It is Thackeray who relates the incident which illustrates how the English regarded the Duke in his old age. Two urchins, one a Londoner and the other not, see a soldierly figure ride by along the street. “‘That’s the Duke,’ says the Londoner. “‘The Duke?’ questions the other. “‘Of Wellington, booby!’ exclaims the Londoner, scornful of the ignoramus who did not know that when one spoke of ‘the Duke,’ Wellington alone _could_ be meant.” CHAPTER VI “There was a sound of revelry by night, And Belgium’s capital had gathered then Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men”. The dance is the harmony of motion wedded to the harmony of sound. Since men have loved music they have loved dancing, and the perfection of the dance will be a fascination until the love of music is dead in the souls of men. Herodias dances before the King, and off goes the head of John--a victim to the sensuous poetry of motion. Nor was Herod the only intoxicated monarch whose imperial will was seduced by music and the dance. Ancient history is full of it--this witchery of voluptuous music and voluptuous motion, the sway of the woman of the dance. As far back as we can see into the dim ages of the past, the record is the same. The story of the witchery of melodious sound and the rhythmical movement which brings the charm of music to the eye as well as to the ear, is traced in whatever of sculpture, of painting, of literature has been saved from the ravages of time. Graven on the stone, carved upon the frieze, cast in the entablature, delicately wreathed about the vase, we still see how the ancients loved music, and how the music made the dance. Out of the annals of the dead nations come the living names of their national dances, and it may be that the fire which burned in the heart of the Spartan when he went through the Pyrrhic dance was the same as that which kindled the ardor of the Red Man of the American tribes when he celebrated his war dance. There was the dance of the Furies, the dance of the Harvest, the dance of May-day, the dance of the religious rite, the dance of rejoicing, the dance of the marriage feast, the dance of the funeral rite. In the Greek Chorus the whole city gave itself to the melody of sound and the harmony of motion, just as the _farandola_ of to-day is, in Southern France, an unlooped garland of music and dance drawing into itself the entire community. Only the Roman refused to dance, and the Roman is the most unlovely national character in history. “Wine, woman, and song!” cried the revellers in the dawn of time; “Wine, woman, and song!” shout the revellers now; and between these flowery banks of Pleasure runs the steady, everlasting stream of earnest purpose, consecration to duty, and love of noble standards, that bears precious freight toward havens yet unknown. * * * * *