In the folk dance, man shows the feelings and dispositions of his race. From this dance of the people, all music gradually took a measured form, a rhythmic thing that is lacking in the song of primitive people. In primitive times, all dances were sung, particularly was this the case with the Slav race. As instruments were perfected, they took the place of primitive drums and singing as accompaniment to the dance. The plain chant, and in fact all music of the church, lacked the element we call rhythm. It followed a metre or measure needed by the words, but this was much more like talking than like singing. Even the ornamented chant of the soloists in the churches had no definiteness of time or of phrase. Rhythm as we feel it today, occurs in two ways,—through the singing of verses and through dancing. We must not forget that early peoples were much like children, and took pleasure in jingles, and in moving their feet and bodies in repeated motions which became dances. It is most fascinating to see that the people who have the saddest songs, have the gayest and wildest dances! Maybe it is because the sadder the nation the more need it has for some gay way of forgetting its woes. The Russians, the Poles, the Norwegians and the people of all north countries where the songs are minor and tragic, have the wildest dances. The clothes, too, of the folk in these countries are decked in colored embroideries, and the decorations of the houses giddy and jolly. When the Russians get together they forget their sorrows in wild and almost frenzied dances, and directly after they will sing songs of deepest gloom. POLISH DANCES The Poles have several folk dances that are easily recognized by their rhythm and style. The great Polish composer Chopin used these folk dances in some of the loveliest piano music ever written. For more than six centuries they have been used by Polish composers, yet there are people who say that folk song has no influence on musical art. The Polonaise, in ¾ time, a stately dance of the aristocracy and nobles rather than of the people, began as a folk dance, and is supposed to have come from the Christmas Carol. The rhythm of the Polonaise, is easily recognized and followed. In the early times, these polonaises had no composer’s tag, but were often named for some Polish hero, and thus show the date in which they were born. One Polish writer dates the “courtly” polonaise from 1573. The year following the election of Henry III of Anjou, a great reception took place at Cracow, in which all the ladies of high rank marched in procession past the throne to the sound of a stately dance. This was the beginning of the stately polonaise, in which old and young took part, marching all through the great drawing rooms and gardens.