Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1872-06-27
Dance or Die.

Editor Rutland Herald = Dance,
dance as long as We can we must travel
through life, but why make dead
march of it Eliza Cook.
Such a selection | saw in the HERALD
on Saturday last. To lovers of balls
and dancing parties, it doubtless is pre-
cious morsel. They will make a whole
meal of it. or several of them. 1t is no
doubt destined to have long life and
merry one for, nowadays nothing can
come off, scarcely, without a dance not
even such sanctimonious things as World
Peace Jubilees, such must be graced
with ball,-a ''Great International
Ball :"
And so, Dance, dance as long as We
can" For, according to the marvellous
logic, and, as We may suppose, broad
and deep experience of Eliza, it is the
only way not to get up, or into "a dead
march" Very profund logic and equ-
ally profund life j.! at any rate quite salts
factory to the crowd. A few, to be
sure, may not clearly see and fully be
leye in the sentiment of your selection,
nor fully acquiesce in the morality eth
or Of it as such, or of its being paraded,
with the silent endorsement of the HER
AID, before the public. Such may think
there is a very broad patch of territory,
large enough for pure world as big as
heaven, to swing and develop in, be-
tween the two poles Of Miss or Mrs.
Eliza Cooks alternatives But, then,
such people belong to the peculars-to
Pauls ''p6cuEjar people" of Titus second
chapter And such are not fashion
able, not quite up with the live march
of the masses, whom Cook represents
and who must either Glance" or make
"a dead march.
Some of us think, Mr.. Editor, some
who have tried the Glance" and now
: try ii no longer, that the dcadest march.
at least for morals, or one Of the dead
est, is the dance itself; especially, we
Judge it by its usual results. Paul, we
have no doubt, would say of such as
practically endorse this scntiment-per-
haps, I miss-interpret him-as he did Of
one. She or he-gender making no diff
ference-''She that liyeth in pleasure i
dead while she liveth."
But Paul was not up to the times.
That would do for an old fashioned COS
pei, and for an old fogyish sort Of man
or women. Times aud men are differ
cnt now. Now. It's either IA dance" or
"a dead march" To such pass pro-
grpss has brought us. win II be able to
carry us farther or higher? Is not this
pretty near. if not its caDstone? Must
not the millennium be shut up in this
nutshell OF a sentiment, particularly in
the part we are urged to practice
Isn't the HERALD and the great ''Intcr-
national Ball, and all the minor balls,
and the dancers, and the GaHcing-mas-
tiers and their tuneful fidd!es doing VOL
ders for us in cracking this nutshell,
and giving us all our proper alimcnt and
position?
The great preacher OF Mathew, fifth
chapter, etc, spoke of but two roads of
life, the one narrow. the other broad.
surely must he not really have meant by
the broad, the ''dcal march :" and ny the
narrow, the Glance Z" To sure there
seems to he something inCongruous in
such a representation, since what is
broader that dance, and what is mar
ROVER than "a dead march ?" But then,
no more so than in the other gospel fact
that He who came to give Us life, and
keeps us out of "a dead march" said moth
ing about Glance" and impractice aad
principle went against it.
But for all that and q great deal more
which we must omit, Eliza Cook. no
doubt, and her endorsers must, some
how, be right.
The above selection was in the column
with many others; and, to a captious
critic, looked somewhat like a little
devil, among d bevy of angels. But
then this, l suppose, was the angel and
the others, to say the best Of them were
only human. 0 tenpora, 0 nlores.
Middlebury, June %, 1872.