Yet this, apparently, is the sort of thing which appeals to the modern American who wants amusement of the lightest kind, amusement which appeals to the eye and ear with the lightest possible tax on his already over-burdened brain. He certainly cannot complain that his wishes have not been faithfully fulfilled. It may be due to my ignorance of English, but the song I have just quoted seems to me silly, and I do not think any "ragtime music" could make it worth singing. Of course many songs and plays in the music halls are such as afford innocent mirth, but it has to be confessed that there are other things of a different type which it is not wise for respectable families to take the young to see. I would not like to say all I think of this feature of Western civilization, but I may quote an Englishman without giving offense. Writing in the 'Metropolitan Magazine', Louis Sherwin says: "There is not a doubt that the so-called 'high-brow dancer' has had a lot to do with the bare-legged epidemic that rages upon the comic-opera stage to-day. Nothing could be further removed from musical comedy than the art of such women as Isadora Duncan and Maude Allen. To inform Miss Duncan that she has been the means of making nudity popular in musical farce would beyond question incur the lady's very reasonable wrath. But it is none the less true. When the bare-legged classic dancer made her appearance in opera houses, and on concert platforms with symphony orchestras, it was the cue for every chorus girl with an ambition to undress in public. First of all we had a plague of Salomes. Then the musical comedy producers, following their usual custom of religiously avoiding anything original, began to send the pony ballets and soubrettes on the stages without their hosiery and with their knees clad in nothing but a coat of whitewash (sometimes they even forgot to put on the whitewash, and then the sight was horrible). The human form divine, with few exceptions, is a devilish spectacle unless it is properly made up. Some twenty years from now managers will discover what audiences found out months ago, that a chorus girl's bare leg is infinitely less beautiful than the same leg when duly disguised by petticoats and things."
[1] In his discussion of actors, Wu Tingfang does not seem to be aware that the idealization of actors in the West is comparatively recent, and that historically, and even now in some parts of society, actors and the acting profession have been looked down upon in the West for many of the same reasons he gives for the same phenomenon in China.—A. R. L., 1996.
[2] Wu Tingfang is quite correct to deplore this statement as a description of Chinese music. However, in all fairness, it is an accurate description of how a Western ear first hears CERTAIN types of Chinese music. After successive hearings this impression will fly away, but until then CERTAIN types are reminiscent of two alley-cats fighting in a garbage can. This is not meant as a degrading comment, any more so than Wu Tingfang's comments on opera. Some music is an acquired taste, and after acquirement, its beauty becomes not only recognizable but inescapable. Certain other types of Chinese music can easily be appreciated on the first hearing.—A. R. L., 1996.
Chapter 16. Conjuring and Circuses
After what I have said as to the position of the actor in China my readers will not be surprised at my saying that the performance of a conjuror should not be encouraged. What pleasure can there be in being tricked? It may be a great display of dexterity to turn water into wine, to seem to cut off a person's head, to appear to swallow swords, to escape from locked handcuffs, and to perform the various cabinet tricks, but cleverness does not alter the fact that after all it is only deception cunningly contrived and performed in such a way as to evade discovery. It appears right to many because it is called "legerdemain" and "conjuring" but in reality it is exactly the same thing as that by which the successful card-sharper strips his victims, viz., such quickness of hand that the eye is deceived. Should we encourage such artful devices? History tells many stories as to the way in which people have been kept in superstitious bondage by illusions and magic, and if it be now held to be right to deceive for fun how can it be held to have been wrong to deceive for religion? Those who made the people believe through practising deception doubtless believed the trick to be less harmful than unbelief. I contend, therefore, that people who go to see conjuring performances derive no good from them, but that, on the contrary, they are apt to be impressed with the idea that to practise deception is to show praiseworthy skill. It is strange how many people pay money to others to deceive them. More than ever before, people to-day actually enjoy being cheated. If the tricks were clumsily devised and easily detected there would be no attraction, but the cleverer and more puzzling the trick the more eagerly people flock to see it.
Christian preachers and moralists could do well to take up this matter and discourage people from frequenting the exhibitions of tricksters. There are doubtless many laws in nature yet undiscovered, and a few persons undoubtedly possess abnormal powers. This makes the cultivation of the love of trickery the more dangerous. It prevents the truth from being perceived. It enables charlatans to find dupes, and causes the real magician to be applauded as a legerdemainist. This is what the New Testament tells us happened in the case of Jesus Christ. His miracles failed to convince because the people had for a long time loved those who could deceive them cleverly.[1] The people said to him, "Thou hast a devil," and others warned them after his death saying, "That deceiver said while he was yet alive 'After three days I will rise again.'" When people are taught not only to marvel at the marvelous but to be indifferent to its falsehoods they lose the power of discrimination, and are apt to take the true for the false, the real for the unreal.
For an evening's healthy enjoyment I believe a circus is as good a place as can be found anywhere. The air there is not close and vitiated as in a theater; you can spend two or three hours comfortably without inhaling noxious atmospheres. It is interesting to note that the circus is perhaps the only form of ancient entertainment which has retained something of its pristine simplicity. To-day, as in the old Roman circuses, tiers of seats run round the course, which in the larger circuses is still in the form of an ellipse, with its vertical axis, where the horses and performers enter, cut away. But the modern world has nothing in this connection to compare with the Circus Maximus of Rome, which, according to Pliny, held a quarter of a million spectators. It is singular, however, that while the old Roman circuses were held in permanent buildings, modern circuses are mostly travelling exhibitions in temporary erections. In some respects the entertainment offered has degenerated with the change, for we have to-day nothing in the circus to correspond to the thrilling chariot races in which the old Romans delighted. I wonder that in these days of restless search for novelties some one does not re-introduce the Roman chariot race under the old conditions, and with a reproduction of the old surroundings. It would be as interesting and as exciting as, and certainly less dangerous than, polo played in automobiles, which I understand is one of the latest fads in the West. A modern horse-race, with its skill, daring and picturesqueness, is the only modern entertainment comparable to the gorgeous races of the Romans.
The exhibition of skillful feats of horsemanship and acrobatic displays by juvenile actors, rope-dancing, high vaulting and other daring gymnastic feats seen in any of our present-day circuses are interesting, but not new. The Romans had many clever tight-rope walkers, and I do not think they used the long pole loaded at the ends to enable them to maintain their equilibrium, as do some later performers. Japanese tumblers are very popular and some of their tricks clever, but I think the Western public would find Chinese acrobats a pleasant diversion. With practice, it would seem as if when taken in hand during its supple years there is nothing that cannot be done with the human body. Sometimes it almost appears as if it were boneless, so well are people able by practice to make use of their limbs to accomplish feats which astonish ordinary persons whose limbs are less pliable.
The trapeze gives opportunity for the display of very clever exhibition, of strength and agility; at first sight the gymnast would appear to be flying from one cross-bar to the other, and when watching such flights I have asked myself: "If a person can do that, why cannot he fly?" Perhaps human beings will some day be seen flying about in the air like birds. It only requires an extension of the trapeze "stunt". Travelling in the air by means of airships or aeroplanes is tame sport in comparison with bird-like flights, whether with or without artificial wings.