If, some fine morning, we may find ourselves globe spiral ascensionists with little previous exertion, no one can become a tight-rope dancer without much patient labour. You see how easily the rope-dancer runs across her narrow path, and may feel tempted to say, “Really, it only requires nerve to do as much.” But it is a pity that, for your own edification, you were not present at the artist’s first experiments. All the strength of the dancer lies in the back and in the rigidity of the legs. On this account children cannot be placed upon the cord before they are ten years old. The apparatus used in these performances is very simple, and has not changed since antiquity. The cord is raised upon “_croisés_,” two crossed sticks, at each end, which form two ╳ of different size. The ╳ at the back is the highest, so that it may support the back of the dancer during the intervals of rest. The second ╳, or “_croisé de face_” which bears the “_guidon_” or _object of sight_, from which the dancer never moves his eyes, is not higher than the cord, which is attached at each end by cross bars of flexible wood. In Europe we use the ash, but the Americans use a still more pliant wood, the _ixry_. The whole apparatus is fixed by an arrangement called a “_cadrolle_” of pulleys. The first time the dancer attempts to cross the cord he is supported by straps on either side. [p214] With the balancing-pole carefully held in both hands, his eyes fixed upon the point of sight, he endeavours to turn his feet out as much as possible, treading first on the heel and then upon the great toe. After a few months’ practice he can dance the “_sabotière_” which does not wound his still tender feet. The other exercises which he must slowly acquire are the _walk forward_, the _walk backward_, the _dangerous spring forward_, the _dangerous spring backward_ the _horse spring_, and the art of _springing from one foot to the other_. [Illustration] This is the classic series of exercises. When the dancer has once mastered them his own imagination must aid his performance. He must attempt some new feat upon the cord that no one else has yet tried, and this “novelty” is [p215] more difficult to find than you would suppose. Artists like Ada Blanche, who inherit the talents of Madame Saqui and Blondin, have a right to repeat La Bruyère’s melancholy words, “We have come too late.” [Illustration] I have purposely given very little space in this book to former artists. The skill of our living gymnasts, acrobats, equestrians, and clowns, prevents our regretting the dead; but amongst the arts practised in the circus, that of the equilibrist has been in vogue longer than any other, and it is also the most limited in its resources.