Part 42

To-day our fashion and society papers are eternally complaining of the fact that the young men—especially the _desirable_ young men—seem to have lost all interest in dancing. But who is to blame for this? Certainly not the men. It is _Fashion_ again, and the mothers who sacrifice the matrimonial prospects of their daughters—as well as their Health, Beauty, and Individuality—to this hideous fetish. It is the late hours of the dance, prescribed by Fashion, that are responsible for the apparent loss of masculine interest in this art. Formerly, when aristocracy meant laziness and stupidity, the habit of turning night into day was harmless or even useful, because it helped to rid the world prematurely of a lot of fools. But to-day the leading men of the community are also the busiest. Aristocracy implies activity, intellectual and otherwise. Hence there are few men in the higher ranks who have not their regular work to do during the day. To ask them after a day’s hard labour to go to a dance beginning at midnight and ending at four or five is to ask them to commit suicide. Sensible men do not believe in slow suicide, hence they avoid dancing-parties as if such parties were held in small-pox hospitals.

Let society women throw their stupid conservatism to the winds. Let them arrange balls to begin at eight or nine and end at midnight or one, and “desirable” men will be only too eager to flock to assemblies which they now shun. The result will be a sudden and startling diminution in the number of old maids and bachelors.

It is the _moral duty_ of mothers who have marriageable daughters to encourage this reform. Maternal love does not merely imply solicitude for the first twenty years of a daughter’s life, but careful provision for the remainder of her life, covering twice that period, by enabling her to meet and choose a husband after her own heart

EVOLUTION OF DANCE MUSIC

Did space permit, it would be interesting to study in detail the dances of various epochs and countries, coloured, like the Love which originated them, by national peculiarities—the Polish mazourka and polonaise, the Spanish fandango, the Viennese waltz, the Parisian cancan, etc. Suffice it to note the great difference between the dances of a few generations ago and those of to-day, as shown most vividly in the evolution of dance-music.

The earliest dance-tunes are vocal, and were sung by the (professional) dancers themselves, in the days when the young were not yet allowed to meet, converse, and flirt and dance. Subsequently, the transference of dance-music to instruments played by others gave the dancers opportunity to perform more complicated figures, and made it possible to converse. But even as late as the eighteenth century dancing and dance-music were characterised by a stately reserve, slowness, and pompous dignity which showed at once that they had nothing to do with Romantic Love. It was not the fiery, passionate youths who danced these solemnly stupid minuets, gavottes, sarabandes, and allemandes, but the older folks, whose perruques, and collars, and frills, and bloated clothes would not have enabled them to execute rapid movements even if the warm blood of youth had coursed in their veins.

How all this artificiality and snail-like pomp has been brushed away by triumphant Romantic Love, which has secured for modern lovers the privilege of dancing together before they are married and cease to care for it! True, we still have the monotonous soporific quadrille, as if to remind us of bygone times; but the true modern dance is the round dance, which differs from the stately mediæval dance as a jolly rural picnic does from a formal morning call.

The difference between the mediæval and the modern dance is thus indicated by F. Bremer:—

“Peculiar to modern dance-music is the round dance, especially the waltz; and it is in consequence warmer than the older dance-music, more passionate in expression, in rhythm and modulation more sharply accented. As its creator we must regard Carl Maria von Weber, who, in his _Invitation to Dance_, struck the keynote through which subsequently, in the music of Chopin, Lanner, Strauss, Musard, etc., utterance was given to the whole gamut of dreamy, languishing, sentimental, ardent passion. The consequence was the displacement of the stately, measured dances by impetuous, chivalrous forms; and in place of the former naïve sentimentality and childish mirth, it is the _rapture of Love_ that constitutes the spirit of modern dance-music.”

Not to speak of more primitive dance-tunes, what a difference there is between the slow and dreary monotony of eighteenth century dances and a Viennese waltz of to-day! The vast superiority of a Strauss waltz lies in this—that it is no longer a mere rhythmic noise calculated to guide the steps, and skips, and bows, and evolutions of the dancers, but _the symphonic accompaniment to the first act in the drama of Romantic Love_. It recognises the fact that Courtship is the prime object of the dance. Hence, though still bound by the inevitable dance rhythm, Strauss is ever trying to break loose from it, to secure that freedom and variety of rhythm which is needed to give full utterance to passion. Note the slow, pathetic introductions; the signs in the score indicating an accelerated or retarded tempo when the waltz is played at a concert, where the uniformity of ballroom movement is not called for; note what subtle use he makes of all the other means of expressing amorous feeling—the wide melodic intervals, the piquant, stirring harmonies, the exquisitely melancholy flashes of instrumental colouring, alternating with cheerful moments, showing a subtle psychologic art of translating the Mixed Moods of Love into the language of tones.

In the waltzes, mazourkas, and polonaises of Chopin we see still more strikingly that the true function of dance-music is amorous. Even as Dante’s Love for Beatrice was too super-sensual, too ethereal for this world, so Chopin’s dance-pieces are too subtle, too full of delicate _nuances_ of _tempo_ and Love episodes, to be adapted to a ballroom with ordinary mortals. Graceful fairies alone could dance a Chopin waltz; mortals are too heavy, too clumsy. They can follow an amorous Chopin waltz with the imagination alone, which is the abode of Romantic Love. To a Strauss waltz a hundred couples may make love at once, hence he writes for the orchestra; but Chopin wrote for the parlour piano, because the feelings he utters are too deep to be realised by more than two at a time—one who plays and one who listens, till their souls dance together in an ecstatic embrace of Mutual Sympathy.

THE DANCE OF LOVE

It is at Vienna, which has more feminine grace and beauty to the square mile than any other city in the world, that the art of dancing is to be seen in its greatest perfection. No wonder that it is the home of the Waltz-King, Johann Strauss; and that a Viennese feuilletonist has shown the deepest insight into the psychology of the dance in an article from which the following excerpts are taken:—

"The waltz has a creative, a rejuvenating power, which no other dance possesses. The skipping polka is characterised by a certain stiffness and angularity, a rhythm rather sober and old-fashioned. The galop is a wild hurricane, which moves along rudely and threatens to blow over everything that comes in its way; it is the most brutal of all dances, an enemy of all tender and refined feelings, a bacchanalian rushing up and down....

"The waltz, therefore, remains as the only true and real dance. Waltzing is not walking, skipping, jumping, rushing, raving; it is a gentle floating and flying; from the heaviest men it seems to take away some of their materiality, to raise the most massive women from the ground into the air. True, the Viennese alone know how to dance it, as they alone know how to play it....

“The waltz insists on a personal monopoly, on being loved for its own sake, and permits no vapid side-remarks regarding the fine weather, the hot room, the toilets of the ladies; the couple glide along hardly speaking a word; except that she may beg for a pause, or he, indefatigable, insatiable, intoxicated by the music and motion, the fragrance of flowers and ladies, invites her to a new flight around the hall. And yet is this mute dance the most eloquent, the most expressive and emotional, the most sensuous that could be imagined; and if the dancer has anything to say to his partner, let him mutely confide it to her in the sweet whirl of a waltz, for then the music is his advocate, then every bar pleads for him, every note is a _billet-doux_, every breath a declaration of love. Jealous husbands do not allow their wives to waltz with another man. They are right, for the waltz is the Dance of Love.”

BALLET-DANCING

There is one more form of dancing which may be briefly alluded to, because it illustrates the hypocrisy of the average mortal as well as the rarity of true æsthetic taste. Solo ballet-dancing is admired not only by the bald-headed old men in the parquet, but there are critics who seriously discuss such dancing as if it were a fine art; generally lamenting the good old times of the great and graceful ballet-dancers. The truth is that ballet-dancing _never can be graceful_, as now practised. To secure graceful movement it is absolutely necessary to make use of the elasticity of the toes—to touch the ground at the place where the toes articulate with the middle foot, and to give the last push with the yielding great toe. Ballet-dancers, however, walk on the tips of their stiffened toes, the result of which is, as the anatomist, Professor Kollmann, remarks, that “their gait is deprived of all elasticity and becomes stiff, as in going on stilts.”

It speaks well for the growing sensibility of mankind that this form of dancing is gradually losing favour. Like the vocal tight-rope dancing of the operatic _prime donne_ with whom ballet-dancers are associated, their art is a mere circus-trick, gaped at as a difficult _tour de force_, but appealing in no sense to æsthetic sentiments.

These strictures, of course, apply merely to solo-dancing on tiptoe. The spectacular ballet, which delights the eye with kaleidoscopic colours and groupings, is quite another thing, and may be made highly artistic.

THE LOWER LIMBS

MUSCULAR DEVELOPMENT

The assumption by man of an erect attitude has modified and improved the appearance of his leg and thigh quite as marvellously as his feet. “In walking,” says Professor Kollmann, “the weight of the body is alternately transferred from one foot to the other. Each one is obliged in locomotion to take its turn in supporting the whole body, which explains the great size of the muscles which make up man’s calf. The ape’s calf is smaller for the reason that these animals commonly go on all fours.” Professor Carl Vogt gives these details: “No ape has such a cylindrical, _gradually diminishing_ thigh; and we are justified in saying that man alone possesses thighs. The muscles of the leg are in man so accumulated as to form a calf, while in the ape they are more equally distributed; still, transitions are not wanting, since one of the greatest characteristics of the negro consists in his calfless leg.” And again: “Man possesses, as contrasted with the ape, a distinctive character in the strength, _rotundity_, and length of the lower limb; especially in the thighs, which in most animals are shortened in proportion to the leg.”

The words here italicised call attention to two of the qualities of Beauty—gradation and the curve of rotundity—which the lower limbs in their evolution are thus seen to be gradually approximating. Other improvements are seen in the greater smoothness, the more graceful and expressive gait resulting from the rounded but straight knee, etc.

The implication that savages are in the muscular development of their limbs intermediate between apes and civilised men calls for further testimony and explanation. Waitz states that “in regard to muscular power Indians are commonly inferior to Europeans”; and Mr. Herbert Spencer has collected much evidence of a similar nature. The Ostyaks have “thin and slender legs”; the Kamtchadales “short and slender legs”; those of the Chinooks are “small and crooked”; and the African Akka have “short and bandy legs.” The legs of Australians are “inferior in mass of muscle”; the gigantic Patagonians have limbs “neither so muscular nor so large-boned as their height and apparent bulk would induce one to suppose.” Spencer likewise calls attention to the fact that relatively-inferior legs are “a trait which, remotely simian, is also repeated by the child of the civilised man”—which thus individually passes through the several stages of development that have successively characterised its ancestors.

Numerous exceptions are of course to be found to the rule that the muscular rotundity and plumpness of the limbs increases with civilisation. The lank shins which may be seen by the hundred among the bathers at our sea-coast resorts contrast disadvantageously with many photographs of savages; and tourists in Africa and among South American Indians and elsewhere have often enough noted the occurrence of individuals and tribes who would have furnished admirable models for sculptors. But this only proves, on the one hand, that “civilised” persons who are uncivilised in their neglect of the laws of Health, inevitably lose certain traits of Beauty which exercise alone can give; while, on the other hand, those “savages” who lead an active and healthy life are _in so far_ civilised, and therefore enjoy the superior attractions bestowed by civilisation. Moreover, as Mr. Spencer suggests, “In combat, the power exercised by arm and trunk is limited by the power of the legs to withstand the strain thrown on them. Hence, apart from advantages in locomotion, the stronger-legged nations have tended to become, other things equal, dominant races.”

“Rengger,” says Darwin, “attributes the thin legs and thick arms of the Payaguas Indians to successive generations having passed nearly their whole lives in canoes, with their lower extremities motionless. Other writers have come to a similar conclusion in analogous cases.”

Although savages have to hunt for a living and occasionally go to war, they are essentially a lazy crew, taking no more exercise than necessary; which accounts for the fact that, with the exceptions noted, their muscular development is inferior to that of higher races.

BEAUTIFYING EXERCISE

One of the most discouraging aspects of modern life is the growing tendency toward concentration of the population in large cities. Not only is the air less salubrious in cities than in the country, but the numerous cheap facilities for riding discourage the habit of walking. London is one of the healthiest cities, and the English the most vigorous race, in the world; yet it is said that it is difficult to trace a London family down through five generations. Few Paris families can, it is said, be traced even through three generations. Without constant rural accessions cities would tend to become depopulated.

The enormous importance of exercise for Health and Beauty, which are impossible without it, is vividly brought out in this statement of Kollmann’s: “Muscles which are thoroughly exercised do not only retain their strength, but increase in circumference and power, in man as in animals. The flesh is then firm, and coloured intensely red. In a paralysed arm the muscles are degenerated, and have lost a portion of one of their most important constituents—albumen. Repeated contractions strengthen a muscle, because motion accelerates the circulation of the blood and the nutrition of the tissues. What a great influence this has on the whole body may be inferred from the fact that the organs of locomotion—the skeleton and muscles—make up more than 82 per cent of the substance of the body. With this enormous proportion of bone and muscle, it is obvious that exercise is essential to bodily health.”

Exercise in a gymnasium is useful but monotonous; and too often the benefits are neutralised by the insufficient provision for fresh air, without which exercise is worse than useless. Hence the superiority of open-air games—base-ball, tennis, rowing, riding, swimming, etc., to the addiction to which the English owe so much of their superior physique. Tourists in Canada invariably notice the wonderful figures of the women, which they owe largely to their fondness for skating. “Beyond question,” says the _Lancet_, “skating is one of the finest sports, especially for ladies. It is graceful, healthy, stimulating to the muscles, and it develops in a very high degree the important faculty of balancing the body and preserving perfect control over the whole of the muscular system, while bringing certain muscles into action at will. Moreover, there is this about it which is of especial value: it trains by exercise the power of intentionally inducing and maintaining a continuous contraction of the muscles of the lower extremity. The joints, hip, knee, and ankle are firmly fixed or rather kept steadily under control, while the limbs are so set by their muscular apparatus that they form, as it were, part of the skate that glides over the smooth surface. To skate well and gracefully is a very high accomplishment indeed, and perhaps one of the very best exercises in which young women and girls can engage with a view to healthful development.”

For the acquisition of a graceful gait women need such exercise more even than men; and while engaged in it they should pay especial attention to exercising the left side of the body. On this point Sir Charles Bell has made the following suggestive remarks:—

“We see that opera-dancers execute their more difficult feats on the right foot, but their preparatory exercises better evince the natural weakness of the left limb; in order to avoid awkwardness in the public exhibitions, they are obliged to give double practice to the left leg; and if they neglect to do so an ungraceful preference to the right side will be remarked. In walking behind a person we seldom see an equalised motion of the body; the tread is not so firm upon the left foot, the toe is not so much turned out, and a greater push is made with the right. From the peculiar form of woman, and from the elasticity of her step, resulting from the motion of the ankle rather than of the haunches, the defect of the left foot, when it exists, is more apparent in her gait.”

Those who wish to acquire a graceful gait will find several useful hints in this extract from Professor Kollmann’s _Plastische Anatomie_, p. 506:—

“Human gait, it is well known, is subject to individual variations. Differences are to be noted not only in rapidity of motion, but as regards the position of the trunk and the movements of the limbs, within certain limits. For instance, the gait of very fat persons is somewhat vacillating; other persons acquire a certain dignity of gait by bending and stretching their limbs as little as possible while taking long steps; and others still bend their knees very much, which gives a slovenly character to their gait. And as regards the attitude of the trunk, a different effect is given according as it is inclined backwards or forwards, or executes superfluous movements in the same direction or to the sides. All these peculiarities make an impression on our eyes, while our ears are impressed at the same time by the differences in rapidity of movement, so that we learn to recognise our friends by the sound of their walk as we do by the quality of their voice.”

Bell states that “upwards of fifty muscles of the arm and hand may be demonstrated, which must all consent to the simplest action.” Walking is a no less complicated affair, to which the attention of men of science has been only quite recently directed. The new process of instantaneous photography has been found very useful, but much remains to be done before the mystery of a graceful gait can be considered solved. If some skilled photographer would go to Spain and take a number of instantaneous pictures of Andalusian girls, the most graceful beings in the world, in every variety of attitude and motion, he might render most valuable service to the cause of personal æsthetics.

The time will come, no doubt, when dancing masters and mistresses will consider the teaching of the waltz and the lancers only the crudest and easiest part of their work, and when they will have advanced classes who will be instructed in the refinements of movement as carefully and as intelligently as professors of music teach their pupils the proper use of the parts and muscles of the hand, to attain a delicate and varied touch. The majority of women might make much more progress in the art of gracefulness than they ever will in music; and is not the poetry of motion as noble and desirable an object of study as any other fine art?

FASHIONABLE UGLINESS

It is the essence of fashion to exaggerate everything to the point of ugliness. Instead of trying to remedy the disadvantages to their gait resulting from anatomical peculiarities (just referred to in a quotation from Bell), women frequently take pains to deliberately exaggerate them. As Alexander Walker remarks: “The largeness of the pelvis and the approximation of the knees influence the gait of woman, and render it vacillating and unsteady. Conscious of this, women, in countries where the nutritive system in general and the pelvis in particular are large, affect a greater degree of this vacillating unsteadiness. An example of this is seen in the lateral and rotatory motion which is given to the pelvis in walking by certain classes of the women in London.”

The Egyptians and Arabians consider this ludicrous rotatory motion a great fascination, and have a special name for it—Ghung.

But Fashion, the handmaid of ugliness, is not content with aping the bad taste of Arabians and Egyptians. It goes several steps lower than that, down to the Hottentots. The latest hideous craze of Fashion, against which not one woman in a hundred had taste or courage enough to revolt—the bustle or “dress-improver” (!)—was simply the milliner’s substitute for an anatomical peculiarity natural to some African savages.

“It is well known,” says Darwin, “that with many Hottentot women the posterior part of the body projects in a wonderful manner; they are steatopygous; and Sir Andrew Smith is certain that this peculiarity is greatly admired by the men. He once saw a woman who was considered a beauty, and she was so immensely developed behind, that when seated on level ground she could not rise, and had to push herself along until she came to a slope. Some of the women in various negro tribes have the same peculiarity; and, according to Burton, the Somal men ‘are said to choose their wives by ranging them in a line, and by picking her out who projects farthest _a tergo_. Nothing can be more hateful to a negro than the opposite form.’”

Evidently “civilised” and savage women do not differ as regards Fashion, the handmaid of ugliness. But the men do. While the male Hottentots admire the natural steatopyga of their women, civilised men, without exception, detest the artificial imitation of it, which makes a woman look and walk like a deformed dromedary.

THE CRINOLINE CRAZE

The bustle is not only objectionable in itself as a hideous deformity and a revival of Hottentot taste, but still more as a probable forerunner of that most unutterably vulgar article of dress ever invented by Fashion—the crinoline. For we read that when, in 1856, the crinoline came in again, it was preceded by the “inelegant bustle in the upper part of the skirt”; and it is a notorious fact that cunning milliners are making strenuous efforts every year to reintroduce the crinoline.