To our names on the roll there will be no responding—
To the music of Love we'll have floated away."
But having brought this delectable "recreation" to the utmost pitch of refinement of which it is susceptible—a condition it bids fair promise to attain in a few more seasons, I feel that it is time, as Byron has it, to "put out the light." I therefore conclude with a very brief exhortation to my readers.
To dancers one and all I would say:
Try and see yourselves as others see you; remember that there are many harmless pleasures that have about them no taint of filthy lust; above all cease to believe or to assert that the modern waltz is an "innocent amusement."
To the women, in particular, I say: Set your faces against this abomination, which is robbing you of man's respect, and is the primal cause of infinite misery to yourselves.
To the men I would say: Those who are the natural arbiters of what is permissible between man and woman, have shown their weakness and betrayed their trust; it is now for you to show your strength and redeem your honor.
You who are unfavorable to the modern dance, I adjure not to let your opposition be merely negative, but to work positively for the putting down of the evil precisely as you might for the suppression of prostitution or any other corrupting influence. For as surely as thy soul liveth, this is "a way that seemeth good unto a man, but the end thereof is death."
