ce with partners, and the substitution of
that horrible and degrading oriental interlude which is known as
skirt-dancing. That is the whole essence of decadence, the effacement
of five people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it for
money. Now it follows, therefore, that when Mr. McCabe says that the
ballets of the Alhambra and my articles "have their place in life," it
ought to be pointed out to him that he is doing his best to create a
world in which dancing, properly speaking, will have no place in life
at all. He is, indeed, trying to create a world in which there will be
no life for dancing to have a place in. The very fact that Mr. McCabe
thinks of dancing as a thing belonging to some hired women at the
Alhambra is an illustration of the same principle by which he is able
to think of religion as a thing belonging to some hired men in white
neckties. Both these things are things which should not be done for us,
but by us. If Mr. McCabe were really religious he would be happy. If
he were really happy he would dance.

Briefly, we may put the matter in this way. The main point of modern
life is not that the Alhambra ballet has its place in life. The main
point, the main enormous tragedy of modern life, is that Mr. McCabe has
not his place in the Alhambra ballet. The joy of changing and graceful
posture, the joy of suiting the swing of music to the swing of limbs,
the joy of whirling drapery, the joy of standing on one leg,--all these
should belong by rights to Mr. McCabe and to me; in short, to the
ordinary healthy citizen. Probably we should not consent to go through
these evolutions. But that is because we are miserable moderns and
rationalists. We do not merely love ourselves more than we love duty;
we actually love ourselves more than we love joy.

When, therefore, Mr. McCabe says that he gives the Alhambra dances (and
my articles) their place in life, I think we are justified in pointing
out that by the very nature of the case of his philosophy and of his
favourite civilization he gives them a very inadequate place. For (if I
may pursue the too flattering parallel) Mr. McCabe thinks of the
Alhambra and of my articles as two very odd and absurd things, which
some special people do (probably for money) in order to amuse him. But
if he had ever felt himself the ancient, sublime, elemental, human
instinct to dance, he would have discovered that dancing is not a
frivolous thing at all, but a very serio