Last updated on May 24, 2005

On the waltz, 1818

From The Edinburgh Magazine, September 1818, reviewing a book of short stories by Mrs. Opie:

The following short passage is in a different manner, and from a different tale. We select it as exhibiting at once the author's propriety of expression and right feeling in regard to a fashionable amusement of foreign extraction, -- against which we have no objection that the Alien Bill should operate in all its severity, and without even reserving the right to confer upon it a private naturalization in Scotland. A young man of high spirit and principle is attending two young ladies, in whom he takes a deep interest, to a private assembly:

"Quadrilles being over, waltzes began: and Davenant, leading Eleanor to a seat near Clara, said, with an air of triumph, 'I am glad to find you do not waltz, Miss Musgrave--nor you, Miss Delancy.'"

"'Do not mistake me, however,' said he: 'I do not mean to say that I consider all young ladies who waltz as devoid of modesty, delicacy, or proper feeling; but I feel that I should wish my sister, or my mistress, or my wife, to have a sort of untaught aversion to the familiarity which waltzing induces. I would have her prize too highly, from self-respect, the sort of favour which a woman confers on a man with whom she waltzes, to be willing to bestow it on any one of her acquaintance. I would wish her to preserve her person unprofaned by a clasping arm, but that of privileged affection. For indeed, dear Miss Musgrave, if I saw even a woman whom I loved, borne along the circling waltz, as I see these young ladies now borne, I should be tempted to address her partner in the words of a noble poet--'What you touch you may take.'"