In October, 1807, a Boston magazine, The Monthly Anthology and Boston Review, published a letter dated February 7, 1805, from an anonymous American traveller in Europe to his sister. The letter was one of a series from the same traveller published by the Review. Mostly, they are enthusiastic travelogues filled with descriptions of cities and antiquities. But one letter was rather different, and makes an interesting companion piece to "Proper Dress for Cotillons", which was likewise published, a year or so later, in The Monthly Anthology.
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Entitled "Morals of Italy. -- The Waltz", the tenth letter contains the writer's "observations on the state of morals and manners in Italy." He admitted first that it was not really fair for a traveler make judgments about any foreign society:
I would observe, that I think it extremely unfair in a traveller, who visits a foreign country, to whose language he is in a considerable degree a stranger, into whose society he can only have a limited and partial admission to draw general and illiberal inferences as to the state of their morals, and the nature of their domestick relations. The very illiberal representations which we have seen made of the manners of our own country by Chastellux, Weld, Parkinson, Liancourt, Bayard, and that execrable German, whose travels were republished in the Port Folio, ought to lead us to be very cautious how we venture upon general descriptions, especially unfavourable ones, of foreign nations.
Naturally, he wasn't about to let any such concerns stop him from so reporting on Italy:
But although general comments on national manners are, for the reasons I have assigned, improper, unjust, and illiberal, still there are certain leading traits, which he who runs may read, and which he may without risk report.
Among the other corrupting fashions, which have been introduced by the French officers, is a lascivious dance called the waltz, originally learned by them in Germany, but which is exactly adapted to the taste of a young French officer, who is in quarters in a city full of pretty women, whose morals are loose enough to permit them to join in this dance.
Like moralizers of every era, he just can't leave it at that, but instead has to go into detail about just how truly awful the object of his concern is:
As you probably have never seen it, and for the sake of your feelings I pray you never may, I will give you a short description of it, in order that you may form some opinion of the degraded state of morals on the continent of Europe.
As in "Proper Dress for Cotillons", the very first concern is the clothing that women are wearing and how little it leaves to the imagination:
In the first place, the ladies are dressed a la Grecque; that is to say, with the least possible attire, leaving as little room for the imagination as possible, the breast and arms totally exposed, or covered only with gauze or crape.
To be fair, clothing is more relevant to waltz than to cotillons, given the way the dancers hold each other, which the author conveniently describes:
Thus prepared for this embracing dance, the gentleman clasps with both arms the lady firmly round the waist, while she gently passes one of hers around his body, and softly reclines the other upon his neck.
Ah, those naughty French!
The position described is not one of the "attitudes" illustrated by English dancing masters of the era, but it is surprisingly similar to that illustrated in the Parisian magazine Le Bon Genre in 1806 in one of the caricatures for "La Sauteuse", a kind of leap-waltz (below left; click to enlarge) as well as that described in Lord Byron's 1813 poem, "The Waltz" (below right):
From where the garb just leaves the bosom free,
That spot where hearts were once supposed to be;
Round all the confines of the yielded waist,
The strangest hand may wander undisplaced:
The lady's in return may grasp as much
As princely paunches offer to her touch.
Pleased round the chalky floor how well they trip
One hand reposing on the royal hip!
The other to the shoulder no less royal
Ascending with affection truly loyal!
Thus front to front the partners move or stand,
The foot may rest, but none withdraw the hand;
Both descriptions and the caricature place the gentleman's hand or hands around her waist and one of the lady's hands on his shoulder her neck. The other is on the body (letter), hip (poem), or dangling free (caricature) but easily able to move to the gentleman's body if so desired.
For someone so appalled by the waltz, the writer seems to know a surprising amount about the its technical aspects. He makes the earliest comment I've ever seen about a technique well-known to waltzers: avoiding dizziness by keeping one's eyes on one's partner, the only fixed point possible while turning:
You will probably expect some description of an elegant figure, executed with taste, and affording variety and amusement. No; the attitude constitutes all the pleasure and all the novelty of the dance. The dancers thus embarcing and embraced, begin to turn most furiously, precisely like our Shaking Quakers, and as the motion would make them dizzy, if they did not keep their eyes fixed on some object, which turn as rapidly as themselves, they have an apology for the most languishing gazes upon each other.
One might almost think he'd tried the dance himself, eh?
Just to make sure his sister gets the point about how awful waltzing is, he goes on a bit more about it:
In this state of painful revolution they continue, till nature is exhausted, when the lady is exactly prepared to repose herself, which she does in the arms of her companion. The dance is soon renewed, and, as it has no other termination than the fatigue of the parties, nor any other object than a languishing embrace, it generally continues for several hours, exhibiting neither variety, taste, nor graceful motions. I do not think that it is more indecent to act than it is to see it. The lady or the gentleman, who could do either without a blush, may rely upon it that they are half corrupted.
And while recovering from this fit of moral horror, he throws in some dubious dance history:
This dance appears so strongly to resemble the abominable dances of the Bacchanals, that I am persuaded it is derived from that source. It is probably that the Roman officers carried it with their arms into the north of Europe, from whence it is now returned with northern arms to scourage and debase, if possible still more, the Italians.
The waltz is so immoral that, one way or the other, it must have originated in Italy!
And heaven forbid it should come to America:
We are so prone to copy all the fashions, and many of the vices of Europe, that I should tremble lest this lascivious and criminal exhibition should make its way into our country. But I console myself with the reflection, that manners must have arrived to an high degree of corruption before such a dance would be publickly permitted; and as I flatter myself, that we are as yet far removed from that state of moral depravity, so I have reason to hope, that it will not be introduced in my day, nor in that of my children.
He's actually a bit late with his concern; the waltz had already begun turning up here and there in America, though perhaps not yet to prim and proper Boston. But just in case it did, and banning it proved ineffective, he supplied a novel solution that betrays a surprisingly good understanding of human nature:
Should, however, contrary to my hopes and belief, the day arrive, in which a lady of our society will, without blushing, be ready to embrace a gentleman in publick company, I hope the government will not so far have lost its purity and energy, as to neglect to restrain what private delicacy ought to have prevented. Were I the attorney-general in such a case, I should without hesitation present it to the grand jury, as an offence 'contra bonos mores." If all this should not avail, and it should become apparent that the floodgates of vice must be thrown open, I would exert my little influence with the legislature to procure an act to render polygamy lawful, or even to repeal the laws for the preservation of chastity. This I would do upon the conviction, that, when morals have descended to a certain degree of debasement, and when vice becomes general and is authorised by law, people will become virtuous by way of distinction.
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Several volumes of The Monthly Anthology, and Boston Review are online, including Volume 4 (1807). The letter may be read there in its entirety.
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