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The battle in "Ein Heldenleben" pictures war really; the whistling, ironical wind-machine in "Don Quixote" satirizes dreams bitingly as no music has done; the orchestra describes the enthusiastic Don recovering from his madness, and smiles a conclusion; in "Also Sprach Zarathustra" it piles high the tomes of science, and waltzes with the Superman in distant worlds.
Now they proceed to the carpet-stores, and there are thrown at their feet by obsequious clerks velvets and Axminsters, with flowery convolutions and medallion-centres, as if the flower-gardens of the tropics were whirling in waltzes, with graceful lines of arabesque, roses, callas, lilies, knotted, wreathed, twined, with blue and crimson and golden ribbons, dazzling marvels of color and tracery.
German and French and English, Scots accent and Irish brogue, pedantic Hanoverian and lusty Brunswick tones, all and more of these varied sounds mingle with one another, and half-drown by their clamour the sweet strains of the Viennese orchestra that discoursed dreamy waltzes from behind a bower of crimson roses; whilst ponderous Flemish wives of city burgomasters gaze open-mouthed at the elegant ladies of the old French noblesse, and shy Belgian misses peep enviously at their more self-reliant English friends.
The artists of the nineteenth century had found la bonne compagnie the rich, that is to say dancing waltzes to sentimental Olgas and Blue Danubes, but they had drawn quite other conclusions. Yet waltzes and waltz-tunes are just as good as, and no better than, fox-trots and ragtime. Both have their merits; but it is a mistake, perhaps, for artists to take either seriously.
'I range myself, as our friends here say." He thought, as he spoke, of sundry breakneck gallops and mahlstrom waltzes danced in gardens and saloons, the very existence whereof was ignored by or unknown to respectability; and then thought, "If I were safely planted on the other side of the world with her for my wife, it would cost me no more to cut all that kind of thing than it would to throw away a handful of withered flowers."
They are discussing the economy of life and love and the site and architecture of their summer residences, and have no time to sit on a twig and pour forth solemn hymns, or overtures, operas, symphonies, and waltzes.
Suppose we should meet with a paragraph like the following, in the newspapers: "Yesterday a visiting party of the British nobility had a picnic at Mount Vernon, and in the tomb of Washington they ate their luncheon, sang popular songs, played games, and danced waltzes and polkas." Should we be shocked? Should we feel outraged? Should we be amazed? Should we call the performance a desecration?
The latter, who was a terrible despot on the score of etiquette, could not bear the idea of a dance which could have the effect of placing a princess of the blood in such an undignified position, and turning a deaf ear to all arguments about the mishap being due to the awkwardness of the dancers, rather than to the dance itself, she vetoed the inclusion of waltzes thenceforth in all programmes of court balls.
"Now, comrades," concluded the young orator, as a loud burst of music warned him that the night's entertainment was about to commence, "I presume you thoroughly understand me. Not a single hop, remember, with Miss Irvine, and any amount of polkas and waltzes with Miss Latimer. The former is one of your stuck-up young ladies, who grow old before their time; the latter, a tip-top girl like Win.
They'd merely slid out of the ballroom about three A.M., after dancin' seventeen waltzes together, snuggled into a hansom cab, and rode around the park until daylight talkin' it over.
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