I thought it a delightful way of opening a political meeting;
and I wished we could do it at home at the General Election.
I wish that instead of the wearisome business of Mr. Bonar Law
taking the chair, and Mr. Lloyd George addressing the meeting,
Mr. Law and Mr. Lloyd George would only hop and caper in front of
a procession, spinning round and round till they were dizzy, and waving
and crossing a pair of umbrellas in a thousand invisible patterns.
But this political announcement or advertisement, though more intelligent
than our own, had, as I could readily believe, another side to it.
I was told that it was often a prelude to ordinary festivals,
such as weddings; and no doubt it remains from some ancient ritual dance
of a religious character. But I could imagine that it might sometimes
seem to a more rational taste to have too religious a character.
I could imagine that those dancing men might indeed be dancing dervishes,
with their heads going round in a more irrational sense than
their bodies. I could imagine that at some moments it might suck
the soul into what I have called in metaphor the whirlpool of Asia,
or the whirlwind of a world whipped like a top with a raging monotony;
the cyclone of eternity.
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