We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved
by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that
dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half
a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a
woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's
"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have
prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war
cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what
is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long
consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance
Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as
completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go
by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one
night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we
are taken with a sense of delight, a soft south wind is blowing and
the lilacs are coming into bloom. My correspondent says that my book
rouses sensuality. Perhaps it does, but not nearly so much as a spring
day, and no one has yet thought of suppressing or curtailing spring
days.
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