this scandalous incident he would pass to tell all that he remembered
of the conversation he had heard at the table round which he had
worked till nearly four o'clock in the morning handing cutlets,
chicken patties, and other delicacies, the names of which he was not
acquainted with.

Mr. Coote's description of what he saw may be ingenuous, but is his
description untrue? And when Mr. Coote finished up his speech as I
imagine him finishing it, by stating that the dancing, the music, the
dresses, the wines, and the meats were arranged and learnedly chosen
for one purpose and one only, the stimulation of sexual passion, I
cannot imagine anyone accusing him of having spoken an untruth. Mr.
Coote added that no one went to the ball for the pleasure of the
conversation--he was convinced that old and young derived their
pleasure, consciously or unconsciously, from sex.

We will imagine the members of Mr. Coote's Society being greatly moved
by his description, and the sudden determination of everybody that
dancing must be stopped. Had not Byron declared the waltz to be "half
a whore"? Tolstoy has gone one better and asked people to say if a
woman can remain chaste if a low dress is permitted and Beethoven's
"Kreutzer Sonata" is played. Forgetful, of course, that they have
prosecuted "Don Juan," the Society accepts Byron's dictum as their war
cry, and henceforth the business of Mr. Coote is to inquire into what
is immoral in dress, in music, in wine, and in food. After a long
consultation with experts and expensive law proceedings the Vigilance
Association has (in our imagination) succeeded in reforming society as
completely as it succeeded in reforming literature; and the months go
by, October, November, December, January, February, March ... but one
night the wind changes, and coming out of our houses in the morning we