Danceny

“ It isn't dancing itself that's a sin, and I am not judging any of you; but I know in my heart that dancing and theatricals are wrong for me; they are the essentials of worldliness, those and horse-racing, and card-playing, and other things of the same sort. I want to keep clear of them all, as I know if I go in for any I shall be gradually more and more engrossed in them. And the very proof I have had to-night of how my taste for dancing has not gone, will make me keep right away from it for the future.'
'But why is it such a sin for you?' asked Nelly wonderingly. ”

“ Go and dance with Mary Mutlow if you want to, though you did say she danced like a pair of compasses, and I shall tell her you said so, too. And you know you're not a good dancer yourself. Are you going to dance with Mary?'
Paul stamped. 'I tell you I never dance,' he said. 'I can't dance any more than a lamp-post. You don't seem an ill-natured little girl, but why on earth can't you let me alone?'
Dulcie's eyes flashed. ”

“ A banquet, arranged with flowers, lamps, and ornaments, occupied the lower part of the dancing hall. The dancers amounted to between two and three hundred persons. The black ladies were, for the most part, well dressed, after the French mode, and many of them very fine. Some couples danced, with great dignity and precision, some exceedingly tiresome minuets. What a foolish dance it is when it is not danced with beauty by beautiful or charming people! ”

“ And from that vision of my past I turned in the sunset light of the present and began to walk slowly up the long avenue into my future. "I've never known anything but dancing and motoring and being happy, and how could that teach any woman what love is?" I queried as I stopped and picked up a small yellow flower out of a nest of green leaves that some sort of ancestral influence must have introduced to me as dandelion, for I had never really met one before. I felt a pale reflection of the glow I had experienced when I took the two warm pearls in my hands in the morning. ”

“ Once, among the curious crowd of inmates, there appeared a dancing-master. Her sister Fanny had a great desire to learn to dance, and seemed to have a taste that way. At thirteen years old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented herself to the dancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and said timidly, "If you please, I was born here, sir."
"Oh! You are the young lady, are you?" ”

“ It should also be recommended to the dancers of the minuet, ever to have an expression of that sort of gaity and chearfulness in the countenance, which will give it an amiable and even a noble frankness. Nothing can be more out of character, or even displeasing, than a froward or too pensive a look. There may be a sprightly vacancy, an openness in the face, without the least tincture of any indecent air of levity: as there may be a captivating modesty, without any of that bashfulness which arises either from low breeding, wrong breeding, or no breeding at all. ”

“ With courtly air the Black Knight approached the Queen, knelt before her, and begged that she would deign to be his partner in the dance. The charm of his voice and the modest yet dignified manner in which he proffered his request so touched the Queen that she stepped down from the dais and joined in the waltz. Never had she known a dancer with a lighter step or a more delightful gift of conversation. ”

“ You've seen her dance—in that white and crystal dress with the silver round her head—it's like the rhythm of Shelley's Hymn of Pan. When I look at her dancing, I long to dance with her; when I dance with her, I long to be looking at her. ”

“ From this dance the Princess soon made her escape, quite discontented, and went to the furthest part of the palace gardens, where she could no longer hear the music calling her.
'They are all right,' she said to herself as she thought of the men she had left, 'but they cannot dance. Mechanically they are all right; they have learned it and don't make childish mistakes; but they are only one-two-three machines. They haven't the inspiration of dancing. It is so different when I dance alone.'
She wandered on until she reached an old forsaken maze. ”

“ In dainty dance their supple sides and limbs Revealing and concealing like burst buds Which tell their colour, but hide yet their hearts. Never so matchless grace delighted eye As troop by troop these midnight-dancers swept Nearer the Tree, each daintier than the last, Murmuring, "O great Siddartha! I am thine, Taste of my mouth and see if youth is sweet!" Also, when nothing moved our Master's mind, Lo! Kama waved his magic bow, and lo! The band of dancers opened, and a shape Fairest and stateliest of the throng came forth Wearing the guise of sweet Yasodhara. ”

“ It chanced one day that the Burrowing-owls were having a great dance all to themselves, rather early in the morning. The dance they were engaged in was one peculiarly prized by them, requiring no little dexterity in its execution. Each dancer, young man or maiden, carried upon his or her head a bowl of foam, and though their legs were crooked and their motions disjointed, they danced to the whistling of some and the clapping beaks of others, in perfect unison, and with such dexterity that they never spilled a speck of the foam on their sleek mantles of dun-black feather-work. ”

“ If the merit of a theatrical dancer were to consist, as many imagine, in nothing but in the motions of the legs, in cutting lively or brilliant capers, in surprizing steps, in the agility of the body, in vigorous springs, in vaulting, in a tolerable management of the arms, and especially in being well acquainted with those parts of the stage where the perspective gives him the greatest advantage; the art of dancing might be, as it is generally looked upon to be, an art easily acquired. ”

“ But certainly it is not only to the professed dancer, that dancing in the serious stile, or the minuet, with grace and ease, is essential. The possessing this branch of dancing is of great service on the theatre, even to an actor. The effect of it steals into his manner, and gait, and gives him an air of presenting himself, that is sure to prepossess in his favor. Persons of every size or shape are susceptible of grace and improvement from it. ”

“ As a lady turns in the dance when it goes smoothest, moving round with lovely self-possession, and scarcely seeming to put one foot before the other, so turned the lady towards the water over the yellow and vermilion flowers, dropping her eyes gently as she came, and singing so that Dante could hear her. ”

“ I had washed away the stains of travel, and had put on my best frock, and Dance was pleased to say that I looked very nice, "though, perhaps, a trifle more old-fashioned than a girl of your age ought to look." Then she laid down a few rules for my guidance when in the presence of Lady Chillington, and led the way to the Green Saloon, I following with a timorous heart.
Dance flung open the folding-doors of the big room. "Miss Janet Hope to see your ladyship," she called out ”

“ The dancers were like cloth flowers on the millinery counters at Riland's big store. To be up there on the stage, her arms entwined with theirs, and dance back and forth with high kicks to the latest popular music would be the most wonderful thing in the world. Much better than being rich and riding around in an automobile. Of course everything at the Empire wasn't as good as the dancers. ”

“ According to the traditions of the man dancer, his entire being was transformed into mere feet and legs. His gaze and expression became cataleptic; his body, unbending above the waist, but as light as a cork, bobbed like the same cork dancing on the ripples of a running brook. The beat of his heels and toes pleased you like a snare-drum obligato. The performance ended with an amazing clatter of leather against wood that culminated in a sudden flat-footed stamp, leaving the dancer erect and as motionless as a pillar of the colonial portico of a mansion in a Kentucky prohibition town. ”

“ Every step in dancing has its name and value. But not one should be employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movements should be conformable to the expression required, and in harmony with one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with a graceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, and agility; just positions exhibited with ease, delicacy, and above all, with propriety, caracterise the masterly dancer, and in their union, give to his execution its due beauty. ”

“ Finally, when the dancer had apparently danced himself into a frenzy—when his gyrations had become so rapid that it almost made me giddy to look at him, and when his contortions of body grew so extravagant that it was difficult to say whether he was dancing on his head or on his heels—there flashed a sudden lightning-like gleam of the knife, and the head of the miserable victim fell to the ground, to be snatched up instantly and, with still twitching features, nailed between the feet of the body. ”

“ I know now that I never acted with greater cruelty than on that night when I kept her dancing. But even while she danced, there came to me some fear that I had misjudged her. I watched her from a corner of the ballroom. There was a great change in her. Her face seemed to me smaller, her eyes bigger, darker even, and luminous with some haunting look. ”

“ Here he made friends with an Indian girl whose name was Pretty-Dancing-Maiden who was the pride of her people. There was no sport she loved so much as dancing, and the graceful movements of her slender figure and dainty feet made all the people call her the best dancer in the village.
Whenever this maiden dressed for a dance Grey Woodpecker helped her paint her face 234with many colours. When she was ready he would hop a little distance off and, with his head on one side, say, "Pretty-Dancing-Maiden is more beautiful than any bird of the forest." ”

“ But the Little Dancer still spoke not. She danced faster and faster as the tears fell from her eyes.
The Bicycle-man did not notice how quickly her tears were falling.
"Your silence is a sad want of manners," he said. "Uncivility is far from attractive."
Still the little Dancer made no answer; she could not speak, she was crying so bitterly.
"Well, good-day," he said. "It is very evident that you did not pay the extra twopence for manners."
Then he left.
"Stop dancing," said the Little China Doll to the Little Dancer. "You are not in a fit state to dance. You will kill yourself." ”

“ Before Nathalie could decide whether the couplet meant only to count your threads at night while Polly was far away, the dancers had swung into place and were going through the minuet. With slow and stately measure they moved, ending each turn with the dipping, sweeping curtsy that has made that dance so graceful a reminder of the festivities of early days. ”

“ The ball was not very well executed, if one maybe allowed the expression, so long as they danced only slow dances; and yet there were as good dancers, and as beautiful women in this assembly, as were to be found in the whole world: but as their number was not great, they left the French, and went to country dances. When they had danced some time, the king thought fit to introduce his auxiliaries, to give the others a little respite; the queen's and the duchess's maids of honour were therefore called in to dance with the gentlemen. ”

“ The music becomes wilder, the shouts of the nonparticipants become louder, and the dancers begin to puff and blow and grunt strange sounds and exclamations, much like so many blacks playing at craps. Their queen, the while, is not idle. She continues to cast the varicolored flash powders into the fire, and many times the dancers are lost in the misty clouds that the brazier throws off. ”

“ Combe Ivy cries to him to wait for the horses, but no, We'll foot it,' says he, up hill and down dale as the crow flies, and if she hates me now without a cause I swear she'll love me with one at the end of the dance.' We're dancing them as far as the Wildbrooks; on t'other side they may dance for themselves. Here they come dancing—dance, you! ”

“ The peasants who went dancing by in picturesque costumes, and the finely formed women walking erect with vases of water on their heads, or drawing an even thread from their distaffs, as they went singing along, furnished her memory with subjects for many a picture. Sometimes her exclamations would attract the attention of a group of dancers, who, pleased with an exuberance of spirits akin to their own, and not unmindful of forthcoming coin, would beckon to the driver to stop, while they repeated their dances for the amusement of the Signorina. ”

“ Oh, she's dressed as—as Lady Garnett! What a lot of people—real people, you know—there are here to-night! Dear me, there's the music again already. I believe I've got to dance this time. I do hope my partner's dress won't clash with mine too awfully. That's the worst of fancy dress balls; they really ought to be stage-managed by a painter, and the period ought to be limited. One's never safe. Our dance, Mr. Copal? Number six? Yes, I think it must be! A polka? Then we'll waltz! ”

“ Love thought Dainty looked more lovely than he had ever seen her to-night, in her soft white gown with a bunch of dewy white lilies at her waist and a wreath of them around her white chip hat, making up such a simple, lovely costume that Olive and Ela had been wild with envy, despite their own shimmering silks, and gay hats loaded with artificial flowers. ”