uld do none of these things would rob it of all
power to illude you. An art that challenges life at close quarters is
defeated through the simple fact that it is not life. Wax-works, being
so near to life, having the exact proportions of men and women, having
the exact texture of skin and hair and habiliments, must either be made
animate or continue to be grotesque and pitiful failures. Lifelike?
They? Rather do they give you the illusion of death. They are akin to
photographs seen through stereoscopic lenses--those photographs of
persons who seem horribly to be corpses, or, at least, catalepts;
and... You see, I have failed to cheer myself up. Having taken up a
strong academic line, and set bravely out to prove to myself the
absurdity of wax-works, I find myself at the point where I started,
irrefutably arguing to myself that I have good reason to be frightened,
here in the Chapel of Abbot Islip, in the midst of these, the Abbot's
glowering and ghastly tenants. Catalepsy! death! that is the atmosphere
I am breathing.

If I were writing in the past tense, I might pause here to consider
whether this emotion was a genuine one or a mere figment for literary
effect. As I am writing in the present tense, such a pause would be
inartistic, and shall not be made. I must seem not to be writing, but
to be actually on the spot, suffering. But then, you may well ask, why
should I stay here, to suffer? why not beat a hasty retreat? The answer
is that my essay would then seem skimpy; and that you, moreover, would
know hardly anything about the wax-works. So I must ask you to imagine
me fighting down my fears, and consoling myself with the reflection
that here, after all, a sense of awe and oppression is just what one
ought to feel--just what one comes for. At Madame Tussaud's exhibition,
by which I was similarly afflicted some years ago, I had no such
consolation. There my sense of fitness was outraged. The place was
meant to be cheerful. It was brilliantly lit. A band was playing
popular tunes. Downstairs there was even a restaurant. (Let fancy
fondly dwell, for a moment, on the thought of a dinner at Madame
Tussaud's: a few carefully-selected guests, and a menu well thought
out; conversation becoming general; corks popping; quips flying; a
sense of bien-etre; 'thank you for a most delightful evening.')
Madame's figures were meant to be agreeable and lively presentments.
Her visitors were meant to have a thoroughly good time. But th