The dance is for young women what the chase is for young men: a protecting school of wisdom—a preservative of the growing passions. The celebrated Locke who made virtue the sole end of education, expressly recommends teaching children to dance as early as they are able to learn. Dancing carries within itself an eminently cooling quality and all over the world the tempests of the heart await to break forth the repose of the limbs.
In "The Traveller," Goldsmith says:
Alike all ages dames of ancient days
Have led their children through the mirthful maze
And the gay grandsire skilled in gestic lore
Has frisked beneath the burden of three score.
To the Prudes, in all soberness—Is it likely, considering the stubborn conservatism of age, that these dames, well seasoned in the habit, will leave it off directly, or the impenitent old grandsire abate one jot or tittle of his friskiness in the near future? Is it a reasonable hope? Is the outlook from the watch towers of Philistia an encouraging one?
X
THEY ALL DANCE
Fountains dance down to the river,
Rivers to the ocean
Summer leaflets dance and quiver
To the breeze's motion
Nothing in the world is single—
All things by a simple rule
Nods and steps and graces mingle
As at dancing school
See the shadows on the mountain
Pirouette with one another
See the leaf upon the fountain
Dances with its leaflet brother
See the moonlight on the earth
Flecking forest gleam and glance!
What are all these dancings worth If I may not dance?
—After Shelley