Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/179

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
HEADLONG HALL.
171

of the Indian, that he has no such enemy to kill.

Mr. Jenkison.

There is certainly a great deal to be said against dancing: there is also a great deal to be said in its favour. The first side of the question I leave for the present to you: on the latter, I may venture to allege, that no amusement seems more natural and more congenial to youth than this. It has the advantage of bringing young persons of both sexes together, in a manner which its publicity renders perfectly unexceptionable, enabling them to see and know each other better than, perhaps, any other mode of general association. Tête-à-têtes are dangerous things. Small family parties are too much under mutual observation. A ball-room appears to me almost the only scene uniting that degree of rational and innocent liberty of intercourse, which it is desi-