It was a relief, after more bellmanship from the man with the shiny silk hat and spiked coat, when the elephants majestically entered. Followed the horses. Tumblers and wire-walkers, women who stood on their heads and smiled--as they do in life, something like the “inverted pyramid,” as James Hinton called modern civilization--plastic poseurs, Oriental jugglers, the show was let loose at last. Human projectiles were launched through mid air to the tap of a drum. My nerves forbade me to look at them, so I read a programme advertisement of wallpaper for bathrooms. Some people like such horrible sights. I do not. They dare not precisely formulate to themselves the wish that “something” would happen, and if it does they shudder with sadistic joy. I close my eyes when the Whirl of Death or any other sensational act is staged. “Something” might happen. The mad dancers delight our rhythmic sense as they make marvellous arabesques. The chariot races stir the blood. The crash around curves, the patters of gleaming metal excite so that you stand up, and, brushing the feet of inevitable Johnny from your neck (notwithstanding his remonstrances), you shout with woolly mouth and husky voice. Instinctively you turn down your thumbs: “Pollice verso,” which Bayard Taylor translated “the perverse police.” You remember the Gérôme painting? “This beats Ibsen,” I hilariously exclaimed to Johnny’s mother. (She was a comely matron.) “His name is John, and when he gets home his father will beat him,” she tartly replied. With the prevoyance of boyhood Johnny burst into despairing howls. I at once folded up my mind. A million things were happening in the haze of the many rings. The New Circus is polyphonic, or naught.