Page:Occult Japan - Lovell.djvu/165

Rh the performer to the act, produce an effect that is weird in the extreme. Symbolic of bodily action, the force of the originals is felt in these their effigies. A whole drama takes place in them, done by a true magician, as he bids the devils avaunt and calls the good spirits to his aid; and so realistic are the signs, the beings to whom they are addressed grow real, too. Like a talk at a telephone, the half that is heard conjures up of itself the half that is inaudible. And their uncanniness clothes these conjurings with the character of the supernatural. You almost think to see both the devils and the gods.

About them there is a compelling fascination in spite of their repellent uncouthness. If one seek to unravel his sensation from the mesh in which it lies caught, he will find the charm of the thing to consist, I think, in energetic rhythm. For it has something of the cadence of a dance; yet, unlike a dance, it is not pleasing in itself. It is indeed the height of inartistic art; its very uncouthness has a certain grace, the grace of the ungraceful masterfully done.

If such be the force of the charm acting