Thus having drawn kaleidoscopic sketches of the primitive racial choreographic impulses of a number of the civilized and barbaric races, we can come to the conclusion that in these alone are to be found the sound and virile germs of lasting individual or highly developed national art-dance. Ethnographic essentials are the next stepping-stones to a more developed future cosmic choreography, and in this the folk-dances give the most eloquent elementary lessons. As from a mute conversation we learn from the ethnic dances in what manifold forms one and the same beauty can manifest itself to the human mind. The ethnic symbols are graphic and true to the spirit of the thing expressed; for this reason a folk-dance, no matter how coarse, how grotesque and how strange it seems, is yet sincere and intelligible to the open-hearted observer. It always impresses one as something manly and direct, sound and firm. CHAPTER XI THE CELEBRATED SOCIAL DANCES OF THE PAST The _Pavane_ and the _Courante_; the _Allemande_ and the _Sarabande_; the _Minuet_ and the _Gavotte_; the _Rigaudon_ and other dances. Since we have devoted a chapter to the folk-dances, it will be fitting to describe a few of the most noted dances of the nobility in order to complete our comparative treatment of such a vast subject, so little systematized and so much ignored. While the general tone of all the folk-dances is masculine, that of all the social dances seems predominantly effeminate, rather soft and delicate. Their exceedingly graceful plastic lines, shaded movements, soft forms and subtilized gestures speak of gilded ball-rooms, silk and perfume, affected manners and the artificial air of a Rococo style. It seems as if a woman’s mind had worked out their embroidered figures and timid steps. They belonged to no particular nation, but to the rich class of all the world. The same _Allemande_ that was danced by the French nobility was copied at the castles of the German barons, English lords, Italian and Russian counts.