Professor Hoffmann

“ The power, when blindfold, to discriminate things unseen, and promiscuously pick from a crowd of persons, and name miscellaneous and out-of-the-way articles, has been performed so cleverly that the greatest surprise and wonder has been created in the minds of even the most intelligent spectators. But like everything else to which the term magic has been and is applied, the wonderful and mysterious are only the simple and the commonplace, and the credulity of the audience leads to the merest trickery, to that marvel and wonder which surrounds a feat of legerdemain or clairvoyance ”

“ Careful rehearsal, preferably before an expert friend, will furnish the best hints as to the danger-spots in the working of a trick, and how best to devise patter to meet them.
A final word of advice—advice that has been often given, but cannot be too often repeated if you really aim to carry your audience with you. Never lose sight of the fact that you are, in the words of Robert-Houdin, “an actor playing the part of a magician,” and take your office seriously. In particular, never before an audience use the word “trick,” which at once gives away all your pretension to magical power. ”

“ The victim makes a rush behind the curtains, no doubt frightened that the threat would be duly executed, but is brought out and made to stand still while the exhibitor coolly cuts off an arm and then a leg. The frightened, trembling subject of the professor’s carving operations is an assistant, who takes good care to be the first on the stage when a person among the audience is requested to step up and be carved. When he rushes off behind the curtains, it is to affix to one shoulder and thigh a dummy arm and leg, while his real limbs remain behind the curtains reclining upon rests. ”

“ When I say impossible, of course I mean impossible to a mere man. To a magician there is no such word as impossible, except in the dictionary. In fact, the more impossible a thing is, the more any respectable magician makes up his mind to do it. Watch me carefully, please. I want you to be quite sure all through that there is no deception.
“Now then, to pass the coin into this other envelope.” As you say this, you pick up the coin mat, depress it enough for all present to see the coin upon it, and make the motion of sliding it off into the left hand. ”

“ The performer should always bear in mind that he fills the character of a person possessing supernatural powers, and should endeavour, in every word and gesture, to enter into the spirit of his part. As the true actor, playing Hamlet, will endeavour actually to be Hamlet for the time, so the soi-disant magician must, in the first place, learn to believe in himself. When he steps upon the stage he should, for the time being, persuade himself that his fictitious power is a reality, and that the wand he holds is not only the emblem, but the actual implement of his power. ”

“ The movement is so instantaneous that the quickest eye cannot follow it, and the explosion of the pistol at the same moment aids still further to baffle the vigilance of the spectators, to whom it appears as if the borrowed watch had really passed from the pistol to the face of the target. ”

“ Now, being a ladies’ man, you will naturally have chosen one of the ladies of the pack, that is to say one of the queens, and your blush suggests that it was a red queen. Now there are only two red queens to choose from. The queen of hearts represents Love, and the queen of diamonds Money. ”

“ Gathering new strength from the encouragement which his friends offer him by word and look, he casts towards them a glance which seems to say, ‘You shall see what the son of the desert can do.’ Once more he bends over the chest, his nervous hands grip the handle, and his legs, planted one on each side of the chest like two columns of bronze, serve as a fulcrum for the mighty effort which he is about to make. It seems almost impossible but that under such a strain the box must fly to pieces. ”

“ I don’t like bothering people to examine things, for in most cases it is a mere waste of time. But in this case I have a special reason for asking. There is something about this pack of cards and this die which I myself don’t understand; and I shall be much obliged to anyone who will help me to do so. As a matter of fact, these cards, though quite ordinary in other respects, are afflicted with a peculiar restlessness. They change places without notice and without any apparent reason. ”

“ Taking a third ball in your left hand, you hold it as before, but, as if through carelessness or clumsiness, allow it to be seen for a moment above the edge of the table. When you raise the third cup, you move it behind the table as before, and make a feint of introducing the ball which the spectators have just seen, but really let it drop on the servante, and replace the cup empty. A murmur from the audience will quickly apprise you that they have, as they imagine, found you out. ”

“ In the present case it has no doubt something to do with the experiment I want to show you. You chose your card quite freely, did you not, Madam? It never matters to me in the least what card is chosen, with the exception of one particular card, which is a holy terror. May I ask if you happened to draw the knave of clubs? Yes? I feared as much. The knave of clubs is the bane of my life. He is always endeavouring to get himself chosen, and then he does his best to upset my arrangements. And the worst of it is, he leads away the other three knaves. ”

“ You spread the cards before the drawer, allowing him perfect freedom of choice, as, of course, whatever card he draws must necessarily be a queen of diamonds. You ask him to be good enough to say what the card he has drawn is, and on being told that it is a queen, you say, “Then, by virtue of my magic power, I order that the four cards now on the table change to queens. Pray observe that I do not meddle with them in any way. I merely touch each with my wand, so! Will some one kindly step forward, and bear witness that the change has really taken place.” ”

“ Conjurers have a foolish fancy, as I dare say you have noticed, for borrowing other people’s hats. If a conjurer wants to collect money from the air, he collects it in a hat. If he wants to make an omelette, he cooks it in a hat. If he wants to hatch a few chickens, he does it in a hat. And, for fear of accidents, he never uses his own hat, but always borrows somebody else’s. It’s very wrong of us. As Sir William Gilbert says, about some other forms of crime,
‘It’s human nature, P’raps. ”

“ If you are using an ordinary table, the most effective mode of finishing the trick is as follows:—Walk boldly to the table, and pick up with the right hand (in which the card actually thought of is palmed) the card lying on the table, and, without looking at it yourself, hold it towards your audience, remarking, “Here it is, you see, the ace of spades.” The card being, in truth, a totally different one (say the seven of diamonds) , the audience naturally imagine that the trick has broken down, and a derisive murmur apprises you of the fact. ”

“ An actor never tells his audience that he is an actor or that he is playing a part. He does not call their attention to his make-up, however excellent, or tell them that his wig comes from Clarkson. On the contrary, he does his best to make his audience for the time forget that he is Hubert de Barnstormer, or whatever his stage name may be, and to keep up the illusion [201] that he is actually the person whom he represents. ”

“ It is by no means uncommon to see a performer, after having apparently dropped two or three coins into the hat in the ordinary way, pretend to pass in one or more through the side or crown. This produces a momentary effect, but it is an effect purchased at the cost of enabling an acute spectator to infer, with logical certainty, that the coin seen in the right hand was not the same that was, the moment afterwards, heard to chink within the hat; and this furnishes a distinct clue to the secret of the trick. ”

“ The trick is in truth a mere affair of dexterity; the performer having acquired by long practise the power of placing the pea under any thimble he pleases. What I propose to show you is a similar effect, but more surprising, because, as you will see, there is no room for dexterity, or indeed any form of trickery; so that I have to depend entirely upon my magic power. I shall use a shilling, as being more easily seen than a pea, and three cards from this pack to represent the thimbles. ”

“ To the eyes of the spectators, who believe that the balls are really dropped into the hat, the effect will be exactly as if new balls, by some mysterious process of reproduction, came under the cups at each time of raising them. When you think your audience are sufficiently astonished, you remark, “I think we have about enough now; the hat is getting rather heavy. Will some one hold a handkerchief to receive the balls?” When the handkerchief is spread out, you carefully turn over the hat, and the general astonishment will be intensified at discovering that it contains nothing. ”

“ To take an elementary example, let us suppose that the old-fashioned flat card-box, or some other appliance for magically producing a card, is loaded with, say, a seven of diamonds. The corresponding card is forced on one of the company, and taken back into the middle of the pack, on the top of the prepared card. The performer does not disturb or tamper with the pack in the smallest degree. He merely squares up the cards, and, pressing them well together, hands them to be shuffled, meanwhile calling attention to the card-box, which is shown apparently empty. ”

“ Again, if the performer has occasion for an egg or lemon in the course of a trick, it greatly enhances the effect, if instead of having the necessary article brought in by his assistant, he produces it himself from a lady’s muff, or from the whiskers of a male spectator. These little matters, though small in themselves, tend to keep alive the attention of the audience, and to create a sort of magical atmosphere, which will aid materially in disposing the spectators to receive with due respect the occult pretensions of the performer. ”

“ We hear people talk sometimes about the quickness of the hand deceiving the eye. I suppose such a thing must be possible, or nobody would have thought of it, but it seems to me that if it did anything of the kind, either the hand must be extra quick, or the eye extra slow. I know I should be afraid to attempt anything of that sort myself, but if you are a magician of the right sort you have no need to do so, for you can deceive the eye without [24] any quickness at all. I will prove it to you by means of these two cards which have been chosen. ”

“ The idea of the flower, warmed into bloom under a fair lady’s breath, is so poetical that it seems quite a pity to be obliged to confess that the rose is an artificial one, made chiefly of tin, and that its petals, normally held open by the action of a spring, are, when the flower is first brought on, kept closed by a sliding ring or collar upon the stalk, again re-opening as this collar is drawn back by the magician’s fingers. ”

“ Passing to the third function of patter, the misdirection of attention in the course of a trick, we will assume that you have made a start in the right direction at the outset, by suggesting some fanciful explanation of the effect you intend to produce, so that your audience, starting from wrong premises, do not know the points at which their too close observation would be inconvenient. The best way of diverting their attention at one of these critical points is obviously to attract it to some other direction. ”

“ The hands naturally sink in the act of catching the ball; and after having caught it once or twice, the performer, as he lowers them, drops it on the servante, immediately raising them again with the action of throwing up the ball, taking care to follow it with the eyes in its imaginary flight. If this is done neatly, the eyes of the spectators will instinctively travel in the same direction, and the effect to them will be as if the ball vanished at the highest point of its upward flight, instead of disappearing, as it really does, at the moment of reaching the hands in its fall. ”