"Oh no!... If a young woman be well-disposed, it is not a quadrille, or a waltz either, that will lead her astray. If it could, it would surely be the duty of all the legislators of the earth to forbid the exercise for ever."
"No, no, no!" said I earnestly; "I mean nothing of the kind, I assure you: on the contrary, I am so convinced, from the recollections of my own feelings, and my observations on those of others, that dancing is not a fictitious, but a real, natural source of enjoyment, the inclination for which is inherent in us, that, instead of wishing it to be forbidden, I would, had I the power, make it infinitely more general and of more frequent occurrence than it is: young people should never meet each other without the power of dancing if they wished it."
"And from this animating pleasure, for which you confess that there is a sort of besoin within us, you would exclude all the young women above seventeen—because they are married?... Poor things!... Instead of finding them so willing as they generally are to enter on the busy scenes of life, I think we should have great difficulty in getting their permission to monter un ménage for them. Marriage would be soon held in abhorrence if such were its laws."
"I would not have them such, I assure you," replied I, rather at a loss how to explain myself fully without saying something that might either be construed into coarseness of thinking and a cruel misdoubting of innocence, or else into a very uncivil attack upon the national manners: I was therefore silent.
My companion seemed to expect that I should proceed, but after a short interval resumed the conversation by saying,—"Then what arrangement would you propose, to reconcile the necessity of dancing with the propriety of keeping married women out of the danger which you seem to imagine might arise from it?"
"It would be too national were I to reply, that I think our mode of proceeding in this case is exactly what it ought to be."
"But such is your opinion?"
"To speak sincerely, I believe it is."
"Will you then have the kindness to explain to me the difference in this respect between France and England?"
"The only difference between us which I mean to advocate is, that with us the amusement which throws young people together under circumstances the most likely, perhaps, to elicit expressions of gallantry and admiration from the men, and a gracious reception of them from the women, is considered as befitting the single rather than the married part of the community."