I had not seen the old gentleman for a long time, and when he entered
with one foot in a boot and the other in a carpet slipper, I was
overjoyed. When the bubbling tankard which I had ordered was placed
before him he seized my two hands, wrung them heartily and dashed into
the following subject--
"It must be remembered," said he, "that dancing is not an art but a
pastime, and should, therefore, be freed from the too-burdensome
regulations wherewith an art is encumbered. An art is a
highly-specialised matter hedged in on every side by intellectual
policemen, a pastime is not specialised, and never takes place in the
presence of policemen, who are well known to be the sworn enemies of
gaiety. For example, theology is an art but religion is a pastime: we
learn the collects only under compulsion, but we sing anthems because
it is pleasant to do so. Thus, eating oysters is an art by dint of the
elaborate ceremonial including shell-openers, lemons, waiters and
pepper, which must be grouped around your oyster before you can
conveniently swallow him, but eating nuts, or blackberries, or a
privily-acquired turnip--these are pastimes.
"The practice of dancing is of an undoubted antiquity. History teems
with reference to this custom, but it is difficult to discover what
nationality or what era first witnessed its evolution. I myself
believe that the first dance was performed by a domestic hen who found
an ostrich's egg, and bounded before Providence in gratitude for
something worthy of being sat upon.
"In all places and in all ages dancing has been utilised as a first-aid
to language. The function of language is intellectual, that of dancing
is emotional. It is scarcely possible to say anything of an emotional
nature in words without adventuring into depths or bogs of
sentimentality from which one can only emerge greasy with dishonour.
When we are happy we cannot say so with any degree of intelligibility:
in such a context the spoken word is miserably inadequate, and must be
supplemented by some bodily antic. If we are merry we must skip to be
understood. If we are happy we must dance. If we are wildly and
ecstatically joyous then we will become creators, and some new and
beneficent dance-movements will be added to the repertory of our
neighborhood.
"Children will dance upon the slightest provocation, so also do lambs
and goats; but policemen, and puckauns, and advertisement agents, and
fish do not dance at all, and this is because they have hard hearts.
Worms and Members of Parliament, between whom, in addition to their
high general culture, there is a singular and subtle correspondence, do
not dance, because the inelastic quality of their environment forbids
anything in the nature of freedom. Frogs, dogs, and very young
mountains do dance.
"A frog is a most estimable person. He has a cold body but a warm
heart, and a countenance of almost parental benevolence, and the joy of
life moves him to an almost ceaseless activity. I can never observe a
frog on a journey without fancying that his gusto for travel is
directed by a philanthropic impulse towards the bedside of a sick
friend or a meeting to discuss the Housing of the Working Classes. He
has danced all the way to, he will dance all the way from his
objective, but the spectacle of many men dancing is provocative of
pain.--To them dancing is a duty, and a melancholy one. If one danced
to celebrate a toothache one might take lessons from them. They stand
in the happy circle, their features are composed to an iron gravity,
their hands are as rigid as those of a graven image, and then, the
fatal moment having arrived, they agitate their legs with a cold fury
which is distinctly unpleasant. Having finished they dash their
partners from their sides and retire to blush and curse in a corner.
"When a man dances he should laugh and crow and snap his fingers and
make faces; otherwise, he is not dancing at all, he is taking exercise.
No person should be allowed to dance without first swearing that he
feels only six years of age. People who admit to feeling more than ten
years old should be sent to hospital, and any one proved guilty of
fourteen years of age should be lodged in gaol without the option.
"It is peculiar how often opposite emotions may meet on a common plane
of expression. The extremes of love and hate strive to get equally
close to kiss or to bite the object of their regard. Work and play may
be equally strenuous and equally enthralling. Hunger and satiety unite
in a common boredom. A happy person will dance from sheer delight, and
the man in whom a pin has been secreted can only by dancing express the
exquisite sensibility of his cuticle. Whatever one does or refrains
from doing one must be tired by bed-time--it is a law--but one may be
pleasantly tired.
"I will suspect the morals of a man who cannot dance. I will look
curiously into his sugar or statecraft. I will impeach his candour or
reticence, and sneer at his method of lighting a fire unless he can
frolic when he goes out for a walk with a dog--that is the beginning of
dancing: the end of it is the beginning of a world. A young dog is a
piece of early morning disguised in an earthly fell, and the man who
can resist his contagion is a sour, dour, miserable mistake, without
bravery, without virtue, without music, with a cranky body and a
shrivelled soul, and with eyes incapable of seeing the sunlight.
"I have often thought that dogs are a very superior race of people.
They are certainly more highly organised on the affectional plane than
man. A dog will love you just for the fun of it--and that is virtue.
Pat a dog on the head and he will dance around you in an ecstasy of
good-fellowship. Let us, at least, be the equal of these sagacities.
Let us put away our false intellectual pride. Let us learn to be
unconscious. The average man trembles into a dance imagining that all
eyes are rayed upon him wonderingly or admiringly, whereas, in truth,
he will only be looked at if he dances very well or very badly. Both
of these extremities of perfection ought to be avoided. We should
exercise our very bad or very good qualities in solitude lest average
people be saddened by their disabilities in either direction. Let your
curses be as private as your prayers for both are purgative operations.
In public we must conform to the standard, in private only may we do
our best or our worst. Acting so, we will be freed from false pride
and cowardly self-consciousness. Let us be brave. Let us caress the
waists of our neighbours without fear. Let everybody's chin be our
toy. Let us pat one another on the hats as we pass in the melancholy
streets.--Thus only shall we learn to be gay and careless who for so
long have been miserable and suspicious. We will be fearless and
companionable who have been so timid and solitary. A new, a better, a
real police force will arrest people who don't dance as they travel to
and from their labour. The world will be happy at last, and
civilisation will begin to be possible."
Here, in an ecstasy of good-fellowship, the old gentleman seized his
pewter with his left hand and my glass with his right hand, and he
emptied them both before recognising his mistake. I had, however, run
out of tobacco, whereupon he became very angry, and refused to bid me
good-night.