question follows: is it a good character? To discuss this necessarily
involves offending some one; but to carry all parties along together a
little further, let us note two points on which all will agree. The
first is that in judging waltz music, dancers use a criterion which is
not applied to other music. There are certain waltzes of the great
masters in which they attempted to use the form for musical purposes;
unfortunately, they most of them strayed into syncopations and irregular
phrases, and failed to make their tunes sufficiently catchy;
consequently they are rarely heard in the ball-room, and the dancer’s
verdict on them is that they are very fine music, no doubt, but not
good to waltz to. At the other end of the scale are certain waltzes, in
fact quite a large number, which no one would attempt to defend
seriously on musical grounds; the dancer’s verdict is that they are
possibly not much as music, but are good to waltz to, and he proceeds to
wallow in them. Thus waltz music, besides having a special rhythm and a
special character, is judged by a special criterion--_i.e._ whether it
is good to waltz to, which practically means, whether it has this
special rhythm and this special character, a regular three-time
unobscured by rhythmic variations, and a strong sensuous appeal
undistracted by any demand on the intellect.
The second point is simply another aspect of the same thing; to wit, the
fact that in the normal reasonably good concert--taken, in its widest
sense, to include orchestral and choral performances, chamber music, and
recitals of all kinds--the waltz rhythm is extremely rare and the pure
waltz even rarer. The ordinary concert-goer in a year’s experience will
have ranged over practically every other kind of rhythm and (under the
guidance of his programme) every other field of emotion; he will have
quailed at the relentless tap of destiny, in two-four time; he will have
bestridden the narrow world like a Colossus or plumbed the depths of
grief or passion, in slow three-time; he will have wondered and
frolicked and wondered again, in quick three-time; once or twice at
least, he will have had his only relief in a fever of tortured
imagination, in five-four time. (Note that every one of these is a
walking tune.) But where are the medium three-times? Where are the waltz
tunes? How often in his year’s experience has he come across the true
waltz atmosphere? Perhaps thrice: in Suppé’s ‘Poet and Peasant’ Overture
(if he cannot escape in time); in the Hoffmann ‘Barcarolle,’ which, by
the way, is used in the opera to accompany a particularly brutal murder;
and in the ‘Valse Triste’ of Sibelius, where the rhythm is employed with
the very definite (and very gruesome) dramatic purpose of representing
the imagination of a dying woman curdled by the stale memories of
debauch. The one famous movement that is called a waltz is really much
nearer a minuet; it is marked ♩=138, and can be walked to. Take together
as a whole what may be called the ordinary mass of good music, and you
cannot resist the conclusion that for some reason the musician will have
nothing to do with the waltzer or his atmosphere.
The separation is complete. On the one hand we have music, which issues
from life and returns upon life, which appeals to something very deep
within us, making every kind of thought and feeling its minister--the
music which fitly accompanies us as we walk. On the other hand, apart
and alone, judged by its own criteria and bounded by its own conditions,
we have the waltz music, related not to life but to a very small,
narrow, and detached phase of it, appealing only to the senses, and
these in a very abnormal state. Faced with this contrast, we can only
say to the waltzer that here our ways part, bid him farewell, and
proceed to denounce him.
For the state of the waltzer is something frightful to contemplate. The
progressive limitation of dancing to the waltz rhythm is but the outward
sign of an inner limitation of feeling, by which the waltzer cuts
himself off from the rest of humanity and the rest of his own life,
placing between himself and them the barriers of a bad art and a bad
hygiene, and so fencing off his little paradise, his illuminated
interspace of world and world, where never creeps a cloud, nor moves a
wind. At a late hour, in a special costume, under artificial light, in a
vitiated atmosphere, stimulated by abnormal food and drink; with every
external condition that can unseat the judgment, suspend the continuity
of good sense, and cut off the sane feeling of relation to the day that
is past and the morrow that is to come--is it any wonder that he needs a
special rhythm to move in and a special kind of melody to move to? And
so the wheel moves in a vicious circle. The ambitious waltzes of the
great masters impose a strain on the intellect; they have little direct
sensuous appeal; they are recondite, discontinuous, frigid, tiring;
they have no go; away with them to the outer darkness (to the stars and
the fresh air). But from the cafés of Vienna arises a very different
voice, sensuous, regular of rhythm, rich with the glamour of late hours,
the swish of skirts and the slither of feet; however vulgar, however
trivial, it is good to waltz to; bring wreaths of laurel to usher the
conqueror in!
But to what a paradox are we come! Dancing, the highest of the bodily
arts, which should be in the closest alliance with the companion art of
music, appears its deadliest foe. The dancer, who should co-operate with
and inspire the musician, is merely a burden to him; instead of pointing
the way to further developments, he restrains him relentlessly from all
rhythmic variety, from all reaches of feeling and character which do not
fall within the narrow limits of being good to waltz to. With the
shackles of a cast-iron rhythm he cramps his spirit: with the miasma of
the waltz atmosphere he pollutes his soul. Is it any wonder that, with
this prospect before him, the reputable musician turns his back on the
ball-room and shakes the French chalk from off his feet? And when he is
gone the charlatan sees his opportunity; and the end of it all is the
dance music of to-day, expressing nothing beyond the mere dance
atmosphere, indicating no feelings above the level of instincts,
pointing the way to no developments, but an isolated system, cut off
from all contact with the normal thoughts and feelings of humanity,
exotic, expressionless, unfruitful, as only a hothouse hybrid can be.
_O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!_ Fellow-walkers, have nothing whatever to
do with dance music! You who ply your craft by day, in the open, in easy
clothes, whose thoughts roam at large over yesterday, to-day, to-morrow,
and repose upon the sane continuity of experience, what part have you in
the glamour of the waltz? You who stride from a hundred to a hundred and
twenty steps to the minute, with a long swing from the hips, what have
you to do with the waltz rhythm? Between you and it there is a gulf
fixed. On the further side lights shine, and patent leather slithers
over the polished floor, and the band has just had supper and is muting
its strings for a particularly impassioned appeal; you cannot answer to
that call, you cannot move in that rhythm, without forswearing your
birthright as a walker. But on this side of the gulf are hills and
fields and sun and wind, and as we go we shall whistle a stave to the
rhythm of our stride. And if you would know what this rhythm is, look up
the work from which I have copied the words that begin this paragraph,
and turn back to the second movement. Or better still, turn further back
in the bound volume, and find the Allegro of the seventh symphony. There
is the song of walking, the sacred music of our craft. The rhythm
([Illustration: music notes]) is the exact measure of the stride,
buoyant and elastic, with the uneven note marking the hoist of the
outside leg from the hip. The tune swoops at us suddenly like a gusty
breeze, plunges into the deep pianissimo, vanishes, and returns to a
tremolo on the strings which suggests that it has been going on
somewhere else all the time; it shifts and changes like the face of
earth with the shadows racing across it. If music can ever be bound to
time or place, surely we may assign this Allegro to a day in April when
we surmount some height like Wetherlam or Maiden Moor, issuing in a long
ridge, and swing forward over grass and rock with the wind in our ears
and the earth spread out below.
(O Richard Wagner, you who called this movement the Apotheosis of the
Dance, what did you mean by it? In that august Valhalla where you justly
repose, no doubt by now you have met the author and apologised; but can
you do nothing to reassure us on this side of the gulf? Can you not send
some authoritative message, or at least work a concurrent automatism, to
say that you are sorry?)
* * * * *
Is there any hope for dancing? Is the vicious circle to go on for ever?
Is the gulf too deep to be spanned? Let us trust not: it would be tragic
if dancing, the union of motion and music, were for ever to be
represented only by that misshapen monstrosity, the waltz. Certain
practical reforms are necessary before any development can begin;
dancing must be performed by day, in fresh air, in reasonable costume,
to good music. A minimum level of physical competency must be demanded,
backed by proper training; as a provisional test, I would suggest
excluding any one who would be refused on sight by the secretary of a
fourth-class lacrosse club. New rhythms must be introduced and
developed, and concerted dances organised, the dancer working throughout
in close co-operation with the musician. When these changes have been
made, the way is clear, and dancers can begin to take their craft
seriously.
Until then nothing can be done; here at least, in the ball-room, where
nature sickens, nothing. As Dr. Middleton said, ‘it is the time for wise
men to retire within themselves, with the steady determination of the
seed in the earth to grow. Repose upon nature, sleep in firm faith, and
abide the seasons.’ For the change must come; if civilisation is based,
as it surely is, on reason, the waltz can not be anything more than a
temporary aberration. If omnipotent at present, it must ultimately be
doomed: if we do not see the change, our grandchildren will. Against
that day, when the waltz shall figure with our other fooleries before
the inexorable Vehmgericht of posterity, let this at least be put on
record, that in our own times, in the height of its popularity, when the
false doctrine was expounded with all the art of Viennese composers and
backed by all the weight of social authority, not every one acquiesced.
Some at least shook their feet clear of it, and were content to tread
the roads and hills to simple measures in the unadorned light of day,
and to hand on, in however rudimentary a state, a tradition of free
movement and clean rhythm to the wiser generation ensuing.
IV
WALKING, SPORT AND ATHLETICS
Our bodies are gardens; to the which our wills are gardeners, so that if
we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop or weed up thyme,
supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many; either to
have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry; why, the power
and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.
_Othello_, i. 3.
IV
WALKING, SPORT AND ATHLETICS
Nothing arouses keener feelings than the idea of sport. No one knows
exactly what it means; every one feels very intensely that it is
something truly intimate and national, unintelligible except to those
who have been rightly bred, a touchstone of proper disposition,
indefinable but unmistakable. To be called a ‘sportsman’ is the most
gratifying compliment which an Englishman can receive; actions otherwise
indefensible and risks otherwise unthinkable are undertaken gaily if
once established as ‘sporting’; and any pursuit which can be brought
under the title of ‘sport’ is thereby relieved of all further need for
justification and becomes irradiated with the ethical light which the
idea bestows. And the most awful moment of the walker’s life is when he
suddenly faces himself with the question--Is walking a sport?
His horror deepens as he realises that most men, himself included, would
instinctively answer, No. Walking is allowed a place in the Badminton
series, but this is partly out of kindness and partly because it
connects easily with rock-climbing and the more dangerous kinds of
mountaineering, which are generally admitted to be sport. Besides,
dancing is included in the Badminton series. If we collect the commonly
accepted views, cricket is a sport, and hockey is a sport, and billiards
is a sport, and grouse-shooting is a sport, and fox-hunting is a sport,
and bull-fighting is a sport, only not proper, and cock-fighting was a
sport in the good old days, and dog-fighting is still a sport north of
the Trent, and boxing is a sport if homochromatic; but the one thing
which never, nowhere, and under no conditions is, was, or could be a
sport, is walking.
An exception might be made for walking of the racing type--the kind of
thing which begins on Westminster Bridge at 6 a.m., continues through
Crawley (3 h. 56 min. 23 s.) shepherded by cyclists carrying raisins,
brandy, and plasmon, and ends about two in the afternoon at the Brighton
Aquarium. But no ordinary walker will be inclined to press the
exception. The walking race is indeed a wonderful thing, a standing
testimony to the exuberance of human invention. Naturally, if a man
wants to go fast, he runs; if he wants to go at a steady pace for a long
distance, he walks. Only in the higher stages of civilisation, when his
mind gets really to work, does he invent a mode of progression which
combines all the possible disadvantages, being more exhausting than a
walk, slower than a run, physically uncomfortable and aesthetically only
to be described in the idiom of Aristophanes. No one who has seen the
gait of a walking racer can ever forget it; it is a sport in more senses
than one. Therefore, as our business is with walking in the ordinary
sense, as we are physiologists rather than pathologists, we cannot press
the exception. Consequently we are left with the blank and brutal fact,
supported by general opinion, that walking is not a sport.
If we go on to ask why this is so, the question is naturally resented,
since every decent man understands what is sport and what is not without
being told or wanting to argue about it. Sportsmanship, like sense of
humour, is one of the ultimate things; if you possess it, you do not
need to define it; if you lack it, no process of reasoning can ever
bring you anywhere near it. None the less, if we are not allowed to be
sportsmen, we may at least be allowed to examine the limits of our own
deficiency. After all, an eminent Frenchman has just written a book
entirely about the sense of humour. Taking heart of grace from this we
venture to proceed with the question.
The first and most obvious reason why walking is not a sport is that it
does not arouse or gratify the sporting instinct. This may seem like
arguing in a circle, but in fact it brings us to a clear definition. For
there is no doubt what the sporting instinct is. It is the instinct
which delights in a struggle on equal terms, which aims at a victory by
sheer merit under conditions carefully adjusted so as to eliminate as
far as possible all determinants except merit. The essential point in
the sporting instinct is the paradox that you wish to win but at the
same time wish your adversary to have every possible chance of winning;
you desire victory, but you desire it after the closest possible
struggle conducted with the greatest possible amount of difficulty. Your
ideal is to win, figuratively speaking, by a hundred and one goals to a
hundred, your last goal being obtained just before the call of time and
leaving you in a state of complete exhaustion, relieved only by the
fervid hope that your adversary may be able to put up an equally good or
better struggle against you next week.
To dwell upon the great ethical beauty of this instinct--its chivalry,
consideration for others, generous waiving of all advantages except that
of merit, and so forth--is hardly a task for a layman. But we may be
allowed to point out, with pardonable pride, that in England the
sporting instinct extends far beyond sports, even in the catholic
interpretation of the Badminton series. It--or something like it--may
be found in nearly every department of life--in law, in religion, in
politics, both domestic and foreign, in thought and philosophy. One
reason for the popularity of the Darwinian theories, as generally
understood, was that they represented the secular process as a glorified
Cup Tie competition, with the mammoth and the ichthyosaurus disappearing
in the qualifying rounds, and man emerging triumphantly from the
final--in contrast with the unsportsmanlike theories of creation, in
which man got his post by a job. In law and politics the sporting
instinct is so fundamental that perhaps we ought really to call it the
legal and political instinct, and regard sport, in the Badminton sense,
as one of its secondary manifestations. In law, we do not concentrate
the wisdom of bench, bar, and the detective service to decide whether
something did or did not happen; we organise a fair struggle, and employ
time, money, and all the resources of trained forensic skill to prove to
an impartial jury in the first place that it did, and in the second
place that it did not, happen. In politics, we do not unite all our
wisest and most experienced men to determine the best policy; we
propound to the electorate (with expenditure of time, money, and
resources as before) at least two conflicting policies, which cannot
both be the best. In religion, the brightest jewel in the British crown
is a fair field and no favour for any creed not involving human
sacrifice or Suttee. Captious critics may point out that there can only
be one truth in law, politics, or religion, and that it seems a waste of
energy to bolster up any number of alternative truths; and they suggest
that in each department a panel of wise and experienced men (including
themselves) should be authorised to decide for the community. To which
the vulgar answer is that the same panel might as well decide the County
Championship and the University Boat Race.
It is painful, then, to admit that this primary British instinct has no
part in walking. We may, if we please, fondly imagine that walking
involves a fair struggle with time and space, with rocks and hills, but
this is a mere playing with words. The true sporting relation can only
exist between man and man, never between man and things; your adversary
must be something which you treat as an end, never something which you
treat as a means. In walking, you do not wait until weather and ground
are at their worst in order to give them a chance of defeating you; you
take the most favourable opportunities, you steal advantages, you employ
all the cunning of the organism to overcome the inorganic. A walker
needs many qualities for the pursuit of his craft--endurance,
equability, resource, a good conscience, both moral and physical; but
the one thing which, as walker, he never needs is the sporting instinct.
But if this be so, he is not alone. If we have defined the sporting
instinct rightly, there are numbers of other people masquerading as
sportsmen who have no proper claim to the title. Chief among these are
all hunters and shooters of any kind whatsoever. There can be no true
sporting relation between a man and a beast, except possibly in the
cases of Achilles and the tortoise and the boxing kangaroo. The hunter
or shooter wants to kill his prey, and the prey merely wants to escape
from or--in the case of big game--to eat his adversary; neither party at
the end of a contest wishes his antagonist well or hopes that he will
return to renew the struggle. Indeed, there is much more sportsmanship
in war than in hunting; for the victorious nation, while glad to have
won, always feels a chivalrous regret that in so doing they have,
accidentally, killed a number of their gallant foes. The hunter is far
from such a feeling; the furthest he will go is to bar out certain
obvious ways of killing, such as shooting foxes or netting salmon; but
this is not entirely out of consideration for the feelings of the fox or
salmon.
The conception of sport, even in its narrowest sense of a fair struggle,
cannot be applied to the hunting activities except by a series of
violent strains. In the case of fox-hunting, the only struggle is
between the speed and sagacity of the hounds and the natural cunning of
the fox, and the sole connection which hunters have with this very
unsportsmanlike struggle is that they are able to sit on horses, which
go as fast as the hounds, which are _ex hypothesi_ having a fair
struggle with the fox, who, under the fortieth article of the orthodox
rural faith, really enjoys it. Otter-hunting and beagling are perhaps
one degree less remote from sportsmanship, since the combatants rely on
their own legs without the interposition of a horse. But when we come to
grouse-shooting the strain becomes almost unbearable, since in this case
we are asked to believe that the grouse is blithely dodging the shots
with a keen appreciation of the sporting interest involved. The plain
fact is that all these activities arise simply from the hunting
instinct--the natural impulse to kill or capture something which tries
to escape. It is a fundamental and, no doubt, a valuable instinct; but
it has nothing to do with the sporting instinct, and does not in itself
entitle a man to be called a sportsman.
I need hardly add that in making these remarks I do not in the least
wish to disparage the morality of hunting and shooting. I only wish to
point out that whatever moral character they have must be derived from
other, and no doubt nobler, attributes than sportsmanship. What these
attributes are, this is no place to inquire; but arguments on the
subject are full of interest. It is pointed out, for example, that
without hunting and shooting, the well-to-do would cease to reside in
the country, with disastrous economic and social results; that foxes
have to be destroyed anyhow, for the sake of the poultry, and that this
being so, any fox worthy of the name much prefers an exhilarating run
across country with the chance of getting away to the certainty of being
shot; that without fox-hunting there would be nothing for fox-hounds to
do; and so forth. This only shows us what we lose by the present loose
use of the term ‘sport’ to cover both hunting and football. People who
object to hunting are thereby prejudiced against football; while
fox-hunters are saved from the necessity of justifying themselves, and
so of working out in detail the fascinating speculations in rural
economy, teleology, and the psychology of foxes indicated above.
We are left, then, with the conclusion that on a strict construction of
the term ‘sport,’ walking, hunting, and shooting are outside the pale of
sportsmanship. The natural resentment of walkers, hunters, and shooters
is by no means assuaged when they consider who are inside the pale--not
only cricketers and golfers and footballers and lacrosse-players, but
billiard-players and chess-players and draught-players, and even lawyers
and politicians, all of whom love a fair struggle with a human opponent.
The outcasts may well ask how it is that a term which covers all these
activities, and covers them equally, as ‘sport’ appears to do, can
really have a complimentary meaning. Is it much of a compliment to be
compared to a draught-player? Need a man gnash his teeth if he is denied
kinship with a ludo champion? Must there not be something else in the
conception of sport beside the pure sporting idea? For an answer we
have only to turn to the so-called sporting columns of the press. The
place of honour is still given to horse-racing, but this is more for
economic than for purely sporting reasons. The backbone of the sporting
columns, the things which people really admire, the main themes on which
the reporters exercise their amazing virtuosity, are the great staple
forms of athletics, cricket, football, rowing, lawn-tennis, golf,
running and the rest.