XIII
THE DANCES OF THE PAST
Dancing is silent poetry.—Simonides.
This phrase, coined in the earliest days of terpsichorean art, covers effectively a multitude of descriptive adjectives, which could be applied to this "little sister of the arts." For in this, as in poetry, there must be rhythm, music, measure. As poetry is the language of the soul and music the language of the heart and senses, so is dancing the language of the body; it is, as in social dancing, the exponent par excellence of the joy of living. It is the natural and contagious outlet for a hilarious and youthful spirit.
Let us greet the dance as an ideal form of healthy pastime, with the reverence and adoration due it, and let us exclaim with Homer that "Dancing is the sweetest and most perfect of human enjoyments."
"Dancing," said Lucian, "is as old as love, the oldest of the gods." The Puritanical mind
has always been hot on the trail of dancing, damn-
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