And this, my dear reader, is the abomination that I intend to smite hip and thigh—not with fine words and dainty phrases, but with the homely language of truth; not blinded by prejudice or passion, but calmly and reasonably; not with any private purpose to subserve, but simply in the cause of common decency; not with the hope of working out any great moral reform, but having the the sense of duty strong upon me as I stick my nibbed lancet into the most hideous social ulcer that has yet afflicted the body corporate.
That the subject is a delicate one is best shown by the fact that even Byron found himself reduced to the necessity of "Putting out the light" and invoking the longest garments to cover that which he was unable to describe—hear him:
"Waltz—Waltz alone—both legs and arms demands;
Liberal of feet, and lavish of her hands;
'Hands which may freely range in public sight
Where ne'er before—but—pray "put out the light.'
* * * *
"But here the muse with due decorum halts—
And lends her longest petticoats to Waltz"
It should not, then, be a matter of surprise, when one so gifted in the use of his mother tongue and writing in a far less prudish age, failed to describe the "voluptuous Waltz" without shocking his readers,—if I, sixty-three years later, with so much more to describe and such limited capacity, do not succeed in rendering the subject less repulsive.