The man, the nobler,
braver creature, is arrayed in a wretched flimsy finery of tights and
spangles, parading his physical weakness and inferiority in the
toggery of a mountebank. The tiger, vast, sleepy-eyed, mysterious, lies
motionless in the front of his cage, the gorgeous stripes of his velvet
coat following each curve of his body, from the cushions of his great
fore paws to the arch of his gathered haunches. The watchfulness and
flexible activity of the serpent and the strength that knows no master
are clothed in the magnificent robes of the native-born sovereign. Time
and times again the beautiful giant has gone through the slavish
round of his mechanical tricks, obedient to the fragile creature of
intelligence, to the little dwarf, man, whose power is in his eyes and
heart only. He is accustomed to the lights, to the spectators, to the
laughter, to the applause, to the frightened scream of the hysterical
women in the audience, to the close air and to the narrow stage behind
the bars. The tamer in his tights and tinsel has grown used to his
tiger, to his emotions, to his hourly danger. He even finds at last that
his mind wanders during the performance, and that at the very instant
when he is holding the ring for the leap, or thrusting his head into the
beast's fearful jaws, he is thinking of his wife, of his little child,
of his domestic happiness or household troubles, rather than of what
he is doing.
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