Dancing room

“ And every panel of the room was just A mirrored door through which a hand was thrust Here, there, around the room, a soul to seize Whereat a scream would rise, but no surcease Of music or of dancing, save by him Drawn through the mirrored panel to the dim And unknown space behind the flashing mirrors, And by his partner struck through by the terrors Of sudden loss. And looking I could see That scarcely any dancer here could free His eyes from off the mirrors, but would gaze Upon himself or others, till a craze Shone in his eyes thus to anticipate The hand that took each dancer soon or late. ”

“ Unless a house has a ballroom the room selected for dancing must have all the furniture moved out of it; and if there are adjoining rooms and the dancing room is not especially big, it adds considerably to the floor space to put no chairs around it. Those who dance seldom sit around a ballroom anyway, and the more informal grouping of chairs in the hall or library is a better arrangement than the wainscot row or wall-flower exposition grounds. ”

“ A bowl of lemonade or punch should be placed in the dancing-room, for dancing is thirsty work, and often warm work if the hostess is not wise enough to keep her dancing-room full of fresh air, really cold air, till her guests arrive. Instead of the old-time receiving line the modern hostess asks some of the girls or young matrons to assist her at the dance, and upon these devolves the duty of seeing that other girls are not wallflowers, and that even stout matrons have partners. Also, that there is some one to introduce the shy man to the shy girl, and see that they have tea and cakes. ”

“ The waltz ended, these two dancing till the final chord, he took her for the conventional scamper through anteroom and tea-room, which communicated with each other by a canvas corridor, delightfully cool and dangerously draughty, and so back to the ball-room, where he restored her to the worthy lady in the red gown, with whom sat the younger Marchant girls, who were glad to dance one dance out of three; like those hunting men of modest pretensions who were satisfied with a day a week. ”

“ We found ourselves in a dark narrow passage empty of everything but cloak- and hat-pegs. A door [27] at the further end opened straight into the dancing-room.
The former studio had been decorated in a fashion evidently meant to recall the Arabian Nights Entertainment. Vistas of Moorish arches and fountains playing among palms and oleanders had been painted on the walls. At intervals wooden columns had been set up to support curtains of gauze embroidered so as to afford a half concealment to the nooks that they enclosed. ”

“ The musician now played fiercer and fiercer, and bobbed his head and His nightcap about like mad. By degrees the dancing mania seemed to seize upon all the other pieces of furniture. The antique, long-bodied chairs paired off in couples and led down a country dance; a three-legged stool danced a hornpipe, though horribly puzzled by its supernumerary leg; while the amorous tongs seized the shovel round the waist, and whirled it about the room in a German waltz. ”

“ At a door, behind which dance music beat, she waited for him and together they debouched into a large, studiolike room, cleared in the center for dancing, and remarkable, as to its perimeter, for its convenient nooks. ”

“ You see, on the Saturday of the dance, folks have to move out the beds and dresser and table—or whatever stuff they've got in their front room—to sorta clear the floor so there'll be plenty of space for dancing. All they leave is three or four straight chairs over in the corner for the fiddlers. And sometimes the lady of the house spreads a thick layer of white sand on the floor, just before everybody gets there. That way, she can get her floors tramped clean while the dancing is going on! Soon as the musicians come, they tune up. ”

“ And such is the craze for dancing, morning, noon and night, that every other room one enters has the aspect of a salle de bal—chairs and sofas stiff against the walls, a piano at one end, and, for the rest, shining parquetry. ”

“ A very long and narrow room is obviously of the worst shape for the purpose of dancing, and is fit only for quadrilles and country dances.
The top of the ball-room is the part nearest the orchestra. In a private room, the top is where it would be if the room were a dining-room. It is generally at the farthest point from the door. Dancers should be careful to ascertain the top of the room before taking their places, as the top couples always lead the dances.
A good floor is of the last importance in a ball-room. ”

“ But dancing is indispensable in a ball-room. If a man cannot dance he should stay away, and not make an object of himself. Unfortunately, so many think they excel in the art when they have not the least idea of it. Again, with girls, dancing (in a ball-room only, of course) comes before charm of manner, before wit, even before beauty. I know girls, absolutely plain, with not a word to say for themselves, who dance every dance, while the walls of the room are lined with pretty faces, and dismal-looking enough they are too, which is very foolish of them. ”

“ The ball room was decorated as if for a distribution of prizes. The musicians, seated upon raised benches, played false with distressing self-assurance; but when it is a question of dancing, the ladies are always indulgent. ”

“ This makes good wind for dancing, and all dancers need lots of wind; you have to have it, you have to call for lots of breath when you dance rapidly or long. Start in right now, and by the time you have a stage engagement you will be prepared with a bellows that will furnish all the air you call for—and meanwhile watch your skin and your complexion put on the clear, healthy, beautiful appearance that every woman envies. The air in this room, as in any room, is not entirely free of impurities; it is not the best air for your breathing exercises. ”

“ The dancing-hall is the great room of the building. All that the taste, art and wealth of that day could do, was done to make it a splendid apartment, and it would pass muster still as a comfortable and respectable salon. As we pass out, you may decipher the short prayer cut in the wasting stone over a side portal, "God Save the Vernons." I hope this prayer has been favorably answered; for history records much virtue in the family, mingled with some romantic escapades, which have contributed, I believe, to the entertainment of many novel readers. ”

“ “I keep a band of music in my ante-room,” he said once to her. “It has orders to play without stopping; it renders me two excellent services. It keeps the sounds of the world from reaching the private apartments, and it makes the world think that dancing’s going on within.” ”

“ After several days' dancing and gorging indoors, a crowd collects, to the sound of the drums, outside the habitation. The lay figure is from the room transported either directly outside the dwelling or to some picturesque spot in the woods. This is generally on the fourth day. Bowls with food are placed in front of it, and the dancing is begun, to a curious sentimental strain, with a graceful series of contortions, by girls and women waving large pieces of white material. The legs keep time with the arms, and each leg is alternately bent at the knee until it nearly touches the ground. ”

“ A large Drawing Room very fine, and well lighted up, and so many Children of all Ages down to Babies almost as I think I did never before, altogether in one room, see. Pretty to see how the little Boys and Girls dance when Mynheer Schlamm thump and bang the Piano, and some of the very smallest taught to dance nearly as soon as they could walk, and how they stand in Position and point their Toes with heels close together, and arms hanging down, as they do when the Dancing-Master teach them their dancing Lessons. ”

“ When all are seated, the leader, as briefly and clearly as possible, explains the figure to be danced, and calls the requisite number of dancers to the floor, beginning at the head of the line. The couples thus designated dance once 140 around the room and then perform the figure as directed, which is repeated until all have danced. The leader should be constantly on the floor, directing and assisting where it is necessary to do so. ”

“ Have you not sometimes noted,
When we unlock some long-disuséd room
With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,
Where never foot of man has come for years,
And from the windows take the rusty bar,
And fling the broken shutters to the air,
And let the bright sun in, how the good sun
Turns every grimy particle of dust
Into a little thing of dancing gold?
Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,
But you have let love in, and with its gold
Gilded all life. ”

“ Everything in the ballroom should suggest gayety, light and beauty. The floor, of course, is the most important detail. A polished hardwood floor offers the most pleasing surface for dancing. If the wood seems sticky, paraffine wax adds a smoothness that actually tempts one to dance.
Flowers are always pleasing. Huge ferns may grace unexpected corners and greens may add a festive note, if the hostess so desires. ”

“ The room where they were dancing was very dark. . . . It was queer to be in his arms. . . . She had known better dancers. . . . He had looked ill. . . . Perhaps he was. . . . Oh, poor Valentine-Elisabeth. . . . What a funny position! . . . The good gramophone played. . . . Destiny! . . . You see, father! . . . In his arms! . . . Of course, dancing is not really. . . . But so near the real thing! So near! . . . "Good luck to the special intention! . . ." She had almost kissed him on the lips. . . . All but! . . . Effleurer, the French call it. . . . But she was not as humble. . . . ”

“ Shall we leave him in his perplexity, and, standing on the stair leading down into the salle de danse, where a dense crowd, in every imaginable dress, is jostled together, endeavouring to dance, and, looking on, admire the sober, judge-like gravity of several men—authors, artists, men of the highest rank, semi-disguised—who are dancing the most grotesque figures without a smile on their countenances? ”

“ The dance hall, both winter and summer types, have had a deteriorating effect upon the old-fashioned dancing academy. Formerly these were respectable establishments where people paid for dancing lessons. Now they are a mélange of dancing classes and public entertainments. The dancing masters, unable to compete with the dance hall proprietors, have been obliged to transfer many of the dance hall features to their establishments. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the middle, upon a small dancing floor, rudely octagonal in shape, made smaller by tables crowded round its edge to accommodate the crush, a mob of couples danced arduously, close-locked in one another's arms, swaying in rhythm with the over-emphasized time beaten out by a perspiring little band of musicians on a dais in a far corner, their activities directed by an antic conductor whose lantern-jawed, sallow face peered grotesquely out through a mop of hair as black and coarse and lush as a horse's mane. ”

“ They visited various smoke-hung dancing halls, decorated for the most part with oleographs and cracked mirrors, in which sickly-Looking young men of unwholesome aspect were dancing with their feminine counterparts. ”

“ The dancing of young people is as natural and instinctive as their laughing and singing, and the old Easy Chairs about the wall might as wisely quarrel with the song of the bobolink in the fields as with the dance upon the floor. ”

“ Other rows of women, with their hoods turned inside out in sign of mourning, danced gracefully in circles round the dressed-up figure, left the house by one door in the basement, described an arc in the open, and returned by another door, while men were dancing a doleful dance outside the house. ”

“ Not the staccato propulsion of the "Doll Dance" which, as she observed the swaying pairs, seemed a classroom exercise taught by Miss Klemper, an old maid. She wanted to dance the long free step and whirl of the one-step.
Ballroom dancing is more fun than ballet, she thought. Maybe I ought to be a ballroom dancer like Irene Castle. It's easier too. These women are terrible dancers. What fat behinds. I wonder if it's all right to smile at one of the men so he will ask me to dance? ”

“ To mind their steps, and at the same time their dresses, lest they should be trod upon, to keep full pace with the music, to make all the proper turns at every proper time, and to have the foot fall on the floor at the exact instant; all this is enough, without further excitement. You will see a girl dancing with a man as though the man were a chair, or a stick, or some necessary piece of furniture. ”

“ 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! ”