He is a ruthless hunter to whom all game is fair. The gods have made him beautiful and strong, and the other sex recognize and appreciate the fact. Is it to be expected of Alcibiades that he scorn the Athenian lasses, or of Phaon the Fair that he avoid the damsels of Mytelene? No indeed! it is for the husband and father to take care of the women — he can take care of himself. Yet even this gay social pirate and his like might take a hint from the poet:

 

“But ye — who never felt a single thought

For what our morals are to be, or ought;

Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,

Say — would you make three beauties quite so cheap?”

 

But this fine animal is by no means the most common or degraded type of ball-room humanity. It would be perhaps better it he were. In his mighty embrace a woman would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that she was dancing with a wholesome creature, however destitute he might be of the finer feelings that go to make up what is called a man.

No, the most common type of the male “perfect dancer” is of a different stamp. This is the blockhead who covers his brains with his boots — to whom dancing is the one serious practical employment of life, and who, it must be confessed, is most diligent and painstaking in his profession. He is chastity’s paramour — strong and lusty in the presence of the unattainable, feeble-kneed and trembling in the glance of invitation; in pursuit a god, in possession an incapable — satyr of dalliance, eunuch of opportunity. This creature dances divinely. He has given his mind to dancing, has never got it back, and is the richer for that He haunts “hops” and balls because his ailing virility finds a feast in the paps and gruels of love there dispensed. It is he to whose contaminating embrace your wi — I mean your neighbor’s wife or daughter, dear reader, is oftenest surrendered, to whet his dulled appetite for strong meats of the bagnio — nay to coach him for offences that must be nameless here. She performs her function thoroughly, conscientiously, wholly — merges her identity in his, and lo! the Beast with two Backs!

A pretty picture is it not? — the Grand Passion Preservative dragged into the blaze of gas to suffer pious indignities at the hand of worshippers who worship not wisely, but too well! The true Phallos set up at a cross-roads to receive the homage of strolling dogs — male and female created he them! Bah! these orgies are the spawn of unmannerly morals. They profane our civilization, and are an indecent assault upon common sense. It is nearly as common as the dance itself, to hear the male participants give free expression, loose tongued, to the lewd emotions, the sensual pleasure, in which they indulge when locked in the embrace of your wives and daughters; if this be true, if by any possibility it can be true, that a lady however innocent in thought is exposed to lecherous comments of this description, then is it not also true that every woman possessing a remnant of delicacy, will flee from the dancing-hall as from a pestilence.


CHAPTER IV.

 

“What! the girl that I love by another embraced!

Another man’s arm round my chosen one’s waist!

What! touched in the twirl by another man’s knee;

And panting recline on another than me!

Sir, she’s yours; you have brushed from the grape its soft blue,

From the rose you have shaken the delicate dew;

What you’ve touched you may take — pretty Waltzer, adieu!”

 

Let us now consider the female element in this immodesty. Is the woman equally to blame with the man? Is she the unconscious instrument of his lust, or the conscious sharer in it? We shall see.

In the first place, it is absolutely necessary that she shall be able and willing to reciprocate the feelings of her partner before she can graduate as a “divine dancer.” Until she can and will do this she is regarded as a “scrub” by the male experts, and no matter what her own opinion of her proficiency may be she will surely not be sought as a companion in that piéce de résistance of the ball-room the “after — supper glide.”

Horrible as this statement seems, it is the truth and nothing but the truth, and though I could affirm it upon oath from what I have myself heard and seen, I fortunately am able to confirm it by the words of a highly respected minister of the gospel — Mr. W. C. Wilkinson, who some years ago published in book form an article on “The Dance of Modern Society,” which originally appeared in one of our American Quarterly Reviews.

This gentleman gives a remark overheard on a railway car, in a conversation that was passing between two young men about their lady acquaintances.

“The horrible concreteness of the fellow’s expression,” says Mr. Wilkinson, “may give a wholesome recoil from danger to some minds that would be little affected by a speculative statement of the same idea. Said one I would not give a straw to dance with Miss — ; you can’t excite any more passion in her than you can in a stick of wood.” Can anything be plainer than this “Pure young women of a warmer temperament,” the same reverend author subsequently adds, “who innocently abandon themselves to enthusiastic proclamations of their delight in the dance in the presence of gentlemen, should but barely once have a male intuition of the meaning of the involuntary glance that will often shoot across from eye to eye among their auditors. Or should overhear the comments exchanged among them afterwards. For when young men meet after an evening of the dance to talk it over together, it is not points of dress they discuss. Their only demand (in this particular) and it is generally conceded, is that the ladies’ dress shall not needlessly embarrass suggestion.” But here is one of my own experiences in this connection. At a fashionable sociable, I was approached by a friend who had been excelling himself in Terpsichorean feats during the whole evening. This friends was a very handsome man, a magnificent dancer, and of course a great favorite with the ladies. I had been watching him while he waltzed with a young and beautiful lady, also of my acquaintance, and had been filled with wonder at the way he had folded her in his arms — literally fondling her upon his breast, and blending her delicate melting form into his ample embrace in a manner that was marvelous to behold. They had whirled and writhed in a corner for fully ten minutes — the fury of lust in his eyes, the languor of lust in hers — until gradually she seemed to lose her senses entirely, and must have slipped down upon the floor when he finally released her from his embrace had it not been for the support of his arm and shoulder. Now as he came up to me all flushed and triumphant I remarked to him that he evidently enjoyed this thing very much.

“Of course I do,” he answered. “Why not?”

“But I should think,” said I, not wishing to let him see that I knew anything about the matter from experience, “that your passions would become unduly excited by such extremely close contact with the other sex.”

“Excited!” he replied, “of course they do; but not unduly — what else do you suppose I come here for? And don’t you ‘ know, old fellow,” he added in a burst of confidence, “that this waltzing is the grandest thing in the world. While you are whirling one of those charmers — if you do it properly, mind you — you can whisper in her ear things which she would not listen to at any other time.