Цитата: Reminiscences of a waltzer
Will any person familiar with that elegant dance which we imported from Berlin, in common with a poodle dogs and Kantian philosophy, some five-and-twenty years ago (and which now is danced in a regular routine at Almack’s and other balls with French con-tra dances), believe that in the year 1810, thereabouts, a woman convinced of waltzing was shunning exactly as a divorce`e is shunning at the present moment. That the dance was written down,- talked down, – preached down, – as if constituting part of some obscene mystery,—that the moment the strains of a waltz were heard in a fashionable ball-room, the more prudent matrons began to collect their chickens under their wing, in order to remove them from the contaminating spectacle! At that period indeed, the vulgar query of “Is there any harm in waltzing?” could not be answered otherwise than in the alternative; for it was not only an outrage against public opinion, but no immodest exhibition. The innocent two or three waltzers, began to sail round the room (the slow Spanish waltz being then in vogue), the company crowded to stare at them as public performer, standing upon benches, and chairs, and delivering their viva voce criticism without measure or revers. The most exaggerated descriptions were circulated by those who were too short and too lazy to become eye-witnesses of the exhibition ; the most absurd effects ware of to waltzing. In the coterie of the Margravine of Anspach, where it was fest introduced, basins were said to be provided for the waltzers as in a packet boat ; and one of the original and most grievous charges at that time formed against Queen Caroline was that – “Horrid woman ! She was so fond of waltzing!” Lord Byron,—deterred by his, physical infirmity from joining in the mazy round,—was one of the first to inveigh against a performance on the ease and from the publication of ‘ English Bards” to that ‘Don Juan‘ numerous :and pungent were his sallies aganist a dance which Goethe in his ‘ Werther,’ and Madame de Souza, in a borrowed passage in her ‘ Eugene’ had already denounced a dangerous . “What a dance!” exclaims both Goethe and his imitator; ‘never shall the woman l love dance it with any other man; nor even with myself, in present of a third person‘. This we conceive to be the severest criticism ever pronounced against waltzing, but it would be unfair indeed to conclude all the innocent young people in a respectable ball-room, or on a village green, endowed with the prurient imaginations of the illustrious authors of ‘ Faust ‘ and ‘ Don Juan.‘[…]
Very soon, however, the absurd outcry began to subside. Seeing was believing: and even Sir George himself was completed to admit that this ‘embracing’ and ‘ tasting‘ and ‘panting’ which took place under the eyes and scrutiny of a whole assembly, was by no means of the flagrant nature conjectured by the uninitiated ;—nay! that to ‘run the gauntlet through a string of puppies,’ like Falkland‘s Julia, in a con-tra dance, was a far more trying ordeal to female modesty.
But the circumstance which chiefly tended to nuturalize the waltz in this country, was the predilection of the Duke of Devonshire. His Grace (who, as is well known, is the best dancers in England), disgusted at hearing motives an characteristics of so gross a nature attributed to a dance at the time performed with perfect discretion, not only at every village teast at Germany, but in every court in Europe, gave weekly waltzing parties, from which all anti-waltzers ( including even a favourite and distinguished members of the Cavendish family), were excluded. Exile from Devonshire House was not to be borne! The prudes attempted to compromise, but the Duke was inflexible; – and lo! at the end of a month, all the most outrageous opponents of waltzing – those who had invested it with pecularities that existed only in their own depraved imagination, were taking lessons of D’Egville. “Hors la valse, point de salut!”
Shortly afterwards, the quick, or Russian waltz, was introduced by the Emperor of the Russia into this country; and till superseded in some measure, within the last four years, by the Prussian galloppe, and still fashionable Polish mazurka, it has maintained its ascendancy. The best waltzer of the olden time of waltzing, was the Duke of Canizzaro, of later years Reechberg, or Danischiold. The Russians are uniformly good waltzers, from the Emperor down to Paul Lieven. The Duck of Devonshire is an aglie and graceful waltzer. It is now rare to find a young person, gentleman or lady, who does not waltz; and we confess we never witness the press for places which occurs at Almack’s, the moment one of Musard’s waltzes is heard from the orchestra, without recollecting the period when an alliance was strictly interdicted to the heir of a noble family, because the object of his affections, and a large fortune, had been seen to waltz! Such is the consistency of the world of fashion.
Автор цитаты: -
Источник: The Court Journal: Court Circular & Fashionable Gazette, Том 5, стр: 627
Цитата относится к: 1810 г.
Дата первой найденной публикации: 1833 г.
Подобрал цитату: Алина Логвиненко (Файзганова)