progression be towards good or evil, I leave you and our friend Foster
to settle between you.

_Mr Escot._
I wish to make no change in his habits and feelings, but to give him,
hypothetically, so much mental illumination, as will enable him to
take a clear view of two distinct stages of the deterioration of his
posterity, that he may be enabled to compare them with each other, and
with his own more happy condition. The Indian, dancing round the
midnight fire, is very far deteriorated; but the magnificent beau,
dancing to the light of chandeliers, is infinitely more so. The Indian
is a hunter: he makes great use of fire, and subsists almost entirely
on animal food. The malevolent passions that spring from these
pernicious habits involve him in perpetual war. He is, therefore,
necessitated, for his own preservation, to keep all the energies of
his nature in constant activity: to this end his midnight war-dance is
very powerfully subservient, and, though in itself a frightful
spectacle, is at least justifiable on the iron plea of necessity.

_Mr Jenkison._
On the same iron plea, the modern system of dancing is more
justifiable. The Indian dances to prepare himself for killing his
enemy: but while the beaux and belles of our assemblies dance, they
are in the very act of killing theirs--TIME!--a more inveterate and
formidable foe than any the Indian has to contend with; for, however
completely and ingeniously killed, he is sure to rise again, "with
twenty mortal murders on his crown," leading his army of blue devils,
with ennui in the van, and vapours in the rear.

_Mr Escot._