If a list were made of the gentlemen's names at almost any large ball, many of them would be erased by a careful censor as unfit for association with decent women. This is no mere matter of opinion, but an incontrovertible fact; and those are blind indeed who cannot see that the modern i George William Curtis ball, with every feature in it sensuous and seductive, is what we call a secondary sexual love feast, and that its present tendency is not in the direction of purity or a high civilization. It must be remembered that many of the men, and for that matter many of the women as well, are the descendants of ancestors who were lustful and perverse in their inclinations, and that such are congenitally vicious and abnormal in their sexual proclivities. To these the foregoing facts are especially applicable, and the grossest evils are of course produced on their neuropathic dispositions.
For all these reasons we must place dancing, as usually practised, in the category of those influences which promote laxity of morals, and perhaps it will be seen that the province of preaching upon this topic belongs more to the physician than to the clergyman.
The Modern Stage is an important factor in debasing public opinion and sexually overstimulating the passions of a large number of individuals.
Nations at all periods of history have delighted in some form of drama; and there is no doubt that grand and ennobling plays, well presented, have an educational influence of much value, and that they afford a legitimate gratification of the normal play instinct of mankind.
But we cannot fail to notice that a large majority of the modern plays and operas have as essential elements of the plot, or of the costuming, something which is unmistakably immoral, salacious and erotic. In fact, there is a glorification of vice, and modesty and morality are put to shame. Lasciviousness and the waving of enchanting petticoats have largely replaced oratory and fine acting.
"Now, what we get on the English stage is the gross ness without the vice or, to put it more accurately, the vulgarity without the open presentation of vice. You may mean anything, so long as you say something else. Almost every farcical comedy or comic opera to leave the music hall alone is vitiated by a vein of vulgar indecency which is simply despicable. The aim of the artist is not to conceal art there is none to conceal but to conceal his indecencies decently, and yet in the most readily discoverable manner".
That the tendencies are pernicious cannot be disputed when we see such prominence given to the ballet, skirt-dances, living pictures, and to every other device suggestive to the eye and imagination. Some of the shameless " leg artistes" who have invaded the stage, though in no sense actresses nor even artistic ballet dancers, have gained far more notoriety and wealth by their indecent exhibitions than the legitimate performers have been able to do.
The stage dance is sensual in every respect; the costumes must be spicy, and the draperies sometimes scanty, sometimes voluminous are moved in the most suggestive ways under the effects of colored searchlights, etc. A woman who has no talent whatever as an actress can, nevertheless, often cause a furore and draw large crowds to see her if she will strip herself of clothing to the extreme limits tolerated by law, and supply some sort of an apology for such an appearance.
The study of these so called actresses seems to be constantly to devise something bolder and more indelicate than what any one else has brought out; and in this way they attract large crowds of men and women, and receive enormous salaries from their managers.
Of course no real lady, if she were reflective, could think of allowing herself to be seen in such an assemblage where semi-nude women are openly degrading her sex, nor would a true gentleman attend places where he could not take the ladies of his family. "Ladies, who, whether they are married or unmarried,
are in England presumed to be agnostics in sexual matters, will roar themselves hoarse over farces whose stories could only be told to the ultra marines. Ibsen may not untie a shoe latchet in the interest of truth, while English burlesque managers may put an army of girls into tights".