There are two kinds of cant by which people commonly deceive themselves with regard to what is called propriety. The more common is the hunting out and discovery of an unseemly intention in things where no such intention exists, and the interest of which is concerned with ideas far above propriety or its converse. The other consists in accusing those who criticise anything on this score of themselves possessing an unseemly intention, and has for its motto the cry, "to the pure all things are pure." The kind of dancing which has suddenly become fashionable in what is known as the smart world has been attacked on the grounds of unseemliness and impropriety; and those who defend it have deceived themselves, and attempted to deceive others, into the belief that the critics are guilty of the second kind of cant. I dare say that it is a matter of almost infinitely little importance how people comport themselves in a dozen ballrooms in a small corner of London; but there has been much outcry on the subject, and it is a matter which has left its mark on the social activities of this year of grace. The onlooker cannot help being a little interested, and, if he be interested, wishing to arrive at the true facts of the matter for what they are worth. One had thought that the limits of absurdity had been reached by the craze for Ragtime; but so far as I can see this limit has been far exceeded in the craze for the kind of dancing of which the Tango serves as a type.

There has been a vast amount of nonsense talked about the Tango and its derivation, its significance, and place in the realms of art. As for its derivation, one needs no more than a small schoolboy's knowledge of Latin

to be aware that Tango means "I touch," and that the Tango is necessarily a dance of contact. As for its significance, it is simply a result of that desire for greater latitude and increased realism which has influenced the amusements of society. As for its relation to art, it has none whatsoever. There are people who will argue seriously about the true Tango, the classical Tango, and the high austerity and even nobility of that dance; they may be right; but it is not austerity and nobility that have made the Tango popular. It has come to be used as a term embracing a whole group of dances, half of negro and half of Spar ish American origin, which combine a certain ingenuity and rhythmic intricacy of movement with a freedom of symbolism and liberty to improvise variations of that symbolism which have no relation to the modern dance as a social ceremony, but are closely allied with its savage and pagan forms. As for its propriety or impropriety, that must be a matter for the individual to decide for himself. Propriety implies restraint; and restraint in this group of dances, is conspicuous by its absence. The most successful dancer is he or she who performs the prescribed rhythmica! evolutions with as little restraint as possible. Propriety, moreover, implies a certain suitability of conduct to time and place and circumstances. There are many things which it is proper and suitable to do in private, but which are improper and unsuitable in public; and there are things which are proper and suitable to the farmyard or the café, but which are not suitable to the ballroom. I have seen many improper things which may be interesting, attractive, and even beautiful; but their impropriety was a mere accident or by-product,

and it was not because of it that they were interesting or attractive. Impropriety and indecency in themselves will never be anything but ugly and revolting; and my own criticism of the Tango, my definite objection to it, is not that it is indecent or improper, but that it is ugly. I am no frequenter of ballrooms, and therefore did not realize till lately how thoroughly this new kind of dancing had seized upon the world in London that, for good or ill, leads in these matters; but what I have seen has convinced me that it is absurd and retrograde, and that the protest contained in the now famous letter to the "Times" was more than justified-if not on the score of impropriety, certainly on the score of ugli

ness.

The other night I saw an old lady of distinguished lineage and high station and strictly conventional views, sitting in a ballroom and regarding with an expression of fond and doting pride her honorable daughter, a sylphlike and refined young woman, tightly clasped in the embrace of a man and whirling about in various attitudes any one of which, had they jointly assumed it in the middle of a London street, would have rendered them liable to arrest on a charge of misdemeanor. That is a simple historical fact which should be placed on record, not because it is isolated, but because it is typical. And my chief reflection, as I observed various graceful and good-looking people performing these antics on the ballroom floor, was that if they could see what they themselves looked like, especially from behind, they would instantly and for ever abstain from the Tango, and all kindred dances.

These dances have been the regular attraction in various Montmartre cafés for several years; and women of the world who have wished to see that kind of life have had to be warned, when they were taken to such places,

that they must be prepared for a very different standard of propriety from that to which they were accustomed. It certainly never occurred to me when I have looked at such performances that I should see them translated to a fashionable London ballroom, with peeresses and ambassadors, and dukes and princes, looking on and applauding. And even if I had been prepared to see the younger and gayer married women so performing, with the countenance of their husbands and their friends, I certainly never expected to see the mothers and chaperons of unmarried girls wreathed in smiles at the sight of their charges similarly occupied. But so it has happened, and I merely rubbed my eyes and wondered, not without admiration, at the smooth way in which society will adapt itself to anything and make haste to conform to and applaud that which it conceives "everybody" to be doing. But I am also amazed that women in an age which is consciously, and in some ways very successfully, cultivating beauty and grace in all its movements, should make the mistake of attempting something which they cannot successfully accomplish. I have said that I think the Tango is ugly; but I would qualify that by adding, unless perfectly danced with the graceful and inspired abandon of the professional dancer. Now the English girl, to do her justice, is not, with the best will in the world, able to achieve this inspired abandon. She may have the abandon without the inspiration, and that is where the ugliness and absurdityand if you like, the impropriety-come in. But what did I say? The English girl? I have seen matrons once beautiful, and now well on the road to sixty, attempting to bend their poor old limbs and sway their gravid bodies in a kind of rheumatic bacchanal. A dread sight this, the dementia and twilight of the goddesses! Be no further

word said of it except that they too achieved something far other than inspiration or abandonment to ecstasy.

Where the shepherd leads the sheep will follow. The shepherd in this case has been of American origin, and the American lady in London who is the chief instigator of these revels is a shepherdess of no mean ability. One by one English leaders of society have surrendered their place to her formidable energy and daring irreverence. There are, of course, always the quieter and more refined American women who have no love for these extravagances, and pretend to disapprove of them; but beside such ener getic initiative of what avail is mere disapproval or detachment? It is useless to cry "Noli me tangere" when the shepherdess raises her crook on high. What she decrees the obedient sheep will do, whether it takes the form of Tango, or Bunny hug, or one step, or enraptured attention to a Dahomey negro yelling and pounding at the piano. If a baboon could be trained to play Ragtime he would be the rage of London, and people would be asked out to meet and sit at table with him. This is not an exaggeration, but a simple fact.

All this rage for Russian opera-to hear the current talk you would think there was no music in the world except a few Russian operas that were writThe Saturday Review.

ten several years ago-Tango, Ragtime, and Ballet, is only an expression of the genuine passion for rhythm and color which has lately overtaken the social world. And of course rhythm and color are delightful things in themselves, but they are only two of the many elements which art employs in its perfect work. Art, whatever be its form-music, or painting, or dancing, or drama-is a finished and laborious product of raw elementary things which the artist takes, and by his own process and in obedience to laws of form and proportion (which are, I venture to say, fixed and permanent), moulds into a finished work of art. The craze of the moment seems to be to abandon the finished product, to be uninterested in the painting, but to go and riot in the studio and play with tubes of paint and splashes of bright color. And with all this childish craze for the raw material goes a certain curious worship of the craftsman, be he great or little. Last year one heard of nothing but Nijinsky. This year it is Chaliapin and some Ragtime kingelemental savage probably, in a suit of evening clothes. It is impossible to say what will come next. The Pan of next season may now be peacefully digging petroleum on the steppes of Manchuria, or mixing drinks in a bar in Rio, or lying in noontide sleep in the cornfields of Indiana.

Filson Young.

F. Frankfort Moore has written a new novel "Discovering 'Evelina' " which, like his former success, "The Jessamy Bride," preserves with delicate sincerity the atmosphere of the late eighteenth century. Again he weaves into the web of his story persons whose names have always been identified with that period. David

Garrick appears almost immediately, Mrs. Thrale becomes a familiar figure, and Dr. Johnson is often heard from and sometimes seen. But the musical Burneys and their shy daughter Fanny are the central characters. The story tells how this apparently untalented member of the family wrote "Evelina" secretly, sent it to the publishers