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On Dancing
by
Men have so much the best of it at dances–so everybody says. I am afraid I do not agree. I would not change our positions for anything. After all, a girl can nearly always dance with anyone she likes, and pick and choose as well as the men–provided, of course, that she is an adept on the “light fantastic toe” herself.
And think, on the other hand, what men go through! Reverse the order of things, as you are supposed to do at leap year dances–which system, however, is never properly carried out. But suppose you go up to a man and ask him for a dance, and he tells you with a smile that “he is very sorry, but really he has not one left.” Suppose that the next minute you see him give three to another girl, would you speak to that man ever again? Never! And yet this is what they constantly endure and, what is more, forgive.
After all, if you analyze it, what an absurd thing dancing is. Close your ears to the music and look around you when a ball is at its height. What motive, you foolishly wonder, could induce all these people–who are supposed to possess an average amount of brains–to assemble together to clasp each other round the waist, twirl round and round up and down the room, suddenly stop, and hurry one after another outside the dancing hall, seeking dark corners, secret retreats, anywhere away from the eyes of other men? “Ah, what a mad world it is, my masters!”
How our grandmothers exclaim at the present mode of dancing!–they who used to consider round dances almost improper. How the programmes must astonish them, too; those engagement cards that did not exist fifty years ago, and in their infancy were quite content to bear only two or three names on their paper countenances. But now times have changed, and as they grow older they become most greedy little cards. They are not only not content with being scribbled all over, but require two names on the top of one another, and thus causing dissensions to ensue.
There is a great deal of art in making up a programme. It is a mistake to be full up before you arrive. Someone may come whom you did not expect, and then you have no dance to give him. Arrangement of a programme requires two or three seasons’ practice. There are the duty dances to be got through first; put them up early, so that they shall be soon over, and then you have the good ones at the end to look forward to.
Everyone has duty dances. There are your father’s constituents, clients, patients, someone you are obliged to ingratiate, and these are generally the worst dancers in the room! One is so fat he shakes the hall as he walks, and yet is just as eager to join the giddy throng, and alas! to take you with him! Another resembles the little tin soldiers which schoolboys have such an affection for, in that he has been gifted with large flat stands, twice the length of himself, instead of feet. And oh, how he kicks! Then there is the complimentary man, a creature who never opens his mouth without making or implying a compliment. Does he ever find anyone whom this system pleases, I wonder! The only antidote I can find is to take no notice, and pretend not to understand that the pretty speeches are directed at you. This discourages him after a time.
It is amusing to get hold of a man’s programme, and find out how you are represented there. They do not put down names, but describe costumes, hoping thus to find their partners easier, but in reality plunging themselves into most hopeless perplexities. They scribble down “pearl necklace,” and find later that there are at least sixteen in the room, and so are worse off than if they had written the name.