“O!” she replied, eagerly—“it is the custom here, and I should be sorry, for the indulgence of an overstrained delicacy, to violate any of those established rules to which, however trifling, they are devotedly attached. Besides, you perceive,” she added, smiling, “this condescension on the part of the females, who are thus ‘won unsought,’ does not render the men more presumptuous. You see what a distance the youth of both sexes preserve—a distance which always exists in these kind of public meetings.”
And, in fact, the lads and lasses were ranged opposite to each other, with no other intercourse than what the communion of the eyes afforded, or the transient intimacy of the jig bestowed. *
* This custom, so prevalent in some parts of Ireland, is of
a very ancient origin. We read in Keating’s History of
Ireland, that in the remotest periods, when the Irish
brought their children to the fair of Tailtean, in order to
dispose of them in marriage, the strictest order was
observed; the men and women having distinct places assigned
them at a certain distance from each other.
“And will you not dance a jig?” asked Glorvina.
“I seldom dance,” said I—“Ill health has for some time back coincided with my inclination, which seldom led me to try my skill at the Poetry of motion?”
“Poetry of motion!” repeated Glorvina—“What a beautiful idea!”
“It is so,” said I, “and if it had been my own, it must have owed its existence to you; for your dancing is certainly the true poetry of motion, and Epic poetry too.”
“I love dancing with all my heart,” she replied: “when I dance I have not a care on earth—every thing swims gaily before me; and I feel as swiftly borne away in a vortex of pleasurable sensation.”
“Dancing,” said I, “is the talent of your sex—that pure grace which must result from a symmetrical form, and that elixity of temperament which is the effect of woman’s delicate organization, creates you dancers. And while I beheld your performances this evening, I no longer wondered that the gravity of Socrates could not resist the spell which lurked in the graceful motions of Aspasia, but followed her in the mazes of the dance.”
She bowed, and said, I “flattered too agreeably, not to be listened to with pleasure, if not with faith.”