should be attained. But as fast as
Canadians bring over a new figure or a new trick it is picked up, and
critics may dispute as to whether the bold and dashing style of the
English school of skaters is not preferable to the careful and smooth,
but somewhat pretty and niggling manner of the colonists. Our skating
stands to the Canadian fashion somewhat as French does to English
etching. We have the dash and the _chic_ with skates which Frenchmen
show with the etching-needle, and the Canadian, on the other hand, is apt
to decline into the mere prettiness which is the fault of English
etchers.

Skating has been, within the last few years, a very progressive art.
There was a time when mere speed, and the grace of speed, satisfied most
amateurs. The ideal spot for skating in those days must have been the
lakes where Wordsworth used to listen to the echoes replying from the
cold and moonlit hills, or such a frozen river as that on which the
American skater was pursued by wolves. No doubt such scenes have still
their rare charm, and few expeditions are more attractive than a
moonlight exploration of a winding river. But it is seldom that our
frosts make such tours practicable, whereas almost every winter it is
possible to skate with safety, at least on shallow ponds, or on places
like the ice-bound floods at Oxford. Thus figure-skating, which needs
but a surface of a few yards to each performer, has come into fashion,
and it is hard to imagine any exercise more elegant, or one that requires
more nerve. The novice is theoretically aware that if he throws his body
into certain unfamiliar postures, which are explained to him, the laws of
gravitation and of the higher curves will cause him to complete a certain
figure. But how much courage and faith it requires to yield to these
laws and let the frame swing round subject to the immutable rules of
matter! The temptation to stop half-way is almost irresistible, and then
there occurs a complicated fall, which makes the petrified spectator ask
where may be the skater's body--"which are legs, and which are arms?" Of
all sports, skating has the best claim to adopt Danton's motto, _Toujours
de l'audace_--the audacity meant being that of giving one's self up to
the laws of motion, and not the vulgar quality which carries its owner on
to dangerous ice. Something may now be learned of figure-skating on dry
land, and the adventure may be renewed of the mythical children who went