| Share page |
|
298 |
FIRESIDE EDUCATION. |
||
|
the exposure of health, and the languor of the succeeding day,—these, and other evils connected with this amusement, arc strong reasons for banishing it from the community. But dancing ought not therefore to be proscribed. On the contrary, balls should be discouraged for this, among other reasons, that dancing, instead of being a rare pleasure, requiring elaborate preparation, may become an cvery-day amusement, and may mix with our common intercourse. This exercise is amoung the most healthful. The body, as well as the mind, feels its gladdening influence. No amusement seems more to have a foundation in our nature. The animation of youth naturally overflows in harmonious movements. The true idea of dancing entitles it to favor. Its end is to realize perfect grace in motion: and who does not know that a sense of the graceful is one of the higher facul-ties of our nature? It is to be desired that dancing should become too common among us to be made the object of special preparation, as in the ball: that members of the same family, when confined by unfavorable weather, should recur to it for exercise and exhilaration: that branches of the same family should enliven in this way their occasional meetings; that it should fill up an hour in all the assemblages |
|||