Once, among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates there appeared a dancing-master. Her sister had a great desire to learn the dancing-master's art, and seemed to have a taste that way.
You are the young lady, are you?' said the dancing-master, surveying the small figure and uplifted face.
'And what can I do for you?' said the dancing-master.
'My child, I'll teach her for nothing,' said the dancing-master, shutting up the bag.
The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's continuing his instruction after his release, emboldened the poor child to try again.
Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the milliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the dancing-master had said:
It had come to pass, that afternoon, that Miss Morleena Kenwigs had received an invitation to repair next day, per steamer from Westminster Bridge, unto the Eel-pie Island at Twickenham: there to make merry upon a cold collation, bottled beer, shrub, and shrimps, and to dance in the open air to the music of a locomotive band, conveyed thither for the purpose: the steamer being specially engaged by a
dancing-master of extensive connection for the accommodation of his numerous pupils, and the pupils displaying their appreciation of the
dancing-master's services, by purchasing themselves, and inducing their friends to do the like, divers light- blue tickets, entitling them to join the expedition.
To these encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the
dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.
For I conscientiously believed,
dancing-master's wife though she was, and dancing-mistress though in her limited ambition she aspired to be, she had struck out a natural, wholesome, loving course of industry and perseverance that was quite as good as a mission.
All the servants were there in the hall--all the dear friend--all the young ladies--the
dancing-master who had just arrived; and there was such a scuffling, and hugging, and kissing, and crying, with the hysterical YOOPS of Miss Swartz, the parlour-boarder, from her room, as no pen can depict, and as the tender heart would fain pass over.
In the second place, he was not as old as the music-master, or as ugly as the
dancing-master. In the third place, he was an admirer of Emily; and the opportunity of trying to shake his allegiance by means of a flirtation, in Emily's absence, was too good an opportunity to be lost.
When that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness, to grace, the steps of the
dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms.