amused with the evening's entertainment:
albeit I confess to a surfeit of the monotony
of black hair, black eyes, and olive tints,
and to a longing for the soft pearly whites,
the bright or delicate roses, the blue sweet
eyes, and the fair or red-brown tresses, rarely
seen but in the sister islands of these our
northern seas.

THE TRICK OF THE TRAPEZE.

WHEN I practised as a boy on the gymnastic
"swinging-bar," nobody ever heard of a
trapeze; but under that fine name the old
swinging-bar has now come into glory. Well it
might, if there were truth in picture posters.
Surely, methought, I have much yet to learn.
Never had I been taught to stiffen myself
horizontally, with arms stretched to their utmost,
fingers extended, and one leg straight, with the
other assuming that air of "kicking gracefulness"
so much deprecated in painting, but so
generally introduced into woodcuts. Neither,
when I throw a somersault, am I in the habit
of projecting my chin, forcing my occiput
between my shoulder-blades, and thrusting my
arms forward as if about to take the first stroke
in swimming. Yet, if artists really draw from
life, as certain accessories would suggest they did,
these are the attitudes assumed by Leotard and
his followers, and all my teachings are radically
false. Of course I went to see for myself, and
had the satisfaction of finding that old-fashioned
gymnastics were not superseded after all, and
that the strange attitudes of the performer are
perhaps owing to the inability of the non-gymnastic
artist to resolve the rapid and ever-varying
movements of the trapezist. It is simply
impossible for a man to project himself horizontally
through the air as if he had been shot out of a
catapult. If any one will take the trouble to
watch a performer while passing along the series
of trapezes, he will find that the position is almost
entirely perpendicular, and that when he is
sweeping through the air between the trapezes,
the body is as upright as when he stands on the
dull earth. Neither is the gymnast foolish
enough to stretch out his arms after the fashion
of engravings. He keeps his arms bent, with
hands close to the chest, ready to dart them
out and grasp at the approaching trapeze.
or it is always easier to fling the arm forward
than to draw it back, and whereas too
short a stroke will merely cause the performer
to come to the ground, a casualty for which
he is always prepared; an overshot stroke will
assuredly break one arm if not both, and hurl
the unfortunate gymnast on his head or fiat on
his back.

There is this remarkable feature in muscular,
as indeed in literary and all other gymnastics,
that the inexperienced public invariably mistakes
the important points, fails to appreciate the really
difficult part of the performance, and preserves
all its applause for the simplest and easiest, but
the most showy feats. As a muscular gymnast,
I speak feelingly, for I have often exhibited
before select assemblies, and have invariably
found that really difficult achievements have
been silently passed over, while easy but dashing
feats, such as throwing a somersault over
a horse, or dropping from a trapeze and catching
by the feet, are rewarded with loud cheers. So it
is with the performances of the many trapezists
who have followed in the track of Leotard, the
great master of his art. It is no very difficult
matter to pass from one trapeze to another. It
requires a certain dash and courage, but not
more than a thorough course of gymnastics can
impart to any ordinary pupil, the difficulty being,
of course, in exact proportion to the distance
between the trapezes. The real skill lies in the
absolute exactness of balance, in the seizing of
the bar at the precise moment when the weight of
the body is brought to bear in the proper direction,
and in the perfect line in which the body
is "delivered" between the ropes.

It is not enough merely to catch the bar.
Any one can do that who dares. The first great
point is to catch it so as to preserve the original
impetus, and to be able to add fresh force when
required, as is always the case before the
trapezist has come to the end of his swing.
The necessity for such a power is evident from
the fact that if a leaden mass of the same weight
as the performer were fastened to the rope, and
launched from the elevated perch, it would not
return to the point whence it started, owing to
the resistance of the air (which feels to the
performer like being whirled along on the outside
of an express train), and the friction of the
swivels whereon the ropes are suspended. The
performer must therefore have a perfect
command over the instrument, and be able to give
to the return swing an additional force which
will serve to compensate for the loss of power
through resistance of the air. No one who has
not personally experienced this resistance can
form the least idea of its intensity, of the fierce
rush of air as of a tornado, and the entire
deprivation of breath which it occasions to the
neophyte.

In the somewhat severe school where I learned
my lessons, the arrangements were so exactly
balanced, that the loss of a pound's weight of
force, or the slightest deviation from the precise
line, would produce inevitable and ignominious
failure. After we had practised on the trapeze
for some time, and were tolerably proficient upon
it, we were shifted to the single rope, without
a bar for the hands, or even a knot as
a resting-place. This rope hung from the
centre ot the building, and was long enough
to reach within twenty inches of the ground.
We ascended a perpendicular ladder at one end
of the building, had the rope thrown to us,
and were just able to catch the extremity
and to hold it, with arms stretched to their
utmost. The feat was, to launch ourselves from
the ladder, swing to the opposite end of the
building, turn in the air, swing back again, and
reassume our perch on the ladder. It is hardly
possible to exaggerate the difficulty of this