From the Ball-Room to Hell
Old news in the blogosphere, I know*, but T.A. Faulkner's 1892 classic From the Ball Room to Hell just deserves to be posted here, tying together as it does dance and sexuality in a Victorian context.
Ex-dancing master Faulkner traces the moral and social decline of a beautiful young girl, poised on the very cusp of womanhood, whose loving "wish to bestow upon her every accomplishment which modern society demands," and therefore send her to a select dancing academy:
At first she seems shocked at the manner in which he embraces her to teach her the latest waltz.
It is her first experience in the arms of a strange man, with his limbs pressed to hers, and in her natural modesty she shrinks from so familiar a touch. It brings a bright flush of indignation to her cheek as she thinks what an unladylike and indecent position to assume with a man who, but a few hours before, was an utter stranger, but she says to herself: "This is the position every one must take who waltzes in the most approved style--church members and all--so of course it is no harm for me." She thus takes the first step in casting aside that delicate God-given instinct which should be the guide of every pure woman in such matters.
Soon her "natural modesty" is quite conquered, and she begins to look forward to the attention she receives from the men in her class, and to dream evenings of dancing in society.
The evening at last comes; the uninteresting square dances are gone through with, and the music of the waltz begins. Her partner is the Apollo of her day dreams. He presses her close to his breast, and they glide over the floor together as if the two were but one.
When she raises her eyes, timidly at first, to that handsome but deceitful face, now so close to her own, the look that is in his eyes as they meet hers, seems to burn into her very soul. A strange, sweet thrill shakes her very being and leaves her weak and powerless and obliged to depend for support upon the arm which is pressing her to himself in such a suggestive manner, but the sensation is a pleasant one and grows to be the very essence of her life.
If a partner fails, through ignorance or innocence, to arouse in her these feelings, she does not enjoy the dance, mentally styles him a "bore," and wastes no more waltzes on him. She grows more bold, and from being able to return shy glances at first, is soon able to meet more daring ones until, with heart beating against heart, hand clasped in hand, and eyes looking burning words which lips dare not speak, the waltz becomes one long, sweet and purely sensual pleasure.
Of course, one exposue to "sweet and purely sensual pleasure," leads to complete moral decline: the waltz opens the floodgates to "untold sorrow and shame"!
She attends a ball with her devoted father, who withdraws after a few square dances, leaving her in, he innocently believes, good company. Alas, foolish man! For depravity and corruption lurk behind every potted palm:
She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink; his eyes, gleaming with a fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With a last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.
The girl whose blood is hot from the exertion and whose every carnal sense is aroused and aflame by the repetition of such scenes as we have witnessed, is led to the ever-waiting carriage, where she sinks exhausted on the cushioned seat. Oh, if I could picture to you the fiendish look that comes into his eyes as he sees his helpless victim before him. Now is his golden opportunity. He must not miss it, and he does not, and that beautiful girl who entered the dancing school as pure and innocent as an angel three months ago reurns to her home that night robbed of that most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue!
When she awakes the next morning to a realizing sense of her position her first impulse is to self-destruction, but she deludes herself with the thought that her "dancing" companion will right the wrong by marriage, but that is the farthest from his thoughts, and he casts her off--"he wishes a pure woman for his wife."
She has no longer any claim to purity; her self-respect is lost; she sinks lower and lower; society shuns her, and she is to-day a brothel inmate, the toy and plaything of the libertine and drunkard.
Ah, the perils of dance. The depraved danger of physical contact, of movement, of giving oneself over to the moment, the music, one's partner. Beware, fond parents, of the peril the ballroom holds for your daughters!
I'll be in my bunk.
(Is it just me, or does anyone else get the impression that old T.A. probably spent some serious time in his own bunk, writing this?)
* Which means it wasBoingBoinged yesterday.
Ex-dancing master Faulkner traces the moral and social decline of a beautiful young girl, poised on the very cusp of womanhood, whose loving "wish to bestow upon her every accomplishment which modern society demands," and therefore send her to a select dancing academy:
At first she seems shocked at the manner in which he embraces her to teach her the latest waltz.
It is her first experience in the arms of a strange man, with his limbs pressed to hers, and in her natural modesty she shrinks from so familiar a touch. It brings a bright flush of indignation to her cheek as she thinks what an unladylike and indecent position to assume with a man who, but a few hours before, was an utter stranger, but she says to herself: "This is the position every one must take who waltzes in the most approved style--church members and all--so of course it is no harm for me." She thus takes the first step in casting aside that delicate God-given instinct which should be the guide of every pure woman in such matters.
Soon her "natural modesty" is quite conquered, and she begins to look forward to the attention she receives from the men in her class, and to dream evenings of dancing in society.
The evening at last comes; the uninteresting square dances are gone through with, and the music of the waltz begins. Her partner is the Apollo of her day dreams. He presses her close to his breast, and they glide over the floor together as if the two were but one.
When she raises her eyes, timidly at first, to that handsome but deceitful face, now so close to her own, the look that is in his eyes as they meet hers, seems to burn into her very soul. A strange, sweet thrill shakes her very being and leaves her weak and powerless and obliged to depend for support upon the arm which is pressing her to himself in such a suggestive manner, but the sensation is a pleasant one and grows to be the very essence of her life.
If a partner fails, through ignorance or innocence, to arouse in her these feelings, she does not enjoy the dance, mentally styles him a "bore," and wastes no more waltzes on him. She grows more bold, and from being able to return shy glances at first, is soon able to meet more daring ones until, with heart beating against heart, hand clasped in hand, and eyes looking burning words which lips dare not speak, the waltz becomes one long, sweet and purely sensual pleasure.
Of course, one exposue to "sweet and purely sensual pleasure," leads to complete moral decline: the waltz opens the floodgates to "untold sorrow and shame"!
She attends a ball with her devoted father, who withdraws after a few square dances, leaving her in, he innocently believes, good company. Alas, foolish man! For depravity and corruption lurk behind every potted palm:
She is now in the vile embrace of the Apollo of the evening. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his, her bare arm is almost around his neck, her partly nude swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his, face to face they whirl on, his limbs interwoven with hers, his strong right arm around her yielding form, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing; the soft music fills the room, but she hears it not; he bends her body to and fro, but she knows it not; his hot breath, tainted with strong drink, is on her hair and cheek, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink; his eyes, gleaming with a fierce, intolerable lust, gloat over her, yet she does not quail. She is filled with the rapture of sin in its intensity; her spirit is inflamed with passion and lust is gratified in thought. With a last low wail the music ceases, and the dance for the night is ended, but not the evil work of the night.
The girl whose blood is hot from the exertion and whose every carnal sense is aroused and aflame by the repetition of such scenes as we have witnessed, is led to the ever-waiting carriage, where she sinks exhausted on the cushioned seat. Oh, if I could picture to you the fiendish look that comes into his eyes as he sees his helpless victim before him. Now is his golden opportunity. He must not miss it, and he does not, and that beautiful girl who entered the dancing school as pure and innocent as an angel three months ago reurns to her home that night robbed of that most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue!
When she awakes the next morning to a realizing sense of her position her first impulse is to self-destruction, but she deludes herself with the thought that her "dancing" companion will right the wrong by marriage, but that is the farthest from his thoughts, and he casts her off--"he wishes a pure woman for his wife."
She has no longer any claim to purity; her self-respect is lost; she sinks lower and lower; society shuns her, and she is to-day a brothel inmate, the toy and plaything of the libertine and drunkard.
Ah, the perils of dance. The depraved danger of physical contact, of movement, of giving oneself over to the moment, the music, one's partner. Beware, fond parents, of the peril the ballroom holds for your daughters!
I'll be in my bunk.
(Is it just me, or does anyone else get the impression that old T.A. probably spent some serious time in his own bunk, writing this?)
* Which means it wasBoingBoinged yesterday.