The dance of the Georgian is more spirited.  Her dress is a brief skirt reaching barely to the knees and a low cut chemise.  In her night black hair is wreathed a bright red scarf or string of pearls.  The music, at first low and slow increases by degrees in rapidity and volume, then falls away almost to silence, again swells and quickens and so alternates, the motions of the dancer’s willowy and obedient figure accurately according now seeming to swim languidly, and anon her little feet having their will of her, and fluttering in midair like a couple of birds.  She is an engaging creature, her ways are ways of pleasantness, but whether all her paths are peace depends somewhat, it is reasonable to conjecture, upon the circumspection of her daily walk and conversation when relegated to the custody of her master’s wives.

In some parts of Persia the dancing of boys appareled as women is held in high favor, but exactly what wholesome human sentiment it addresses I am not prepared to say.

VIII

IN THE BOTTOM OF THE CRUCIBLE

From the rapid and imperfect review of certain characteristic oriental dances in the chapters immediately preceding—­or rather from the studies some of whose minor results those chapters embody—­I make deduction of a few significant facts, to which facts of contrary significance seem exceptional.  In the first place, it is to be noted that in countries where woman is conspicuously degraded the dance is correspondingly depraved.  By “the dance,” I mean, of course, those characteristic and typical performances which have permanent place in the social life of the people.  Amongst all nations the dance exists in certain loose and unrecognized forms, which are the outgrowth of the moment—­creatures of caprice, posing and pranking their brief and inglorious season, to be superseded by some newer favorite, born of some newer accident or fancy.  A fair type of these ephemeral dances—­the comets of the saltatory system—­in so far as they can have a type, is the now familiar Can-Can of the Jardin Mabille—­a dance the captivating naughtiness of which has given it wide currency in our generation, the successors to whose aged rakes and broken bawds it will fail to please and would probably make unhappy.  Dances of this character, neither national, universal, nor enduring, have little value to the student of anything but anatomy and lingerie.  By study of a thousand, the product of as many years, it might be possible to trace the thread upon which such beads are strung—­indeed, it is pretty obvious without research; but considered singly they have nothing of profit to the investigator, who will do well to contemplate without reflection or perform without question, as the bent of his mind may be observant or experimental.