him, but eating nuts, or blackberries, or a
privily-acquired turnip--these are pastimes.

"The practice of dancing is of an undoubted antiquity. History teems
with reference to this custom, but it is difficult to discover what
nationality or what era first witnessed its evolution. I myself
believe that the first dance was performed by a domestic hen who found
an ostrich's egg, and bounded before Providence in gratitude for
something worthy of being sat upon.

"In all places and in all ages dancing has been utilised as a first-aid
to language. The function of language is intellectual, that of dancing
is emotional. It is scarcely possible to say anything of an emotional
nature in words without adventuring into depths or bogs of
sentimentality from which one can only emerge greasy with dishonour.
When we are happy we cannot say so with any degree of intelligibility:
in such a context the spoken word is miserably inadequate, and must be
supplemented by some bodily antic. If we are merry we must skip to be
understood. If we are happy we must dance. If we are wildly and
ecstatically joyous then we will become creators, and some new and
beneficent dance-movements will be added to the repertory of our
neighborhood.

"Children will dance upon the slightest provocation, so also do lambs
and goats; but policemen, and puckauns, and advertisement agents, and
fish do not dance at all, and this is because they have hard hearts.
Worms and Members of Parliament, between whom, in addition to their
high general culture, there is a singular and subtle correspondence, do
not dance, because the inelastic quality of their environment forbids
anything in the nature of freedom. Frogs, dogs, and very young
mountains do dance.

"A frog is a most estimable person. He has a cold body but a warm
heart, and a countenance of almost parental benevolence, and the joy of
life moves him to an almost ceaseless activity. I can never observe a
frog on a journey without fancying that his gusto for travel is
directed by a philanthropic impulse towards the bedside of a sick
friend or a meeting to discuss the Housing of the Working Classes. He
has danced all the way to, he will dance all the way from his
objective, but the spectacle of many men dancing is provocative of
pain.--To them dancing is a duty, and a melancholy one. If one danced
to celebrate a toothache one might take lessons from them. They stand
in the happy circle, their features are composed t