resolution of artistically-displayed intricacy. Finally, the accompaniment of music also adds a charm, but, we must be careful to observe, a subsidiary charm only. The music is an agreeable guide to direct the steps, but it is little more; and the pleasure of the figure-dance has only this slight trace of musical enjoyment proper. But when we turn from this to consider the waltz, we see in a moment that the two are worlds apart. The figure-dance is the subordination of the individual to the group; the waltz is permeated by the intensest individualism. In the figure-dance steps are an all-important concern; in the waltz steps have little or nothing to do with it. In the figure-dance the music is little more to the dancer than a mechanical guide; in the waltz it is the afflatus of a poetic inspiration. I am not seeking to disparage the figure-dance,—far from it. I do not condemn it as necessarily inferior, I only contend that it usually differs in character toto cœlo from the waltz. I have said above that the days of the figure-dance have passed away. There can be no more convincing proof of this than the slovenly manner in which nowadays square-dances are scrambled through. They are, in truth, alien to the tastes of the present generation, whose sympathies in many matters more important than dancing are strongly on the side of unfettered individualism.
But to return. Step-dancing is practically a thing of the past, and many of the defects of modern waltzing are due to the mistaken system of trying to teach it by step. A very good dancer once said to me, "All real dancing is done above the waist,"—an observation which impressed me alike by its neatness and by its truth. It conveys, in fact, what I have already urged,—that waltzing is not a matter of the feet but of the body, and that to hold otherwise is to subordinate the end to the means. Analyze waltzing into its simplest constituents, and what does it come to? It is a rhythmical movement of the body, successive shiftings of the bodily centre of gravity in obedience to musical time. The feet no doubt play an important part, but when all is said and done they are only the agents, not the principals in the transaction, and their duties could be as well, and perhaps better, performed by some other instruments of support and locomotion. To teach the waltz, therefore, as a matter of step is to concentrate the dancer's attention in the wrong quarter. Engrossed with the desire of performing the step with precision, he must inevitably neglect the more delicate thrills of melody from which dancing, like music, should gather its light and shade. The ear in this way becomes deadened, sometimes even to the bare time; and it is not uncommon to see dancers whose execution is faultless but who are apparently quite unconscious of any obligation to a controlling rhythm. Of course I do not mean to say that no one who has learned by step can become a good dancer, for every ball-room would furnish ample evidence to the contrary. But I do say that such have attained their excellence not by means of but in spite of their education, and that this same education is responsible for much of the indifferent dancing which abounds. Neither do I assert that steps have no value,—far from it; but they are not the first principle of waltzing, and cannot be substituted for it. If I were called upon to put my doctrines into practice, I would say to the beginner, Stand easily and naturally upright, with your hands clasped loosely behind you, and as the waltz is played transfer your weight as lightly as possible from one foot to the other on the first beat of every bar (I assume, of course, an ear sufficiently accurate to recognize the time). "A lurch!" exclaims respectability, aghast. So be it, but "a lurch" is the foundation of the modern waltz, and its unseemliness should not blind us to its value. Nearly all instruction in its early stages relies on the assistance of bold or even exaggerated types, and the lurch is just as useful in teaching beginners to dance as large letters are in teaching children to read. Its asperities can readily be soft-
