et in a very superior manner, it is
recommendable to enter into some acquaintance, at least, with
the principles of the serious or grave dances, with a naturally
genteel person, a superficial knowledge of the steps, and a
smattering of the rules, any one almost may soon be made to
acquit himself tolerably of a minuet; but to make a
distinguished figure, some notion of the depths and refinements
of the art, illustrated by proper practice, are required.

It is especially incumbent on an artist, not to rest satisfied
with having pleased: he should, from his knowledge of the
grounds of his art, be able to tell himself why he has pleased;
and thus by building upon solid principles, preferably to mere
lucky hits, or to transient and accidental advantages of form or
manner, insure the permanency of his power to please.

There is a vice in dancing, against which pupils cannot be too
carefully guarded; it is that of affectation. It is essentially
different from that desire of pleasing, which is so natural and
so consistent even with the greatest modesty, in that it always
builds on some falsity, mistaken for a means of pleasing, though
nothing can more surely defeat that intention; there is not an
axiom more true than that the graces are incompatible with
affectation. They vanish at the first appearance of it: and the
curse of affectation is, that it never but lets itself be seen,
and wherever it is seen, it is sure to offend, and to frustrate
its own design.

The simplicity of nature is the great fountain of all the
graces; from which they flow spontaneous, when unchecked by
affectation, which at once poisons and dries them up.

Nature does not refuse cultivation, but she will not bear being
forced. The great art of the dancing-master is not to give
graces, for that is impossible, but to call forth into a nobly
modest display those latent ones in his scholars, which may have
been buried for want of opportunities or of education to break
forth in their native lustre, or which have been spoiled or
perverted, by wrong instruction, or by bad models of imitations.
In this last case, the master's business is rather to extirpate
than to plant; to clear the ground of poisonous exotics, and to
make way for the pleasing productions of nature.

This admirable prerogative of pleasing, inseparable from the
natural graces, unpoisoned by affectation, is in nothing more
strongly exemplified, than in the rural dances, where simplicity