From the rose you have shaken the delicate dew;

What you've touched you may take—pretty Waltzer, adieu!"

[Original]

et us now consider the female element in this immodesty. Is the woman equally to blame with the man? Is she the unconscious instrument of his lust, or the conscious sharer in it? We shall see.

In the first place, it is absolutely necessary that she shall be able and willing to reciprocate the feelings of her partner before she can graduate as a "divine dancer." Until she can and will do this she is regarded as a "scrub" by the male experts, and no matter what her own opinion of her proficiency may be she will surely not be sought as a companion in that piece de résistance of the ball-room the "after—supper glide."

Horrible as this statement seems, it is the truth and nothing but the truth, and though I could affirm it upon oath from what I have myself heard and seen, I fortunately am able to confirm it by the words of a highly respected minister of the gospel—Mr. W. C. Wilkinson, who some years ago published in book form an article on "The Dance of Modern Society," which originally appeared in one of our American Quarterly Reviews.

This gentleman gives a remark overheard on a railway car, in a conversation that was passing between two young men about their lady acquaintances.

"The horrible concreteness of the fellow's expression," says Mr. Wilkinson, "may give a wholesome recoil from danger to some minds that would be little affected by a speculative statement of the same idea. Said one: I would not give a straw to dance with Miss ————; you can't excite any more passion in her than you can in a stick of wood." Can anything be plainer than this.