he unconditional surrender to the supreme law
of periodicity, under conditions of exact observance by all external
things. The notes of the music repeat and supplement each other; the
lights burn with answering flame at sequent distances; the walls, the
windows, doors, mouldings, frescoes, iterate their lines, their levels,
and panels, interminable of combination and similarity; the inlaid floor
matches its angles, multiplies its figures, does over again at this
point what it did at that; the groups of dancers deploy in couples,
aggregate in groups, and again deploy, evoking endless resemblances. And
all this rhythm and recurrence, borne in upon the brain--itself
rhythmic--through intermittent senses, is converted into motion, and the
mind, yielding utterly to its environment, knows the happiness of faith,
the ecstasy of compliance, the rapture of congruity. And this the dull
dunces--the eyeless, earless, brainless and bloodless callosites of
cavil--are pleased to call lust!

O ye, who teach the ingenuous youth of nations
The Boston Dip, the German and the Glide,
I pray you guard them upon all occasions
From contact of the palpitating side;
Requiring that their virtuous gyrations
Shall interpose a space a furlong wide
Between the partners, lest their thoughts grow lewd--
So shall we satisfy the exacting Prude.

--_Israfel Brown_.

XII

OUR GRANDMOTHERS' LEGS

It is depressing to realize how little most of us know of the dancing of
our ancestors. I would give value to behold the execution of a coranto
and inspect the steps of a cinque-pace, having assurance that the
performances assuming these names were veritably identical with their
memorable originals. We possess the means of verifying somewhat as to
the nature of the minuet; but after what fashion did our revered
grandfather do his rigadoon and his gavot? What manner of thing was that
pirouet in the deft execution of which he felt an honest exultation? And
what were the steps of his contra (or country) and Cossack dances? What
tune was that--"The Devil amongst the Fiddlers"--for which he clamored,
to inspire his feats of leg?

In our fathers' time we read:

I wore my blue coat and brass buttons, very high in the neck, short
in the waist and sleeves, nankeen trousers and white silk stockings,
and a white waistcoat. I performed all the steps accurately and with