"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves."

—Epistle to the Romans.

lready I see the face of the reader grow red with indignation. "This is a calumniator, an infamous detractor, an envious pessimist, a hater of all that is innocently enjoyable!" cries he or she. Very well—I bow my acknowledgements for the compliment. I have already stated in my preface that I did not expect you to say anything else. I could be well content to tell what I know and let you say your say in peace, but I will nevertheless go somewhat out of my way to answer your principal objections.

In the first place, there are certainly many who will deny my charges in toto—who will declare that the waltz is very moral and healthful, and entirely innocent and harmless, and that he who puts it in any other light is a knave and a vile slanderer. These of my opponents I may divide into two classes: First, those who know nothing of the matter, who have never danced, have scarcely ever seen a modern waltz, and are consequently unwilling to believe that such terrible things could be going on in their very midst without their knowledge; and, secondly, those who do know and practice the abomination, and find "the fruit of the tree of knowledge" far too sweet to be hedged about as "forbidden."

To the first of these classes I have little to say; it is composed mainly of "old fogies," the diversions of whose youth were innocent, and who can see no evil that does not sprawl in all its ugliness over the face of the community. If a courtesan accosted one of them on the street, they would be unutterably shocked, and so they certainly would if they on a sudden found themselves experiencing the "perfect waltz," though even then it is doubtful if they would not be shocked into dumbness and grieved into inaction. But of the veiled and subtle pleasures of the waltz they are profoundly ignorant—why should they not be? They see no harm in it because they don't see it at all; they are optimists through ignorance, and lift palms of deprecation at the mention of vice which they cannot understand or attain to. To these I say: open your eyes and look about you, even at the risk of seeing things not exactly as you fancied them to be; or, if you will remain obstinately blind, then pray do not deny that evil exists where you do not happen to see it with your eyes shut. I have painted the picture, you can compare it with the reality at your leisure.

To the second class that I have mentioned, namely, those who know and deny what they know, a far stronger condemnation is to be applied. It is composed of the dancers * par excellence, both male and female—who have tasted of the unholy pleasures of the waltz until it has become the very sap of their lives. These are the blushing rakes and ogling prudes who will be most bitter in their denunciation of this book and its author; and no wonder—I only oppose the prejudices of the others, but I contend with the passions of these. These it is who are forever prating of the beauties and virtues of the waltz. It is an "innocent recreation," a "healthful exercise," it is the "mother of grace" and the "poetry of motion;" no eulogy can be too extravagant for them to bestow upon their idol. They see no harm in it, not they, and for those who dare hint at such a thing, they have ever ready at their tongue's end that most convenient and abused of legends: Honi soit qui mal y pense. They will catch at any straw to defend their pet amusement. They will tell you that The Preacher says "there is a time to dance," without stopping to inquire why that ancient cynic put the words "there is a time to mourn" in such close proximity. They will inform you that Plato, in his Commonwealth, will have dancing-schools to be maintained, "that young folks may meet, be acquainted, see one another, and be seen," but they forget to mention that he will also have them dance naked, or to quote the comments of Eusebius and Theodoret upon Plato's plan. They think the secret of their great respect for the waltz is possessed only by themselves, and hug the belief that by them that secret shall never be divulged. Bah! They must dance with the gas out if there is to be any secrecy in the matter.

Innocent and healthful recreation forsooth! The grotesque abominations of the old Phallic worship had a basis of clean and wholesome truth, but as the obscene rites of that worship desecrated the principle that inspired them, so do the pranks of the "divine waltz" libel the impulse that stirs its wriggling devotees. The fire that riots in their veins and the motive that actuates their haunches is an honest flame and a decent energy when honestly and decently invoked, but if blood and muscle would be pleased to indulge their impotent raptures in private, the warmer virtues would not be subjected to open caricature, nor the colder to downright outrage.

What do I mean by such insinuations? Nay, then, gentle reader, I will not insinuate, but will boldly state that with the class with which I am now dealing—the dancers par excellence, the modern waltz is not merely "suggestive," as its opponents have hitherto charitably styled it, but an open and shameless gratification of sexual desire and a cooler of burning lust. To lookers-on it is "suggestive" enough, Heaven knows, but to the dancers—that is to say, to the "perfect dancers"—it is an actual realization of a certain physical ecstacy which should at least be indulged in private, and, as some would go so far as to say, under matrimonial restrictions. And this is the secret to which I have alluded. It cannot even be claimed as private property any longer.

"For shame!" cries the horrified (and non-waltzing) reader; "how can you make such dreadfully false assertions! And who are these 'perfect dancers' you talk so much about? And how came you to know their 'secret' as you term it? Surely no woman of even nominal decency would make such a horrible confession, and yet the most immaculate women waltz, and waltz divinely!"

By your leave, I will answer these questions one at a time. Who are these "perfect waltzers?" Of the male sex there are several types, of which I need only mention two.

The first is your lively and handsome young man—a Hercules in brawn and muscle—who exults in his strength and glories in his manhood. Dancing comes naturally to him, as does everything else that requires grace and skill. He is a ruthless hunter to whom all game is fair. The gods have made him beautiful and strong, and the other sex recognize and appreciate the fact. Is it to be expected of Alcibiades that he scorn the Athenian lasses, or of Phaon the Fair that he avoid the damsels of Mytelene? No indeed! it is for the husband and father to take care of the women—he can take care of himself. Yet even this gay social pirate and his like might take a hint from the poet:

"But ye—who never felt a single thought

For what our morals are to be, or ought;

Who wisely wish the charms you view to reap,

Say—would you make those beauties quite so cheap?"

But this fine animal is by no means the most common or degraded type of ball-room humanity. It would be perhaps better if he were. In his mighty embrace a woman would at least have the satisfaction of knowing that she was dancing with a wholesome creature, however destitute he might be of the finer feelings that go to make up what is called a man.

No, the most common type of the male "perfect dancer" is of a different stamp. This is the blockhead who covers his brains with his boots—to whom dancing is the one serious practical employment of life, and who, it must be confessed, is most diligent and painstaking in his profession. He is chastity's paramour—strong and lusty in the presence of the unattainable, feeble-kneed and trembling in the glance of invitation; in pursuit a god, in possession an incapable—satyr of dalliance, eunuch of opportunity. This creature dances divinely. He has given his mind to dancing, has never got it back, and is the richer for that. He haunts "hops" and balls because his ailing virility finds a feast in the paps and gruels of love there dispensed. It is he to whose contaminating embrace your wi—I mean your neighbor's wife or daughter, dear reader, is oftenest surrendered, to whet his dulled appetite for strong meats of the bagnio—nay to coach him for offences that must be nameless here. She performs her function thoroughly, conscientiously, wholly—merges her identity in his, and lo! the Beast with two Backs!

A pretty picture is it not?—-the Grand Passion Preservative dragged into the blaze of gas to suffer pious indignities at the hand of worshippers who worship not wisely, but too well! The true Phallos set up at a cross-roads to receive the homage of strolling dogs—male and female created he them! Bah! these orgies are the spawn of unmannerly morals. They profane our civilization, and are an indecent assault upon common sense. It is nearly as common as the dance itself, to hear the male participants give free expression, loose tongued, to the lewd emotions, the sensual pleasure, in which they indulge when locked in the embrace of your wives and daughters; if this be true, if by any possibility it can be true, that a lady however innocent in thought is exposed to lecherous comments of this description, then is it not also true that every woman possessing a remnant of delicacy, will flee from the dancing-hall as from a pestilence.

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