at? An enclosure, but no more
illusion.

Waltzing is a profane and vicious dance. When it is prosecuted in the
centre of a great crowd, in a dusty hall, on a warm midsummer day, it
is also a disgusting dance. Night is its only appropriate time. The
blinding, dazzling gas-light throws a grateful glare over the salient
points of its indecency, and blends the whole into a wild whirl that
dizzies and dazes one; but the uncompromising afternoon, pouring in
through manifold windows, tears away every illusion, and reveals the
whole coarseness and commonness and all the repulsive details of this
most alien and unmaidenly revel. The very POSE of the dance is
profanity. Attitudes which are the instinctive expression of intimate
emotions, glowing rosy-red in the auroral time of tenderness, and
justified in unabashed freedom only by a long and faithful habitude of
unselfish devotion, are here openly, deliberately, and carelessly
assumed by people who have but a casual and partial
society-acquaintance. This I reckon profanity. This is levity the
most culpable. This is a guilty and wanton waste of delicacy. That it
is practised by good girls and tolerated by good mothers does not prove
that it is good. Custom blunts the edge of many perceptions. A good
thing soiled may be redeemed by good people; but waltz as many as you
may, spotless maidens, you will only smut yourselves, and not cleanse
the waltz. It is of itself unclean.

There were, besides, peculiar desagrements on this occasion. As I said,
there was no illusion,--not a particle. It was no Vale of Tempe, with
Nymphs and Apollos. The boys were boys, young, full of healthful
promise, but too much in the husk for exhibition, and not entirely at
ease in their situation,--indeed, very much NOT at ease,--unmistakably
warm, nervous, and uncomfortable. The girls were pretty enough girls,
I dare say, under ordinary circumstances,--one was really lovely, with
soft cheeks, long eyelashes, eyes deep and liquid, and Tasso's gold in
her hair, though of a bad figure, ill set off by a bad dress,--but
Venus herself could not have been seen to advantage in such evil plight
as they, panting, perspiring, ruffled, frowzy,--puff-balls revolving
through an atmosphere of dust,--a maze of steaming, reeking human
couples, inhumanly heated and simmering together with a more than
Spartan fortitude.

It was remarkable, and at the same time amusing, to observe the
difference in the demea