"I should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day."
"Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball."
– Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 11. Caroline Bingley is in conversation with her brother Charles about his plan to hold a ball at Netherfield. Caroline is critical of balls because they involve dancing instead of conversation. But she is just trying to impress Mr. Darcy because she believes he is not a lover of dancing. However, dance lover Charles takes the view that it wouldn’t be a ball without the dancing. Dancing was a very important part of the courtship ritual in Jane Austen’s England. In Chapter 3 the author tells us, "To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."