went, collided, fell and jumped up again in a uniformly accelerated
rhythm, visibly intent upon affecting a CRESCENDO. And it was more
and more to the jumping up again, the REBOUND, that the attention of
the public was attracted. Gradually, one lost sight of the fact that
they were men of flesh and blood like ourselves; one began to think
of bundles of all sorts, falling and knocking against each other.
Then the vision assumed a more definite aspect. The forms grew
rounder, the bodies rolled together and seemed to pick themselves up
like balls. Then at last appeared the image towards which the whole
of this scene had doubtless been unconsciously evolving--large
rubber balls hurled against one another in every direction. The
second scene, though even coarser than the first, was no less
instructive. There came on the stage two men, each with an enormous
head, bald as a billiard ball. In their hands they carried large
sticks which each, in turn, brought down on to the other's cranium.
Here, again, a certain gradation was observable. After each blow,
the bodies seemed to grow heavier and more unyielding, overpowered
by an increasing degree of rigidity. Then came the return blow, in
each case heavier and more resounding than the last, coming, too,
after a longer interval. The skulls gave forth a formidable ring
throughout the silent house. At last the two bodies, each quite
rigid and as straight as an arrow, slowly bent over towards each
other, the sticks came crashing down for the last time on to the two
heads with a thud as of enormous mallets falling upon oaken beams,
and the pair lay prone upon the ground. At that instant appeared in
all its vividness the suggestion that the two artists had gradually
driven into the imagination of the spectators: "We are about to
become ...we have now become solid wooden dummies."

A kind of dim, vague instinct may enable even an uncultured mind to