"So she looks into her heart, and lo! VacucÆ sedes et 'mania arcana * * * And the man is himself, and the woman herself, that dream of love is over as everything else is over in life, as flowers and fury, as griefs and pleasures are over."

Thackeray.

"Wir haben lang genug geliebt, und wollen endlich hassen.", George Herwegh.

ut this "innocent amusement" entails worse consequences than these. It is the high-road to the divorce court, it has brought strife and misery into ten thousand happy homes; truly it is the "abomination that maketh desolation."

Take the case of the poor, dull, stupid Benedick who, like Byron with his club foot, dances not at all. He is a splendid man of business, perhaps, and is highly respected on change; but here, in the ball-room, what is he? A dolt, a ninny, an old fogy, a nuisance—to be snubbed and slighted by the woman he calls wife for every brainless popingay who "dances divinely." He has been proud to toil from day to day to be able to purchase costly apparel with which to adorn this far better half of his; now he has the felicity of seeing the fine fruits of his labor dangled about the legs of another man; he had supposed her the "wife of his bosom," yet, behold! she reclines most lovingly on the bosom of another; she is the mother of his children, yet as she quivers in her partner's arms, her face is troubled with

"The half-told wish and ill-dissembled flame."

He has pride enough to attempt to look interested, and to affect ignorance of his own shame, but the sham is apparent. Note how uneasily he sits upon the benches provided for such "wallflowers" as himself. Anyone who will take the trouble to observe him, can see that his heart is not in the waltz in which his spouse is taking such a lively interest. Approach him, now, and tell him that it is a very nice party, and that he seems to be enjoying himself. "Oh very nice," he answers with a ghastly grin intended for a smile, "I am enjoying it greatly." But now incidentally remark that after all you have no great liking for these "fancy dances," and see how quickly a fellow-feeling will make him wondrous confidential, as he answers:

"To tell the truth, I don't like them at all."

Perhaps you have known him when a bachelor and have seen him dance then. You mention this fact.

"O yes," he answers, "of course I used to dance; but can't you see that there is a mighty deal of difference between hugging other people's wives and daughters to music, and taking your own wife to a place where every fellow can press her to his bosom and dangle his legs among her petticoats? No, sir, I do not like it, and if my wife thought as I do about it, there would be no more dancing in our family. 'I would rather be a toad and feed on the damp vapor of a dungeon, than keep a corner in the thing I love for others' uses.'"

Follow the conversation up and you will find that if ever Sorrow mocked a festival by its presence it is in the person of this man. He is not jealous, he is outraged; all the finer feelings of his nature are trampled under foot, he is grieved and deeply wounded beyond recovery.

This is the beginning of the end; she is never the same woman to him hereafter; he may smile and appear careless, but none the less has that tiny satin slipper crushed all the fresh love from his heart. The second volume of his Book of Life is opened; the first chapter thereof being headed "Estrangement," and the last "Divorce."

And this is not an exceptional case; the writer will venture the assertion that out of every fifty husbands who have dancing wives, there are at least a dozen who if spoken frankly to upon the subject would express themselves in terms of most bitter condemnation.

And what kind of men are those who do not object to see their wives made common property in this manner? Well, there is your weak good-natured husband, who would willingly suffer any personal annoyance rather than thwart the wishes of his beloved wife, no matter how ill-advised those wishes may be.

The writer is personally acquainted with a young and newly-married man, whose experience will illustrate what I have just said, though it is true that eventually came to see the error of his ways. He had the misfortune to marry a lady who was excessively fond of dancing. He had never learned to waltz himself, but finding it impossible to remain a looker-on he determined to acquire a knowledge of the intoxicating art. He, poor fool, imagined that when he had conquered the first elements of the dance, his wife would take particular pleasure in attending to his further instruction. Picture, then, his surprise and disgust when on making his dÉbut in the ball-room he found that his wife would avail herself of every pretext to leave him to shift for himself—a conspicuous object for commiseration of the experts—while she accepted the amorous attentions of every clodhopper who possessed the divine accomplishment.

Were I, dear reader, to reproduce his exact words in giving expression to his indignation at and contempt for an institution the effect of which is to ignore the relations of husband and wife, and exalt the accomplishments of the heel over those of the head and heart, you would be shocked beyond measure.

All his happiness was centred in this one woman; her good opinion was the dearest thing on earth to him. When therefore he found himself unable to partake with her of the pleasures of the dance, he tortured himself to acquire an art which in itself had no attraction for him, merely because he thought it would render him more pleasing in her sight. We have seen the manner in which she encouraged his first attempts; but the wrong was to be deeper yet. Content that her pleasure should not be spoiled by his bad dancing, he allowed her to choose her own partners, while he applied himself vigorously to his self-appointed task of learning to waltz "like an angel." Exactly how he achieved this end is not quite clear. He was not seen to practice much at the fashionable gatherings he attended with his wife; he was too sensitive to ridicule for that. Perhaps, like Socrates in his old age, he found some underground Aspasia who was willing to give him lessons in the art. But however this may be, certain it is that before long he had acquired a degree of proficiency which was quite surprising. Now, he triumphantly thought, his fond wife could have all the "Boston Dip" necessary for her "healthful exercise and recreation" without submitting her charms to the embrace of comparative strangers.

Alas, for his hopes! After walking through the stately opening quadrille with the "partner of his joys," he discovered that as though by magic her card had been filled by the young bloods who clustered about her; and then for the first time he was informed that after introducing his wife to the floor it was a breach of etiquette to monopolize her any further—he must either sit content to see her whirl, spitted on the same bodkin with men he had never seen before, or must turn his own skill to the best account and

"Give—like her—caresses to a score."

It is more than likely that he adopted the latter course—most of his class do.

Those wives who are so eager, for various reasons of their own, that their husbands should learn to dance, might draw a wholesome lesson from the story of Caribert, king of Paris, whose wife Ingoberge would fain prevent him from spending so much time in the hunting-field.

To this end she prepared a series of splendid festivities, which she induced her lord to attend. Now, fairest and most graceful among the dancers were two sisters of surpassing beauty, named MÉroflÈde and MarcovÈre. Having, at his queen's express solicitation, essayed the "light fantastic" with these ladies, the good Caribert, who had before no thought for any woman but his wife, suddenly became so enamored with the skill and grace of the sisters, that he not only forswore the chase forever, but with all possible despatch divorced Ingoberge and married first MÉroflÈde and then MarcovÈre.

And thus it is that this demon creeps between the husband and the wife, and sooner or later separates their hearts forever. The sturdy oak may laugh at the entering of the wedge, but his mighty trunk will nevertheless be riven asunder by it in the end.

But there is one other type of ballroom husband, whose portrait must not be omitted. This is the miserable, simpering, smirking creature who fully appreciates the privilege of being permitted to furnish, in the person of his wife, a a well draped woman for other men's amusement; who has an idea that the lascivious embraces bestowed upon his wife are an indirect compliment to himself; who is only too happy to be a cooler to other men's lust in the ball-room, and is content to enjoy a kind of matrimonial aftermath in the nuptial chamber. Can any human being fall lower than this?

Old Fenton has told us that flattery "supples the toughest fool," but I regard the man who thus willingly resigns his wife to the palming of these ball-room satyrs, merely because her beauty and gorgeous raiment bring notice upon him as the owner of so splendid an article—I regard this beast as a pander of the vilest kind; and a most foolish pander withal, for he simply purchases the title of cuckold at the price of his own dishonor and his wife's open shame. He loves to hear it said that she "dances divinely," though he knows that the horns on his forehead are plainer to none than to the fellow who tells him so. Bah! In the words of Mallet,

"He who can listen pleased to such applause

Buys at a dearer rate than I dare purchase."

The budding horns affixed to the husband's pow in the fierce light of the ballroom have not the simple dignity of even the most towering antlers prepared by the "neat-handed Phyllis" of his heart in the domestic seclusion and subdued half-lights of a house of assignation. In the one case he poses as a suppliant for honors to mark his importunity; in the other his coronation is the unsought reward of modest merit. The Waltz may not make such despicable creatures as I have described above, but it at least affords them an opportunity to parade their own degradation.

But the modern Terpsichore has to answer for, if possible, still worse consequences than the seducing of our maids, the debauching of our young men, the prostitution of our wives, and the debasing of human nature, both male and female. She is worse than a procuress, there is blood upon her skirts, she is a murderess.

From the day when Herodias danced John the Baptist's head into a trencher the dance has been the cause of violence and bloodshed. The hate and jealousy which smoulder within the breast of the rejected lover, and which he is struggling to extinguish, burst into flame at the sight of her he loves folded in ecstacy upon the breast of his rival. His cup was already full—this is more than he can bear.

We may pass by Venetian masquerade and Spanish fandango—where the knife of the avenger sends the victim's, blood spurting into the face of his partner—and may look nearer home, at our fashionable "hops" and "sociables," where, though the Vendetta may not be carried out upon the floor (and instances of this are not lacking) it is nevertheless declared, and where, though no mute form be borne out from the ball-room to the grave, the dance is none the less a veritable Dance of Death—a dance of murdered love and slain friendship, of stabbed and bleeding hearts, of crushed hopes and blighted prospects, of ruined virtue and of betrayed trust.

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