With the people of the capital the real dances of the country are disfigured not only by the influx of foreigners, but especially also by the unfortunate employment of barrel- organs....It is this instrument which crushes among the people the practice of music, and takes the means of subsistence from the village fiddler, who becomes more and more rare since every tavern-keeper, in buying a barrel-organ, easily puts an end to all competition.  We see already more and more disappear from our country sides these sweet songs and improvised refrains which the rustic minstrels remembered and repeated, and the truly national music gives way, alas! to the themes borrowed from the operas most in vogue.

The mazurek, thus degenerated among the people, has been adopted by the upper classes who, in preserving the national allures, perfected it to the extent of rendering it, beyond doubt, one of the most graceful dances in Europe.  This dance has much resemblance with the French quadrille, according to what is analogous in the characters of the two nations; in seeing these two dances one might say that a French woman dances only to please, and that a Polish woman pleases by abandoning herself to a kind of maiden gaiety—­the graces which she displays come rather from nature than from art.  A French female dancer recalls the ideal of Greek statues; a Polish female dancer has something which recalls the shepherdesses created by the imagination of the poets; if the former charms us, the latter attaches us.

As modern dances lend themselves especially to the triumph of the women, because the costume of the men is so little favourable, it is noteworthy that the mazurek forms here an exception; for a young man, and especially a young Pole, remarkable by a certain amiable boldness, becomes soon the soul and hero of this dance.  A light and in some sort pastoral dress for the women, and the Polish military costume so advantageous for the men, add to the charm of the picture which the mazurek presents to the eye of the painter.  This dance permits to the whole body the most lively and varied movements, leaves the shoulders full liberty to bend with that abandon which, accompanied by a joyous laisser-aller and a certain movement of the foot striking the floor, is exceedingly graceful.

One finds often a magic effect in the animated enthusiasm which characterises the different movements of the head—­now proudly erect, now tenderly sunk on the bosom, now lightly inclined towards the shoulder, and always depicting in large traits the abundance of life and joy, shaded with simple, graceful, and delicate sentiments.  Seeing in the mazurek the female dancer almost carried away in the arms and on the shoulders of her cavalier, abandoning herself entirely to his guidance, one thinks one sees two beings intoxicated with happiness and flying towards the celestial regions.  The