The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-21
DANCING.
Tue Dance of Modern Society.

companioRship between man and woman, in
spired with chaste and sweet ntertused re-
membrance of their contrasted relationship to
each other-that the dance instead of this, con-
sists substantially OF system of means con-
trived with more than human ingenuity to eX-
cite the instincts of the sex to action: however
subtle and disguised at the moment in its sequel
the most bestial and degrading. | charge That
here, and not elsewhere In the anatomy of that
elusive fascination which belongs so peculiarly
to the dance, the scalpel is laid upon the culver
ing secret Of life. Passion-passon transformed
if you please never so much, subsistng i'm no
matter how many finely contrasted degrees of
sensuality-I assion, and nothing else is the true
basis OF the popularity of the dance.
shrink almost uncOntrollably from this
statement, now that have made IT, and many
times since first assumed so bold a position /
have been tempted. to recede from il. overborne
by the arguments and still more by the sweet
personal magnetism, of friends of my own sex
whose fortunate individual exemption from in
ffmity disquaifes them from allowing that NV
views are other than Puritanc. or at least
morally 'dyspeptic.' It is not pleasant to be
ayoice crying in the wilderness. Still less is it
pleasant to be sent to Nneveh on an errand
OF Jonah. am so Tar influenced as to admit
That there must be numerous instances of eX-
ception TO the general rule. But the general
rule, and not the exception, should determine
our line of conduct 1t Is case so pecu-
liir that the exceptions cannot safely be
aomltted even to exercise an influence in de-
termining our line of conduct. On the other
hand too, think it right to say that since the
volunteer testimony from many quarters, and
from quarters representing such diametric diver
s1ty OF moral and social character and position,
corroborative of them from experienced, that |
find 1t impossible to qualify them now by sim
gle degree. One man in particular my acquant.
ance with whom commenced in the earliest boy
hoodand uninterrupted since, who permits an un-
reserve expression between us such as Is seldom
Incident to later formed acQuantanceship has
emphatically confessed to me his wonder that
person who never danced himself should have
Oh -,
y<about dancing. And no man knows
what the whole of the truth about it is
better than he. Nor let it be supposed that
commit so vulgar an error as that of attaching
undue weight to the testimony of one likely to
have projected his own moral character upon
the innocent companionship of his guilty plea
4 sure. If it were proper to do so even in this
anonymous way, ! could cite an equally striking
corroborative expression, conveyed to me through
an unquestionable medium, from whom
y never met, but who, at every point save COM
mon experience in dancing, is in the most anti
podal contrast to the witness just mentioned.
i am forced to conclude that the devotees of the
dance differ among themselves not so much in
the influence received from participation in it,
as in their intelligent consciousness of that in
fuence
1t is no accident that the dance is what it is.
1t mingles the sexes in such closeness of per-
sonal approach and contact as, outside of the
dance, is nowhere tolerated in respectable socie
ty. 1t does this under a perpleXity of circum-
stances that conspireS to heighten the improprety
OF it. 1t is evening and the hour is late; there
is the delicious and unconscious intoXication of
music and motion in the blood, there is the
strange, confusing sense of being individually
unobseryed among so many, while yet the natu-
raj "nobe shame" which guards the purity of
man and woman alone together is absent-such
is the occasion, and still, hour after hour,
the dance whirls its giddy kaleidoscope
around, bringing hearts so near that they
almost beat against each other, mixing the
warm, mutual breaths, darting the fine personal
electricity across between the meeting fingers,
flushing the face and lighting the eyes with a
quick language, subject often to gross inter-
pretations on the part of the vile-hearted; why,
this fashionable institution seems to me to
have been invented in an unfriendly quarter,
usually conceived of as situated under us, to
give our human passions leave to disport them
selves, unreproved by conscience, by reason,
or by shame almost at their will. l will not
trust myself to speak of this further. My in
dignation wakes hotter than well be con-
trolled. / even seem to myself to have con-
tracted some soil from having merely described
truthfully what thousands of fellow-Christians,
Ignorant OF themselves practise without swal-
lowing qualm
say that the dance is not fortuitously such.
1t is such essentially. Its real nature is shown
by what it constantly tends to become, in new
figures introduced stealthily from time to time
(undeT silent protest from many who suffer their
modesty to be overborne by the fear of being
charged with prudery), little more doubtful
than the old, and in wanton whirls, like the
waltz and the polka. Always the dance inclines
TO multiply opportunities of physical proximity
and contact between the sexes; always to make
b them more prolonged and more daring. In fine,
the dance adds that last ingredient of perfect
/ bliss, whose absence the witty Frenchwoman
bethought herself, in the midst of some limo
cent enjoyment, to mourn-with pathos more
pathetic than they dream who see nothing but
whimsical humor in the saying, Mon Dteu
= how delightful this is 1t would be quite per
feet if there were only little sin in it,"
- Bat If what has already been said and sug
ed fails to convince any that my analysis o
f2 y pleasure of the dance is true, have litt
~ problem to propose for their solution: Why i
Vii that the dance alone, of all the faVorte diver
! sions of gay society, requires the association o
the two sexes in il? The problem is not SOLVED
by the ready reply 'Why, the pleasure of soca
intercourse is always heightened when bot
sexes participate in it. We enjoy an evening q
cards the better for this piquant commingling!
But you have missed the point of the problem
The question is not, why do you enjoy the dane
more when men and women execute it together
but why must men and women execute IL togethe
in order that they should enjoy it at all? n
doubt game of cards may be much more be
witching, while not an iota more hurttul, fo
the meeting of the sexes at the table. But the
cheaply figured parallelograms of pasteboar
q have charms for their devotees of either ser
\ which enable them to dispense with the societ
~ of the other. Men, young and old, often s.
XR the night out in bachelor conYiYality around
- card table. Young ladies, and sometimes the
Mn mammas with them, | believe, Will intermini
bly, shuttle and deal far on into the hours atet
"a tionately called ''smalr' by those who kn0
W how to make them seem so with reYel-
all quite without the company OF gel
tlemen. But come to the dance-and what dl
terencel Where do young ladies keep up the
practice of calisthenics after leaving boardin
~ school? What bachelor club exists anywhel