(42.) "The Latest
Barnumism," Fayetteville Observer, 16 July 1855; "Baby Shows," New York Times, 30 July 1870.
As relayed by John Lahr in a profile of Mamet that appeared in The New Yorker, a colleague referred to his "intellectual
Barnumism" and once told another interviewer, "[Mamet] would be talking--`As Aristotle said, blah blah.' Or, `I was rereading Kierkegaard the other day.' I remember saying, `Aristotle never said that!
"Can it be," a reviewer asks, "that '
Barnumism' has been spreading silently and widely among us, and that in the domain of art the pitiable trickeries of the showman are taking the place of painstaking endeavour and conscientious work?" (8) Evidence of the incorporation of
Barnumism within British culture was, however, plentiful.