ous, but almost as faulty. Not that the gentleman (by whom the appearance of the partnership is necessarily controlled) thinks so himself: far from it. He has a fine scorn for the violence of the deux temps, and a well-bred repugnance to the trois temps of later days, which he calls "a lurch." Ask him what he dances, and he will tell you "the old trois temps." As a form of gentle exercise this may have its merits, but as dancing it is naught. Watch this survival of a less remote past, and judge if it be really much of an advance upon the palæolithic deux temps. Our friend disregards time completely, quite as completely as the hero of the deux temps; but, as a sort of concession to popular feeling on the subject, he punctuates his movements by a series of curious dips. Subject to this observance, he circles stealthily round his partner at any pace which may commend itself to his sense of fitness, and with his face carefully composed into a smile which for sweetness and play of feature might rival the expression of a Chinese idol.
Besides these, there are a host of minor offenders,—those who have acquired the form of dancing but are dead to its spirit. Such are they who waltz to polkas, and they who, under the pretence of dancing half-time, quarter-time, and so forth, seem to justify themselves for dancing out of time. Even among really good dancers how few there are who have not some awkward trick, some inelegant angle of back or limb, some stilted attitude, or some ungraceful poise of the head! With all these facts before our eyes, surely we must conclude that dancing as we dance is unnatural.
If this be so, we have next to inquire what are the reasons, and what, if any, is the remedy? The reasons are not far to seek. With regard to faults of attitude, a great many of these are either nervous or spring merely from overstrained endeavor, and such, of course, are curable. But there is at least one which seems inseparable from the accepted mode of waltzing. There is nothing to prevent a lady from holding herself easily and gracefully erect while she waltzes, but the difficulty is far greater for a man. In the first place, he is usually taller than his partner, which necessitates a certain stoop on his part, to which encircling her waist with his arm adds something more. The bend may be minimized by skilful management, or its effect may be toned down by diffusion, but it is probably impossible for a man to avoid a kink somewhere. The difficulty disappears in the Spanish method of dancing; but this style, for various reasons, is not likely to take root among Northern nations.
Again, in spite of the general improvement in dancing, few people dance, so to speak, from their hearts, not many even with their bodies, and most limit dancing mechanically to the feet. This is mainly due to a mistaken method of teaching, which has imposed on the dancing of the present the rules and traditions of an obsolete past. The stately beauty of the minuet, to take a typical instance, depended for its effect on a minute ritual of step and deportment. The turn of a hand, the pointing of a foot, and a score of other details claimed a studied precision; and to such dances as these the strong old phrase, "treading a measure," was most rightfully applied. In all figure-dances steps were the first necessity; but the days of figure-dances have passed away, and, though a certain reverence for step has survived them, it is quite out of harmony with the spirit of the waltz.
We shall readily understand this if we consider for a moment the respective characters of figure-dance and waltz and the respective tastes which they gratify. The beauty of a figure-dance rests almost entirely on the symmetry of ordered movements between several people simultaneously or in succession, and the grace with which these movements are executed. So, too, the dancer's pleasure springs from a sense of the skilful execution of his individual part. To this must be added something for the satisfaction which a cultivated mind generally derives from witnessing the orderly and harmonious
