For the Southern Literary Messenger.
DANCING, WALTZING, &c.
J'ai toujours cru que le bon n'etait que le beau mis en action.—Rousseau.
Amid the various changes in the customs and fashions of society, the abolition of old, and the introduction of new modes, which an age prolific in intelligent and important improvement has effected, it is matter of surprise, that some of the engines of reform, some of the batteries of satire, have never been unmasked upon the crude and barbarous fashion of dancing. Start not, gentle reader, when I say barbarous fashion, for such dancing unquestionably is. Its very origin is barbarous. In a rude state, when the untutored savage is agitated by any strong emotion, as joy, patriotism, admiration, &c., his first impulse is to caper and skip about like a grasshopper. Among the records of the customs and manners of the most polished and civilized nations of antiquity, we seek in vain for the importance and admiration which attaches to this miscalled accomplishment at the present day. The Romans, perhaps the most accomplished and polite of the ancients, held the art in very low esteem. Indeed we find Cicero striving with all the force of his matchless eloquence, to vindicate his friend Muræna from the charge of being a dancer, preferred against him by Cato. So conscious is he of the weight of the imputation, that he makes it the subject of one branch of his defence, and, in a digression, recounts the brilliant services and devoted patriotism of his client's ancestors, to discountenance a charge affecting so seriously, the value and dignity of his character.
| "Tempestivi convivii, amæni loci, Multarum deliciarum, comes est extrema saltatio." |
The Greeks, we are told, held the art of dancing in higher estimation, and it is said, considered graceful dancing one of the necessary constituents to the character of an accomplished gentleman; but the very word, and indeed the only one used by them to express the motion, [Greek: orchêsis], signified mimicry; plainly intimating its derivation from the buffoons and jesters of the stage, and consequently it never could have had much popularity in their more refined and elegant circles. As a religious rite it was in use, it seems, among the ancient Jews, and in celebration of the worship of the heathen deities of Greece and Rome, we find it only practised in the orgies of Bacchus, a fact of itself sufficient to mark it as a lewd, licentious and vulgar pastime. It was a favorite amusement of the ancient Scythians, the Chinese, the Goths, the Vandals, the Persians, and other barbarous nations of antiquity, and is yet in practice among the modern French and Italians, who, first introducing it in theatrical amusements, and then having carried the art to great perfection, have now transplanted it to the fashionable circles of domestic society. But it is rather in reference to its effects upon the present constitution of society, and its awkward adaptation to the chastened simplicity of the republican character, that I propose to consider dancing, than in regard to its estimation among the ancients.
Excellence in national dances, as such, may deservedly be ranked among the highest efforts of skill and grace. We discover much elegance, certainly, in the easy and graceful evolutions of the Spanish waltz. There is a charming vivacity in the romping gaiety of the French gallopade; and even the oriental mazourka, is not devoid of a certain graceful beauty. But they derive their interest from the national and historical associations connected with them. We see the haughty Spaniard, proud indeed, but pliant, aptly pictured in the mysterious intricacy of the mazy waltz. The lively gallop presents to our mind at once, the reckless nonchalance and chivalrous gaiety of the Frenchman; and thus these dances come to us as faithful types of their national origin. But why may we not be content to witness this delineation of national characteristics upon our theatrical boards? Why should we take them from their appropriate sphere, and introduce them to the frivolous and undignified imitation of the polite and refined? I do not know a scene more faithfully descriptive of rude, boisterous, and unbecoming merriment, than an American ball room. Place your hands upon your ears, and look down the hall. You will see the most unmeaning grimaces—the most ridiculous contortions of body in one quarter—while another view presents to you the unwelcome picture of man, lordly man, fallen from his high estate, and going through the laborious operations of the dance, with the farcical solemnity of a monk, or the clownish rapture of a mountebank. People may say what they please, about those only opposing this capering vice, who cannot dance themselves. They may tell us, that Lord Byron wrote his fretful satire upon waltzing, because his lordship could not participate in that fashionable dance, owing to his club foot. They may preach, that the ignorant alone complain of those accomplishments which they cannot attain themselves; that the dances in practice, from time immemorial, among our ancestors, were equally objectionable as those we now adopt and admire, which certain bold critics, going beyond their province, dare to denounce as dangerous innovations, savoring of foreign modes and manners, licentious and demoralizing. All this will not do, Mr. Editor. Dancing is dangerous, and the waltz especially: and a virtuous and intelligent community will unite, I feel assured, to frown these vicious amusements out of society, and consign them to the barbarous regions whence they were so irreverently introduced among us.
This mania for dancing, waltzing, &c., is the bane of every social circle. Do you go to pass the evening sociably with your friend, where you have a vague instinctive idea you will meet the pretty creature you passed in the street, on the Thursday previous—you will enter—your fondest anticipations are realized—you draw your chair towards her, and fall into a charming tete-a-tete, with the dear object for whom you already conceive a nascent passion—who has made you lose a whole week's sleep, break your mirror, tear your black silk bonnet de nuit into fragments, and kick your faithful valet de chambre down stairs, because your laundress has failed to impart the due degree of rigidity to your collar linen. Now you promise yourself a full indemnity for all the contre-temps of the past week—you are just arranging a most pleasant excursion with the lady the next afternoon, when, alas! the vanity of human hopes! an impertinent coxcomb, whose only merit consists in a well arranged dress and capacious whiskers, demands the honor of the lady's hand for the next waltz. Odious, detested waltz! You have too much taste to dance yourself: your inamorata, however, must yield to the unrelenting tyranny of fashion, and you are left in a posture of amiable abstraction, musing on the provoking scene enacting before you. To sit quietly and await the termination of the dance, might not be an unattainable effort of patience; but to see her partner's place supplied again and again—you take leave of hope and the company together, and pass the next week to the manifest infringement of your own peace of mind, and your aforesaid ill-fated valet's physical comforts.
Now, Mr. Messenger, I take you to be a sensible and discreet man, anxious for the purity of public taste, and ever vigilant to rid society of all nuisances; I doubt not, therefore, that I shall find in you, an able and willing coadjutor in the remedy I propose to apply, for the extirpation of this unspeakable annoyance; and I hope the undignified, graceless, dancing fraternity, aye, and sisterhood too, (for sorry am I to say, the ladies are the most untiring patrons of this capering vice,) will take the hint forthwith. I propose, through the "Messenger," to give to the public the result of my best labors to eradicate this odious practice from society. I know not if my efforts will ever receive their deserved reward. The public is an ungrateful master, and ever incredulous and uncourteous when you propose to reform him. It is not, however, the part of a philanthropist and reformer, to abate his efforts on that account. Immortality will be the price of success, and posterity will pay it. Had Columbus abandoned his attempts to explore the western main, because bigoted and ignorant monarchs would not accept the world he offered them, we might now have been the wretched subjects of some European despot instead of the countrymen of Washington, under a government of equal laws, and in a land of liberty.
On a visit a few evenings ago, to a maiden aunt, I was glad to find, that among the ladies assembled on the occasion, the utmost unanimity prevailed as to the importance and utility of the proposed reform. Miss Betsy Bloomever declared it would be one of the most extensively beneficial reformations which the world has witnessed, since the proscription of hoops, stays, and stomachers. Miss Debby Creaktone pronounced it a more important revolution than that achieved by Signorina Garcia, in the musical style of the American vocalists; and Miss Judith Knowell said, that in her estimation, (and she was a Protestant Episcopalian, she added,) Luther's reformation would sink to insignificance before it.