By this I do not mean simply that the difficult and exacting art of the automaton is carried by our masters to a pitch of brilliance unequaled elsewhere, and unimagined by the masters of an earlier age. Rather I mean that by its very nature our automaton theater is deserving of pride, for it is the source of our richest and most spiritual pleasure. We know that without it our lives would lack something, though we cannot say with any certainty what it is that we would lack. And we are proud that ours is a genuinely popular theater, commanding the fervent loyalty of young and old alike. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that from the moment we emerge from the cradle we fall under an enchantment from which we never awake. So pronounced is our devotion, which some call an obsession, that common wisdom distinguishes four separate phases. In childhood we are said to be attracted by the color and movement of these little creatures, in adolescence by the intricate clockwork mechanisms that give them the illusion of life, in adulthood by the truth and beauty of the dramas they enact, and in old age by the timeless perfection of an art that lifts us above the cares of mortality and gives meaning to our lives.
