The easy-going driver turns his vehicle towards the exit. Again the portals open wide. Bands of bright daylight pour into the half-darkened amphitheatre. In the glare one catches sight, for a moment, of a little section of the life that swarms round about the fringe of the Circus. There is the soda-water vendor with his gay-coloured cart, a labourer, a few servant girls, and some twenty little children staring with big eyes eagerly into the darkness of the arena in the hope of catching a glimpse of all this magnificence. I shall never forget the sight. Those children’s eyes, opened so tremendously wide, longing to catch a bit of happiness! How they envy the fortunate ones sitting in here and beholding real fairy-tale wonders! I lapse into a day-dream again. I too am one of those little ones standing out there; I count the richly-caparisoned horses that are being led in; for the twentieth time I read the large placard announcing an “élite performance”; I am so happy as the beautiful equestrienne passes right by me; the muffled sounds of the music penetrate to my ears; I hear the animated applause and the bravos. One thought possesses me: I must get in! Cost what it may, I must go in! Oh, I could have committed a theft to enable myself to get in there and share in the applause! And I thought to myself, if I am ever a rich man I shall go to the Circus every day. How excitedly I go home then, talking about all the wonderful things I have seen, and how in my dreams all my wishes are realized--all these things take on a tangible shape before my mind’s eye. I note that it was the most beautiful period of my life, the time when I used to stand outside. In those days I still had a sense of the wonderful. There was a touch of secret magic about everything. Even dead things had a message for me. Before me was an endless wealth of possibilities; and there stretched before me kingdoms of the future over which my childish wishes flew like migratory birds. Verily--happiness is only anticipating possibilities, denying impossibilities. Life is filled up with dreams of the future. What we know seems trivial when measured by the knowledge we would like to acquire. Possession kills desire; realization slays fantasy and transforms the wonderful into the commonplace. All the beauty of this world lies only in the fantasies which reality can never approximate. The marvels of the present are seen only by those who stand outside.