ON THE MANAGEMENT OF THE PERSON IN DANCING, AND IN THE EXERCISE OF OTHER FEMALE ACCOMPLISHMENTS.
On with the dance! let joy be unconfined.
Childe Harold.
It is vain to expend large sums of money and large portions of time in the acquirement of accomplishments, unless some attention be also paid to the attainment of a certain grace in their exercise, which though a circumstance distinct from themselves, is the secret of their charms and pleasure-exciting quality.
As dancing is the accomplishment most calculated to display a fine form, elegant taste, and graceful carriage, to advantage; so towards it, our regards must be particularly turned; and we shall find that when Beauty, in all her power, is to be set forth, she cannot choose a more effective exhibition.
By the exhibition, it must not be understood that I mean to insinuate anything like that scenic exhibition which we may expect from professors of the art, who often, regardless of modesty, not only display the symmetry of their persons, but indelicately expose them, by most improper dresses and attitudes, on the public stage. What I propose by calling dancing an elegant mode of showing a fine form to advantage, has nothing more in it, than to teach the lovely young woman to move unembarrassed and with peculiar grace through the mazes of a dance, performed either in a private circle, or public ball.
It must always be remembered, and it cannot be too often repeated, “That whatever it is worth while to do, it is worth while to do well.” Therefore, as all times and nations have deemed dancing a salubrious, decorous, and beautiful exercise, or rather happy pastime and celebration of festivity, I cannot but regard it with particular complacency. Dancing carries with it a banquet, alike for taste and feeling. The spectator of a well-ordered English ball sees, at one view, in a number of elegant young women, every species of female loveliness. He beholds the perfection of personal proportion. They are attired with all the gay habiliments of fashion and of fancy; and their harmonious and agile movements unfold to him, at every turn, the ever-varying, ever-charming grace of motion.
Thus far his senses only are gratified. But the pleasure stops not there. His best feelings receive their share also. He looks on each gay countenance, he sees hilarity in every step; he listens to their delightful converse, communicated by snatches; and, with a pleasure sympathizing with theirs, he cannot but acknowledge that dancing is one of the most innocent and rational, as well as the most elegant, amusements of youth.
It is indeed the favorite pastime of nature. We find it in courts, we meet it on the village green. Here the rustic swain whispers his ardent suit to his blushing maid, while his beating heart bounds against hers in the swift wheel of the rapid dance. There the polished courtier breathes a soft sigh into the ear of the lady of his vows, as he and she timidly entwine their arms in the graceful allemande. But dancing has been appropriated to higher purposes than these; it formed a part of the religious ceremonies of the Jews.
In every age of fashion but the present, dancing was as much expected from young persons of both sexes, as that they should join in smiles when mutually pleased. In days of yore, in the most polite eras of Greece and Rome, and of the chivalrous ages, we find that dancing was a favorite amusement with the first ranks of men. Kings, heroes, and unbearded youth, alike mingled in the graceful exercise. Even in our own island, we read of the splendid balls given by our Plantagenets and Tudors; and that every prince and nobleman contended in happy rivalry who should best acquit themselves in the dance. Here it was that the royal Harry lost his heart to the lovely Anna Bullen, and in such scenes did the gallant lords of his virgin daughter’s court breathe out their souls at the feet of British beauty.
Such was the court of England! but now, where is “the merry dance, the mirth-awakening viol?” In vain our princes led forth their royal sisters and the fairest ladies in the land to celebrate, with festive steps, the birth-day; our noble youth, smit with a love of grave folly, abandon the ball for the gaming-table. The elegant society of the fair is disregarded and exchanged for fellowship with grooms and masters of the whip. Shame on them! I cannot descant farther on such vulgar desertion of all that is lovely and decorous.
Besides the royal brothers, a few yet remain amongst the young men of our higher ranks, who, in this respect, set a worthy example to the youth of inferior stations; and them we still meet at the assemblies of taste, moving with propriety and elegance in the social dance. To make acceptable partners in the minuet, cotillon, &c. with these yet loyal votaries of Terpsichore, I beg leave to offer a few hints to my gentle readers.
Extraordinary as it may seem, at a period when dancing is so entirely neglected by men in general, women appear to be taking the most pains to acquire the art. Our female youth are now not satisfied with what used to be considered a good dancing-master; that is, one who made teaching his sole profession; but now our girls must be taught by the leading dancers at the opera-house.
The consequence is, when a young lady rises to dance, we no longer see the graceful, easy step of the gentlewoman, but the labored, and often indelicate exhibition of the posture-mistress.—Dances from ballets are introduced; and instead of the jocund and beautifully-organized movements of hilarity in concord, we are shocked by the most extravagant theatrical imitations. The chaste minuet is banished; and, in place of dignity and grace, we behold strange wheelings on one leg, stretching out the other till our eye meets the garter; and a variety of endless contortions, fitter for the zenana of an Eastern satrap, or the gardens of Mahomet, than the ball-room of an Englishwoman of quality and virtue.
These ballet dances are, we now see, generally attempted. I may say attempted, for not one young woman in five hundred, can, from the very nature of the thing, after all her study, perform them better than could be done any day by the commonest figurante on the stage. We all know, that to be a fine opera-dancer, requires unremitting practice, and a certain disciplining of the limbs, which hardly any private gentlewoman would consent to undergo. Hence, ladies can never hope to arrive at any comparison with even the poorest public professor of the art; and therefore, to attempt the extravagancies of it, is as absurd as it is indelicate.
The utmost in dancing to which a gentlewoman ought to aspire, is an agile and graceful movement of her feet, an harmonious motion with her arms, and a corresponding easy carriage of her whole body. But, when she has gained this proficiency, should she find herself so unusually mistress of the art as to be able, in any way, to rival the professors by whom she has been taught, she must ever hold in mind, that the same style of dancing is not equally proper for all kinds of dances.
For instance, the English country-dance and the French cotillon require totally different movements. I know that it is a common thing to introduce all the varieties of opera-steps into the simple figure of the former. This ill-judged fashion is inconsistent with the character of the dance, and consequently so destroys the effect, that no pleasure is produced to the eye of the judicious spectator by so discordant an exhibition. The characteristic of an English country-dance is that of gay simplicity. The steps should be few and easy, and the corresponding motion of the arms and body unaffected, modest, and graceful.
Before I go further on the subject, I cannot but stop a little to dwell more particularly on the necessity there is for more attention than we usually find paid to the management of the arms, and general person, in dancing.
In looking on at a ball, perhaps you will see that every woman, in a dance of twenty couple, moves her feet with sufficient attention to beauty and elegance; but, with regard to the deportment, of the rest of the person, most likely you will not discover one in a hundred who seems to know more about it than the most uncultivated damsel that ever jogged at a village wake.
I cannot exactly describe what it is that we see in the carriage of our young ladies in the dance; for it is difficult to point out a want by any other expression than a negative. But it is only requisite for my readers to recall to memory the many inanimate, ungraceful forms, from the waist upwards, that they nightly see at balls, and I need not describe more circumstantially.
For these ladies to suppose that they are fine dancers because they execute a variety of difficult steps with ease and precision, is a great mistake. The motion of the feet is but half the art of dancing; the other, and indeed the most conspicuous part, lies in the movement of the body, arms, and head. Here elegance must be conspicuous.
The body should always be poised with such ease as to command a power of graceful undulation, in harmony with the motion of the limbs in the dance. Nothing is more ugly than a stiff body and neck during this lively exercise. The general carriage should be elevated and light; the chest thrown out, the head easily erect, but flexible to move with every turn of the figure; and the limbs should be all braced and animated with the spirit of motion, which seems ready to bound through the very air. By this elasticity pervading the whole person when the dancer moves off, her flexible shape will gracefully sway with the varied steps of her feet; and her arms, instead of hanging loosely by her side, or rising abruptly and squarely up to take hands with her partner, will be raised in beautiful and harmonious unison and time with the music and the figure; and her whole person will thus exhibit to the delighted eye perfection in beauty, grace, and motion.
This attention to the movement of the general figure, and particularly to that of the arms (for with them is the charm of elegant action,) though, in a moderated degree, is equally applicable to the English country dance and the Scotch reel, as to the minuet, the cotillon, and other French dances.
A general idea of natural grace, in all dances, being laid down as a first principle in this elegant art, I shall suggest a few remarks on the leading characters of each style; and from them, I hope, my fair friends will be able to gather some rules which may serve them as useful auxiliaries to the lessons of their dancing-master.
The English country-dance, as its very name implies, consists of simplicity and cheerfulness; hence the female who engages in it, must aim at nothing more, in treading its easy mazes, than executing a few simple steps with unaffected elegance. Her body, her arms, the turn of her head, the expression of her countenance, all must bear the same character of negligent grace, of elegant activity, of decorous gaiety.
The Scotch reel has steps appropriated to itself, and in the dance can never be displaced for those of France, without an absurdity too ridiculous even to imagine without laughing. There are no dancers in the world more expressive of inward hilarity and happiness than the Scotch are, when performing in their own reels. The music is sufficient—so jocund are its sounds—to set a whole company on their feet in a moment, and to dance with all their might, till it ceases, like people bit by the tarantula. Hence, as the character of reels is merriment, they must be performed with much more joyance of manner than even the country-dance; and, therefore, they are better adapted, as society is now constituted, to the social private circle, than to the public ball. They demand a frankness of deportment, an undisguised jocularity, which few large parties will properly admit; therefore, they are more at home in the baronial and kindred-filled hall of the thane of the Highland clan, than in the splendid and mixed ball-room of the now modish Anglo-Scottish earl.
French dances, which includes minuets, cotillons, and all the round of ballet figures, admit of every new refinement and dexterity in the agile art; and, while exhibiting in them, there is no step, no turn, no attitude, within the verge of maiden delicacy, that the dancer may not adopt and practise.
I must acknowledge that there is something in the harmonious and undulating movements of the minuet, particularly pleasing to my idea of female grace and dignity; and I remember seeing her Highness the Princess de P——, at the court of Naples, go through the minuet de la Cour with so eminent a degree of enchanting elegance, that there was not a person present who was not in raptures with her deportment.
The young Archduke, C——, of A——, was then a youth, and an incognito visitant with the Prince de V—— F——, and he was so charmed with the dancing of her highness, whose partner was the renowned General Marchese di M——, that, in his own heroic manner, he exclaimed to me, who then sat by his side,—“Ah! madam, that is more interesting than even the Pyrrhic dance! It reminds me of the beautiful movement of the sun and moon in the heavens!”
The minuet is now almost out of fashion, but we yet have its serious movements in many of the dances adopted from the French ballet; and in these every gradation of grace, and, if I may say it, sentiment in action, may be discovered. The rapid changes of the cotillon are admirably calculated for the display of elegant gaiety; and I hope that their animated evolvements will long continue a favorite accomplishment and amusement with our youthful fair.
Though much of graceful display is made in these dances, yet there are many rivals in the cotillon contending for the palm of superiority; and the contest, throughout, if maintained with the original elegant decorum of the design, may be continued with undeviating modesty and discretion.
But with regard to the lately introduced German waltz, I cannot speak so favorably; I must agree with Goethé, when writing of the national dance of his country, “that none but husbands and wives can with any propriety be partners in the waltz.”
There is something in the close approximation of persons, in the attitudes, and in the motion, which ill agrees with the delicacy of woman, should she be placed in such a situation with any other man than the most intimate connexion she can have in life. Indeed, I have often heard men, of no very over-strained feeling, say, “that there are very few women in the world with whom they could bear to dance the German waltz.”
The fandango, though graceful in its own country—because danced, from custom, with as reserved a mind as our maidens would make a courtsy,—is, nevertheless, when attempted here, too great a display of the person for any modest Englishwoman to venture. It is a solo! Imagine what must be the assurance of the young woman, who, unaccustomed by the habits of her country to such singular exhibitions of herself, could get up in a room full of company, and, with an unblushing face, go through all the evolutions, postures, and vaultings, of the Spanish fandango? Certainly, there are few discreet men in England who would say, “such a woman I should like for my wife!”
The castanets, which are used in this dance, by attracting extraordinary attention, afford another argument against its being adopted anywhere but on the stage. The tambourin, the cymbals, and all other noisy accompaniments, in the hands of a lady-dancer, are equally blameable; and though a woman may, by their means, exhibit her agility and person to advantage, she may depend on it, that while the artist only is admired, the woman will sink into contempt; and that, though she may possibly meet with lovers to throw a score of embroidered handkerchiefs at her feet, she will hardly encounter one of a thousand who will venture to trust himself to the offering her the bond of a single gold ring.
The bullero, another of our Spanish importations, is a dance of so questionable a description, that I cannot but proscribe it also. It may be performed with perfect modesty; but the sentiment of it depends so entirely on the disposition of the dancer, that Delicacy dare hardly venture to enrol herself in its lists, lest the partner chosen for her might be of a temper to turn its gaiety into licentiousness; to produce blushes of shame where she promised herself the glow of pleasure, and send her away from what ought to have been an innocent amusement, filled with the bitterness of insulted delicacy.
In short, in addressing my fair countrywomen on this subject, I would sum up my advice, in regard to the choice of dances, by warning them against the introduction of new-fangled fashions of this sort. Let them leave the languishing and meretricious attitudes of modern ballet-teachers to the dancing-girls of India, or to the Circassian slaves of Turkey, whose disgraceful business is to please a tyrant for whom they can feel no love.
Let our British fair also turn away from the almost equally unchaste dances of the southern kingdoms of the continent, and, content with the gay step of France, and the active merriment of Scotland, with their own festive movements, continue their native country balls to their blameless delight, and to the gratification of every tasteful and benevolent observer.
While thus remarking on the manner of dancing, it may not be unacceptable to add a few words on the dress most appropriate to its light and unembarrassed motions.
Long trains are, of course, too cumbrous an appendage to be intentionally assumed when proposing to dance; but it must also be remarked, that very short petticoats are as inelegant as the others are inconvenient. Scanty circumscribed habiliments impede the action of the limbs, and, besides their indelicacy, show the leg in the least graceful of all possible points of view. The most elegant attire for a ball is, that the under garments should be absolutely short, but the upper one, which should be of light material, should reach at least to the top of the instep. It should also be sufficiently full to fall easily in folds from the waist downwards to the foot. By this arrangement, when the dancer begins her graceful exercise, the drapery will elegantly adapt itself to the motion and contour of her limbs; and falling accidentally on her foot, or as accidentally when she bounds along, discovering, under its flying folds, her beautifully-turned ankle. Symmetry and grace will be occasionally displayed, almost unconsciously, and thus Modesty, taken unawares, will adorn, with blushes, the perfect lineaments of female beauty.
What has been said in behalf of simple and appropriate dancing, may also be whispered in the ear of the fair practitioner in music; and, by analogy she may, not unbeneficially, apply the suggestions to her own case.
There are many young women, who, when they sit down to the piano or the harp, or to sing, twist themselves into so many contortions, and writhe their bodies and faces about into such actions and grimaces, as would almost incline one to believe that they are suffering under the torture of the toothach, or the gout. Their bosoms heave, their shoulders shrug, their heads swing to the right and left, their lips quiver, their eyes roll; they sigh, they pant, they seem ready to expire! And what is all this about? They are merely playing a favorite concerto, or singing a new Italian song.
If it were possible for these conceit-intoxicated warblers, these languishing dolls, to guess what rational spectators say of their follies, they would be ready to break their instruments and be dumb forever. What they call expression in singing, at the rate they would show it, is only fit to be exhibited on the stage, when the character of the song intends to portray the utmost ecstasy of passion to a sighing swain. In short, such an echo to the words and music of a love ditty, is very improper in any young woman who would wish to be thought as pure in heart as in person. If amatory addresses are to be sung, let the expression be in the voice and the composition of the air, not in the looks and gestures of the lady-singing. The utmost that she ought to allow herself to do, when thus breathing out the accents of love, is to wear a serious, tender countenance. More than this is bad, and may produce reflections in the minds of the hearers very inimical to the reputation of the fair warbler.
While touching on song, it may not be unwelcome to my truly virgin readers to have their own delicate rejections sanctioned by a matron’s judgment against a horde of amorous legends, now chanted forth in almost every assembly, where they put their heads. Pretty music, and elegant poetry, seem sufficient excuses to obtain, in these days, not only pardon, but approbation, for the most exceptionable verses that can fall from the pen of man. Such madrigals are now sung with equal applause by mother and daughter, chaste and unchaste; all unite in shamelessly breathing forth words, (and with appropriate languishments too,) which hardly would become the lips of a Thais! Libertines may feel pleasure in such exhibitions—men of principle must turn away disgusted.
Set then this music of Paphos far aside; instead of songs of wantons, if we are to have amatory odes, let us listen to the chaste pleadings of a Petrarch, to the mutual vows of virtuous attachment. My young friend may then sing with downcast eyes and timid voice, but no blush needs to stain her cheek—no thrill of shame shake her bosom. She merely chants of nature’s feelings; and Modesty veiling the sensibility she describes, angels might “lean from heaven to hear.”
By this slight sketch, my dear readers will perceive that I mean simplicity to be the principle and the decoration of all their actions; as it should pervade them in the dance, so it should imbue their voice and action in playing and in singing.
Let their attitude at the piano or the harp be easy and graceful. I strongly exhort them to avoid a stiff, awkward, elbowing position at either; they must observe an elegant flow of figure at both. The latter certainly admits of most grace, as the shape of the instrument is calculated, in every respect, to show a fine figure to advantage. The contour of the whole form, the turn and polish of a beautiful hand and arm, the richly-slippered and well-made foot on the pedal stops, the gentle motion of a lovely neck, and, above all, the sweetly-tempered expression of an intelligent countenance; these are shown at one glance when the fair performer is seated unaffectedly, yet gracefully, at the harp.
Similar beauty of position may be seen in a lady’s management of a lute, a guitar, a mandolin, or a lyre. The attitude at a pianoforte, or at a harpsichord, is not so happily adapted to grace. From the shape of the instrument, the performer must sit directly in front of a straight line of keys; and her own posture being correspondingly erect and square, it is hardly possible that it should not appear rather inelegant. But if it attain not the ne plus ultra of grace, at least she may prevent an air of stiffness; she may move her hands easily on the keys, and bear her head with that elegance of carriage which cannot fail to impart its own character to the whole of her figure. One of the most graceful forms that I ever saw sit at an instrument, is that of St. Cecilia, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, playing on the organ. It is the portrait of the late Mrs. R. B. Sheridan; and, from the simplicity of the attitude, and the graceful elevation of the head, it is, without exception, one of the most interesting pictures I ever beheld. A living instance of what beauty and grace, elegance and propriety combined, can do, has always been admired in the Marchioness of D—— by all those who ever had the felicity to see and hear her at the piano; an engraving of her portrait, in that attitude, would teach every female lover of the art unaffected elegance, much more effectually than all that the advices and ability of masters can ever be able to perform.
If ladies, in meditating on grace of deportment, would rather consult the statues of fine sculptors, and the figures of excellent painters, than the lessons of their dancing-masters, or the dictates of their looking-glasses, we should, doubtless, see simplicity where we now find affectation, and a thousand ineffable graces taking place of the present régime of absurdity and conceit.
It was by studying the perfect sculpture of Greece and Rome, that a certain lady of rank, eminent for her peculiarly beautiful attitudes, acquired so great a superiority in mien above her fair contemporaries of every court in which she became an inmate. It was by meditating on the classic pictures of Poussin, that one of the first tragic actresses on the French stage learnt to move and look like the daughter of the sun. And by a similar study, has our own Melpomene caught inspiration from the pencil of Corregio and Rubens.
Glancing at the graphic art, reminds me that some degree of proficiency in this interesting accomplishment is also an object of study with my fair young countrywomen. I shall not make any observation on their progress in the art itself, but only with regard to their manner of practising it.
Both for health and beauty’s sake, they should be careful not to stoop too much, or to sit too long in the exercise of the pencil. A bending position of the chest and head, when frequently assumed, is apt to contract the lungs, round the back, redden the face, and give painful digestions and headach. An awkward posture in writing, reading, or sewing, is productive of the same bad effects; and, what may seem almost incredible, (but many who have witnessed the same, can, I am sure, give their evidence in support of my representation,) there are young persons, who, when writing, drawing, reading, or working, keep a sort of ludicrous time with their occupations, by making a succession of unmeaning and hideous grimaces. I have seen a pretty young woman, while writing a letter to her lover, draw up her lips, and twist the muscles of her face in every direction that her pen moved; and so ugly did she look during this sympathetic performance, that I could not forbear thinking that, could her swain see the object then dictating her vows, he would take fright at the metamorphosis, and never be made to believe it could be the same person.
Mumbling to yourself, while reading, is also another very inelegant habit. A person should either read determinately so much aloud as to be heard distinctly by the company present, or peruse her book without even moving her lips. An inward muttering, or a silent motion of the mouth, while reading, is equally unpleasant to the observer, and disfiguring to the observed.
In short, there is nothing, however minute in manners, however insignificant in appearance, that does not demand some portion of attention from a well-bred and highly-polished young woman. An author of no small literary renown, has observed, that several of the minutest habits or acts of some individuals, may give sufficient reasons to guess at their temper. The choice of a gown, or even the folding and sealing of a letter, will bespeak the shrew and the scold, the careless and the negligent. This observation I have made myself, not only in this, but in several other countries. The Marchioness of B—— addressed me, a few years ago, in a letter so cleanly folded, so carefully sealed, that I was really prejudiced in her favor, ere I saw that my surmises were right; and the flame-color ribbon, fluttering about the Hon. Mrs. D.’s head, had given me a foreboding of her acrimonious and fiery disposition. These fine and almost imperceptible objects are the touches which bring the whole to its utmost perfection. They are the varnish to the picture, the polish to the gem, the points to the diamond.
I will go further upon this subject. The very voice of an individual, the tone she assumes in speaking to strangers, or even familiarly to her friends, will lead a keen observer to discover what elements her temper is made of. The low key belongs to the sullen, sulky, obstinate, the shrill note to the petulant, the pert, the impatient; some will pronounce the common and trite question “how do you do?” with such harshness and raucity, that they seem positively angry with you that you should ever do at all. Some effect a lispingness, which at once betrays childishness and downright nonsense; others will bid their words to gallop so swiftly, that the ablest ear is unable to follow the rapid race, and gathers nothing but confused and unmeaning sounds. All these extremes are to be avoided; and, although nature has differently formed the organs of speech for different individuals, yet there is a mode to correct nature’s own aberrations. I have heard of sensible men, who, merely for the tone of voice which did not quite harmonize with their ears, have dropped their connexion with women, who, in all other points were unexceptionable.
Admit this, and another salutary truth will be made manifest. If good-breeding and graceful refinement are ever most proper, they are always so. It is not sufficient that Amaryllis is amiable and elegant in her whole deportment to strangers and to her acquaintance; she must be undeviatingly so to her most intimate friends, to nearest relations, to father, mother, brothers, sisters, husband. She must have no dishabille for them, either of mind or person.
This last word inclines me to pursue the hint further; to exhort my fair readers, while I plead for consistency in manners, also to carry the analogy to dress. If they would always appear amiable, elegant, and endearing to the beings with whom they are to spend their lives, let them always make those beings the first objects for whose pleasure their accomplishments, their manners, and their dress are to be cultivated. Let them never appear before these tender relatives in the disgusting negligence of disordered and soiled clothes. By this has many a lovely girl lost her lover; and by this has many an amiable wife alienated the affections of her husband.
Let me, then, in concluding this chapter, again repeat, that consistency is the soul of female power, the charm of her fascination, the bond of her social happiness.