But such
persons believe that, with the weak sense of moral obligation existing
in the mass of society, and the imperfect ideas mankind have of the
proper use of amusements, and the little self-control which men or
women or children practice, these will not, in fact, be thus regulated.
And they believe dancing to be liable to the same objections. As this
recreation is actually conducted, it does not tend to produce health
of body or mind, but directly the contrary. If young and old went out
to dance together in open air, as the French peasants do, it would be
a very different sort of amusement from that which often is witnessed
in a room furnished with many lights and filled with guests, both
expending the healthful part of the atmosphere, where the young collect,
in their tightest dresses, to protract for several hours a kind of
physical exertion which is not habitual to them. During this process,
the blood is made to circulate more swiftly than usual, in circumstances
where it is less perfectly oxygenized than health requires; the pores
of the skin are excited by heat and exercise; the stomach is loaded
with indigestible articles, and the quiet, needful to digestion,
withheld; the diversion is protracted beyond the usual hour for repose;
and then, when the skin is made the most highly susceptible to damps
and miasms, the company pass from a warm room to the cold night-air.
Pages:
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430