spot
with naked hands, drink together when the fight is done, and forget it,
or, if they remember, then the memory is a friendly one. It is the dance
of folk who are slow to anger, but of great obstinacy--forthright of act
and speech: to watch it in its thumping sturdiness is to hold such things
as poinards and stilettos, the swordsman with the domino, the man who
stabs in the back--as unimaginable things.
The Morris dance, in short, is a perfect expression in rhythm and
movement of the English character.