The laureate of the circus, with an aesthetic shrewdness which places him at once on a level with Walter Pater (whose description of the "Mona Lisa," by the by, is an admirable example of Circus press-agent writing) considers, and rejects as too bewilderingly true, the mightiest of the adjectives that fit his theme. Discreetly he calls it "new" instead of "immemorial"; "educational" instead of "religious." He does not, as he might, call the circus poetic, he does not call it aristocratic, he does not call it democratic. Yet all these great words are, as he well knows, his to use. The consciousness of his power makes him gentle. His abnegation becomes the more startlingly virtuous when it is considered that he resists the temptation to use that fascinating device, paradox. For the circus is paradox itself--this reactionary and futuristic exhibition, full of Roman chariots and motor cycles, of high romance and grotesque realism, this demonstration of democracy and aristocracy, equality and subordination, worldliness and religion. The press agent may, without fear of logical contradiction, call the circus religious. In the old days, he frequently called it a "moral exhibition." This was to forestall or answer the attacks of the Puritan divines of New England, who railed against the great canvas monster which invaded the sanctity of their villages. "Moral" was justly used. For surely courage, patience, and industry are the three qualities most obviously exhibited by the silk-and-spangle clad men and women who dance on the perilous wire, fly through space on swiftly swinging bars, and teach a spaniel's tricks to the man-eating lion. But the religious value, the formally religious value, of the circus is even more obvious than its moral value. For the circus, more than any other secular institution on the face of the earth, exemplifies--it may be said, flaunts--that virtue which is the very basis of religion, the virtue of faith. Now, faith is the acceptance of truth without proof. The man who is told and believes that something contrary to his experience will happen has faith. And he who considers the psychology of the audience at a circus, he who (there are scientists sufficiently egotistic) looks into his own soul while a troupe of aerial acrobats are before his physical eyes, will see faith, strong and splendid.