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It was the best of times , it was the worst of times , it was the age of wisdom , it was the age of foolishness , it was the epoch of belief , it was the epoch of incredulity , it was the season of Light , it was the season of Darkness , it was the spring of hope , it was the winter of despair , we had everything before us , we had nothing before us , we were all going direct to Heaven , we were all going direct the other way - - in short , the period was so far like the present period , that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received , for good or for evil , in the superlative degree of comparison only . " It is clearly part of the reason why I never learned ballroom dancing ; it 's the reason why I - - and all the boys - - resisted the folk dancing they tried to teach us in grade school ; it 's the reason why I would have screamed bloody murder if anyone had tried to make me take ballet at , say , the age of 10 ; and it 's the reason for the stunned silence that greeted me once when I happened to let fall to my colleagues that I was taking ballet classes . The world of dance was extremely lucky , later in the century , to have music from composers of the stature of Glazunov , Delibes , and Tchaikovsky . I found the whole performance not only foolish , with its mimed action and all that nonsense - - about swans , for Pete 's sake ! I would now like to speak for a few minutes about EITF Issue No. 04-1 , " Accounting for Preexisting Relationships between the Parties to a Business Combination . There were big windows along one wall , and plants in the windows , and the whole place was immaculate and the atmosphere light and pleasant . Ultimately , it was as if the whole episode had never happened , and it was only when I read Villella 's memoirs , Prodigal Son , in the Summer of 1992 , that all the memories of that era sprang back vividly - - what it was like to be turned out , to do barre and adage - - and that I realized what an unlikely thing this had been for me , of all people , to do , and how unbelievably lucky I had been to fall into the experience as I did . But in fact , the whole experience presented not only Hindemith but ballet itself in a new light , and I was converted on the spot .