If you studied them
carefully, you would begin to discern a certain rhythm, a certain
harmony. You would at length be able to compose from them a specific
dance--a dance not quite like any other--a dance formally expressive
of new English optimism. If you are not optimistic, don't hope to
become so by practising the steps. But practise them assiduously if
you are; and get your fellow-optimists to practise them with you. You
will grow all the happier through ceremonious expression of a light
heart. And your children and your children's children will dance `The
Chesterton' when you are no more. May be, a few of them will still be
dancing it now and then, on this or that devious green, even when
optimism shall have withered for ever from the land. Nor will any man
mock at the survival. The dance will have lost nothing of its old
grace, and will have gathered that quality of pathos which makes even
unlovely relics dear to us--that piteousness which Time gives ever to
things robbed of their meaning and their use. Spectators will love it
for its melancholy not less than for its beauty. And I hope no mere
spectator will be so foolish as to say, `Let us do it' with a view to
reviving cheerfulness at large. I hope it will be held sacred to those
in whom it will be a tradition--a familiar thing handed down from
father to son.
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