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Circus

Creator: n/a
Date: January 1839
Publication: The Knickerbocker
Source: Available at selected libraries

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Meantime the cavalcade halts before the inn. The crowd closes in at once to feast their eyes on the luggage, and see the company unpack. The spirited horses, perspiring with the long journey, stamp impatiently on the ground. The corps are a little out of pa-tience, and annoyed by the crowd. A child gets under the horses' heels, and is dragged out by the hair of his head, unhurt. What rough-spoken, ill-looking fellows are the equestrians! How strangely will they be metamorphosed in a few hours-bright, dazzling, tricked out in gay attire, full of beautiful spangles! They are not themselves now; they are acting the difficult parts of every-day men. At night they will fall readily into their own characters, clowns, harlequins, and the most amusing fools in the world.

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'May I be there to see!'

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Rapidly the intelligence of their arrival spreads into the adjacent country. The whole community are on the qui vive. There are uneasiness, anticipation, excitement. The village belles lay out their trinkets, ornaments, and brightest calicoes, to adorn the boxes; the plough-boy scrapes his pence together, desperately determined on a standing in the pit. A discussion waxes warm among the graver part of the community, about the lawfulness of these amusements. Some of the young are troubled with doubts. The old people hesitate, demur, and at last give their consent. They have been once young themselves -- such opportunities do not occur every day. Indeed it would be very difficult for any one to demur, after reading the 'bill of fare,' a great blanket sheet, full of wood cuts and pictures; horses on the full run, and men bent into all possible shapes and contortions. 'Unrivalled Attraction! Grand entrée. Four-and-twenty Arabian horses. Celebrated equestrian Mr. Burke. Feats in the ring. Grand leap. Cups and ball. The entertainments to conclude with the laughable farce of Billy Button, or the Hunted Tailor. As the hired man reads over this tempting bill, or failing to read, interprets the hieroglyphics, his mouth waters. 'I must go!' -- and he adds, resolutely clenching his teeth, 'I will go.'

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In the course of the day the equestrians have wrought industriously, and raised their white pavilion. It stands out on the green, in beautiful proportions, erected suddenly, as if by magic. A flag floats over its summit, on whose ample folds is inscribed 'Circus.' All things are ready for the evening's sport, and a death-like silence reigns over the village.

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Who is he that walketh pensively in yonder green, beneath the shadow of the trees, with head bowed down, as if in thought, and plucking a leaf to pieces? It is the amiable minister of the parish. He is sore grieved in spirit. Hitherto has he led his flock without contradiction, conducting them safely through thorny places, and shielding them from the inclemency of the storm. And now forsooth the very devil has come to take them by force of arms. From his heart he regrets it. He has prayed over it, and wept over it, and slept over it, and dreamed of it. He has summoned a conclave of the principal men, remonstrated with the authorities of the town, and held up the whole thing in the length and breadth of its enormity. But the perverse men will heed none of his counsels or reproofs. He preached a sermon on the Sunday previous, in which he alarmed the young, and denounced in the most terrible terms all who should hold communion with Belial. He shed tears over the disregard of his reckless auditors. But there is mixed up with genuine grief a little vexation, because he cannot have his own way. If they will heed none of his counsel, if they will persist in their own downward course, he can but depart from them; he can but shake off the dust of his feet, and leave them to perish in their misdoings.

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It is very hard to draw the line accurately betwixt virtue and vice, and it may he safer to err upon the right side. Yet there is a time for every thing. We cannot always be serious. The mind must have its carnival. We must crack the nuts of folly. To become a fool once a year, is a mark of wisdom; to be a perpetual fool, is be-yond endurance. The gradual accumulation of spirits in the dullest person, will at length reach a height when it demands an exit.

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'Qua data ports ruit.'

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What signifies it, whether it be let off in a round explosion, or hiss away at intervals, like steam. Talk not of mingling the useful with the sweet. We sometimes require folly without mixture -- pure, un-alloyed, unmitigated and concentrated folly. It is good to be attacked, to be sick, and to die with agonies of laughter. The storm of the passions purifies the atmosphere of the temper. With how much keener zest do we return to substantial pleasures, even as the sick man awakens to the deliciousness of health! Govern then your own con-duct by the most rigid maxims, but beware how you denounce too bitterly, or condemn too terribly, unless yourselves are immaculate. Consistency is a most precious jewel. If you deem it a credit to abstain from trifles, indulging unreservedly in what is infinitely worse - if you cherish envy, or pride, or jealousy in the heart -- if you sully by detraction the fair name of your neighbor, whom you are commanded to love as yourself- then certainly you 'strain at a gnat and swallow a camel.' To do these things, and without com-punction, maybe esteemed a more palpable dereliction, than to laugh at the antics of a tumbler or a clown. The voiceless eloquence of a good example persuades the young to virtue, but the harsher precepts of a rigorous code, will be more apt to compel them to a vagabond life.

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