Very soon now I shall be strong enough on my cyclone leg to resume my
lessons in waltzing. It is needless to say that I look forward with great
pleasure to that moment. Nature intended that I should glide in the mazy.
Tall, lithe, bald-headed, genial, limber in the extreme, suave, soulful,
frolicsome at times, yet dignified and reserved toward strangers, light on
the foot--on my own foot, I mean--gentle as a woman at times, yet
irresistible as a tornado when insulted by a smaller, I am peculiarly
fitted to shine in society. Those who have observed my polished brow, when
under a strong electric light, say they never saw a man shine so in
society as I do.
My wife taught me how to waltz. She would teach me on Saturdays and repair
her skirts during the following week. I told her once that I thought I was
too brainy to dance. She said she hadn't noticed that, but she thought I
seemed to run too much to legs. My wife is not timid about telling me
anything that she thinks will be for my good. When I make a mistake she is
perfectly frank with me, and comes right to me and tells me about it, so
that I won't do so again.
I had just learned how to reel around a ballroom to a little waltz music,
when I was blown across the State of Mississippi in September last by a
high wind, and broke one of my legs which I use in waltzing. When this
accident occurred I had just got where I felt at liberty to choose a
glorious being with starry eyes and fluffy hair, and magnificently modeled
form, to steer me around the rink to the dreamy music of Strauss. One
young lady, with whom I had waltzed a good deal, when she heard that my
leg was broken, began to attend every dancing party she could hear of,
although she had declined a great many previous to that. I asked her how
she could be so giddy and so gay when I was suffering. She said she was
doing it to drown her sorrow, but her little brother told me on the quiet
that she was dancing while I was sick because she felt perfectly safe. A
friend of mine says I have a pronounced and distinctly original manner of
waltzing, and that he never saw anybody, with one exception, who waltzed
as I did, and that was Jumbo. He claimed that either one of us would be a
good dancer if he could have the whole ring to himself. He said that he
would like to see Jumbo and me waltz together if he were not afraid that I
would step on Jumbo and hurt him. You can see what a feeling of jealous
hatred it arouses in some small minds when a man gets so that he can
mingle in good society and enjoy himself.
[Illustration: WALTZING WITH JUMBO.]
I could waltz more easily if the rules did not require such a constant
change of position. I am sedentary in my nature, slow to move about, so
that it takes a lady of great strength of purpose to pull me around on
time.
Anecdotes of the Stage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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