In Germany the whole day was spent at the table, with a licence that was often gross, and with all that old mediaeval gaiety of which the _Table-talk_ of Luther has preserved an excellent specimen. Yet the Rhine is not so broad nor the Alps so high but that such customs soon appeared disgusting and lamentable when compared with the politer modes which were spreading through the world. Many writers endeavoured to polish these table manners by publishing manuals of etiquette and collections of _bons mots_. If they did not establish the complete art of conversation they indicated its rudiments, and indeed their success was sufficient to necessitate in 1549 a recasting of the fourth edition of the classical collection of Gastius,[202] and the suppression of a certain number of pleasantries which seemed out of place “in view of the distresses of the time.” Thus the art of table-talk became so popular that even in Germany people endeavoured to cultivate it; but sprightliness, which is its very salt, remained till further orders a distinctively French quality. The ball and the dance, though much more aesthetic in themselves, were a great deal more difficult to idealise, because in them the sensuous element bulks more largely. Here, however, there was no need to exaggerate, and to proscribe dancing would have been absurd. What could be more ridiculous than the jealousy of certain husbands (husbands do not stand sufficiently in awe of ridicule!). And it was so useless, too. A woman who has her wits about her is never at a loss for a pretext for going to a rout; there is always a young girl at hand who needs chaperoning. Someone, indeed, mentions a young matron of Louise of Savoy’s own court, who, to save an old husband an apoplectic fit, had the heroism to immure herself at home; but this is dead against the spirit of sociability. Why forge useless chains? Vivès himself, who is not open to suspicion, agrees that “dancing is a very natural accompaniment to the pleasures of society and the table.” But there is dancing and dancing. The ideal of platonist joy and happiness would be a free and thoroughly intellectual dance with a calm and delicious rhythm, a dance that would add a pleasure to life, the dancer in light floating drapery, bare-footed, bare-headed, ungirt, in the sweet air of springtime, on a smooth, soft lawn among jasper and coral, under the long-leaved palms, amidst the scent of roses and pine-trees—an intoxicating dance the pure motion of which harmonises with the vast music of Nature, the cooing of doves, the mighty arpeggios of the sea. The woman who, alone or hand in hand with her companions, abandons herself to this exquisite charm, this magical sweetness, who associates herself with all things in this imponderable rhythm—does she not represent a goddess of happiness, and does she not come to incarnate for us the divine charm of Nature?