The Spanish Passion for Dancing.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 220, 17 September 1887, Page 7

The Spanish Passion for Dancing.

I presume that those who have travelled in Spain hardly realise how thoroughly^ that country is given to the worship of St. Vitus. Says a'recent writer :■—" The dance demon seizes on Spaniards at all times and under all circumstances— in the streets, on the public squares, under the porches of stately mansions. A peripatetic musician comes along, strumming his guitar, and in an instant the maid servants throw aside their brooms, the workmen set down the pitchers they are carrying to the fountain, the muleteers leave their mules, the inkeeper forgets your dinner, and all spring forward, arms akimbo and eyes sparkling. Their feet just touch the ground, they balance in unison with the music, and dance with their soulrf as well as with their bodies. " Let a tourist vi&it Toledo and put up at the ancient hostelry De Lino, and let a guitar player station himself under the great sombre archway that Don Quixote himself would nob have passed without a ! foreboding of evil. He will see with his own eyes now the natural order of things will be disarranged and everything thrown into confusion. A fandango will begin in the court, the kitchen and the street, and amid such a hubbub that he will think he has taken leave of his senses. " One day at St. Sebastian the regiment passed by with a band at its head. A fandango was played. " Even the children who had been industriously engaged in making dirt pies pricked up their ears, caught each other by the waists, and tried to go through the steps. Their nurses joined in snapping their fingers. The passers-by came to the assistance of the nurses. The soldiers themselves couldn't stand the temptation, but fell out of the ranks and mingled in the dance.'*— Chicago " Tribune."

What is it that goes fast to wreck and ruin, yet does nothing but good I—A1 — A lifebeat.