Magic lantern

“ Those who are contented with the explanations given by the author just mentioned will regard the apparitions as magic lantern effects, but there is more in it assuredly than this, while the magic lantern was only an accessory instrument in the business and one in no sense necessary for the production of the phenomenon. The images of persons once known on earth and now called up by thought do not appear as reflections of coloured glass; the pictures painted by a lantern do not speak, nor do they give answers to question on matters of conscience. ”

“ EASY METHODS OF Making Slides for the Magic Lantern, BY JOHN BOYD.
The new three-wick and four-wick magic lanterns which are now made are so good, and give so much better results than the old oil lanterns, that they are coming largely into use, and for ordinary purposes they do remarkably well. The better class of them stands comparison even with the oxy-hydrogen light, although of course they are excelled by it. They are so easily manipulated that many boys now possess them and work them with good effect. ”

“ The modern projecting lantern, now a scientific instrument, bears very little if any resemblance to the earlier magic lantern, which was a rude construction, and, as its name implies, was first used by magicians, or professors of the magic arts, as a means of imposing upon the ignorance and superstition of their times. ”

“ The light furnished with a small magic lantern does very well for evening exhibitions, but the lantern can be used in the daytime with good results by directing sunlight through the lens instead of using the oil lamp. ”

“ When light and glass get together it is difficult to divine what tricks they are going to perform. But some of these are very interesting, if they are a little wild, and there are very few of us who do not enjoy them.
For instance, what a delight to any company, be it composed of [11] young folks or old, is a magic-lantern! The most beautiful and the most absurd pictures may be made to appear upon the wall or screen. ”

“ Bobaday seized her wrist and excitedly told her there was a magic-lantern show connected with the fair, which could be seen at five cents per pair of eyes. Dame Trot remained unpurchased, and the coin returned to aunt Corinne's warm palm. But she inquired with caution,
“What's a magic-lantern show?”
“Why, the man, you know,” explained Robert, “has pitctures in a lantern, and throws light through 'em, and they spread out on a wet sheet on the wall. The room's all dark except the place on the wall. A Chinese man eatin' mice in his sleep: he works his jaws! ”

“ The burning of the perfumes served to produce a dense atmosphere, that was calculated to exaggerate, and render more formidable and terrific, the figures which were exhibited. The magic lantern, which is now the amusement only of servant-maids, and boys at school in their holidays, served at this remote period, and when the power of optical delusions was unknown, to terrify men of wisdom and penetration, and make them believe that legions of devils from the infernal regions were come among them, to produce the most horrible effects, and suspend and invert the laws of nature. ”

“ The introduction of the magic lantern provided the magicians of the seventeenth century with a very powerful instrument with which to continue their deceptions. The use of the concave mirror, which does not appear to have had any accessories worth speaking of, required a separate apartment, or at least a hiding-place of some sort that was difficult to discover under ordinary circumstances ”

“ The essential parts of a magic lantern are a condensing lens to make the beam of light converge upon the slide to illuminate it evenly, a projecting lens with which to throw an enlarged picture of the illuminated slide upon a screen and some appliances for preserving the proper relation of these parts to each other. ”

“ In addition to the practical construction of magic lanterns Childe learned, while still quite a young man, to paint on glass with great skill and effect. In this way he was able to prepare slides for his lantern, and the series illustrating astronomy, natural history, costumes of all nations, &c., which he painted and exhibited in his improved lantern, caused his name to stand high as a popular exhibitor during the early years of the present century. ”

“ The phantasmagoria may be considered nothing more than an application of the magic lantern, the invention of which is attributed to Roger Bacon, who was a contemporary with Vitellio, a native of Poland, who published a treatise on optics, in 1270. ”

“ We are all familiar with the Magic Lantern, whether it may take the form of the mere child’s toy, be developed into Dissolving Views, or throw black shadows on a curtain, in which case it is called by the name of Chinese Shadows. ”

“ Such a dummy would be liable to a prod with a stick, which would evaporate his hydrogen, and be a “home-thrust” indeed. And, secondly, there is no occasion whatever to encounter this risk; for the effect witnessed on this particular occasion can be produced, by a little compact portable magic-lantern, with the simple addition of one phantasmagoria slide.
As to the disc of the lantern it may be reduced to any shape or figure we please, Fig. 23. ”

“ This may be true enough so far as the “projecting lantern” is concerned, but it can hardly be doubted that it had in the line of its earlier ancestors the Persian Fanus i Khiyal or Lantern of Fancy, which is used with such effect by the Philosopher of Naishápur, and which instigated the design of the {183} rare suppressed etching of which I here propose to treat with some particularity.
As literally translated by Mr. Heron-Allen, the quatrain referring thereto runs as follows:—
“This vault of heaven, beneath which we stand bewildered, We know to be a sort of magic-lantern ”

“ The magic or optical lantern is an instrument for projecting on a white wall or screen largely magnified representations of transparent pictures painted or photographed on glass, or of objects—crystals, animals, &c.—carried on glass slides or in glass vessels. ”

“ It was lighted in a moment, and we found it to be a powerful electric lamp. Then we too passed in, and the door closed upon us. If we were to be murdered, it would not be in utter darkness. The lantern was brilliant, and threw around its ghostly lights and shadows. We are compelled to repeat the adjective, for everything was ghostly and weird.
The vast interior was lost in profoundest silence and gloom. No single light could reach the depths and spaces, but round about us the lantern lighted up the outlines of aisles and arches and pillars. ”

“ It is a great art that has been transmitted from father to son for ages. The making of lanterns is not merely artizan work. Great lanterns are not turned out as though they were stamped from a machine in a mill. There is much of mystery and romance in their manufacture. Some I will tell you, but more is a closed book, a locked book of which only those who are of the family of Yin have the key. The original lantern-makers were men of great prominence. Through the dark channels and streams of old China they sent their bright and cheerful lanterns, like great fireflies darting about in a garden. ”

“ When we come to church of a winter evening, we carry lanterns as we plod a drifted path in high-girt skirts and generous goloshes. One’s sleep is sometimes startled by a flare of light that streams from wall to wall and passes, as some mysterious late lantern-bearer goes by, leaving the night again all blackness, pierced sometimes by the crazy laughter of an owl, or beaten upon by the insistent clamor of frogs. ”

“ She could look up into the infinite vaults of the darkness, and her hope, her soul, no longer fainted within her. The lantern, like a tiny star, lucently white, with a rayonnant halo about its focus, showed vast, rugged, crag-shaped forms looming indistinctly in these undreamed-of subterranean realms, and now the path skirted an abyss of unimagined depth, and now toiled up an ascent, mountain-like in its vague immensity, but she had no tremors, no thought of regret for the bland outer air, and the bliss of the candid sunshine. ”

“ The light of the lantern, striking among all these trunks and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of lianas, made the whole place, or all that you could see of it, a kind of a puzzle of turning shadows. They came to meet you, solid and quick like giants, and then spun off and vanished; they hove up over your head like clubs, and flew away into the night like birds. The floor of the bush glimmered with dead wood, the way the match-box used to shine after you had struck a lucifer. ”

“ The lens of the lantern cast into the darkness an enormous triangle of light, beyond which the eye of the old man was lost in the black distance completely, in the distance mysterious and awful. But that distance seemed to run toward the light. The long waves following one another rolled out from the darkness, and went bellowing toward the base of the island; and then their foaming backs were visible, shining rose-coloured in the light of the lantern. The incoming tide swelled more and more and covered the sandy bars. ”

“ The north–east wind blew at him as if it wanted to push this meddler back into the station; but with one arm around his lantern as if it were a baby that he wished to shield, he struggled over the rocks down to the strip of sand not yet covered by the tide. He saw nothing ten feet away, but he heard—no pen can describe the bellowing of this monster plunging and frothing at his feet. The lantern shot little gleams of light on the confused masses of foam along the edge of the shore, and he knew that there was a tumbling wall of ghastly white just beyond. ”

“ Lanterns are also sent from the local temples to any house in the parish in which either a recent marriage, or a birth, or a literary success has taken place.
The subjects of these lanterns differ according to circumstances; the bearers are always accompanied by an orchestra. One sees a large lantern, on which are written enigmas, riddles, and puzzles, in almost every street. The passers-by are supposed to try their [30] skill at guessing these puzzles, and those who succeed get as a reward some letter-paper, or some brushes, ink, fireworks, sweets, &c. ”

“ Spindle-wood, spindle-wood, will you lend me, pray,
A little flaming lantern to guide me on my way?
The fairies all have vanished from the meadow and the glen
And I would fain go seeking till I find them once again.
Lend me now a lantern that I may bear a light
To find the hidden pathway in the darkness of the night. ”

“ The mass of light shone verily like a lantern, and the present interpretation was somewhat reminiscent of a previous flickering lantern which we had seen, with its accompaniment of great magnified moving shadows on barn and hay-stack, as it assisted in the tardy chores of a whistling farmer lad.
But this light was of a greenish, ghostly hue, and perfectly motionless, and had withal a certain weird, uncanny glare, which belongs alone to fox-fire. It was impossible to locate its distance from us. It might as easily be one rod as five. ”

“ They are very fierce, and have as a rule a great dislike to strangers. At night they roam about the streets, and are said to fall upon any one who does not carry a lantern."
"But does anybody carry a lantern—except the watchmen?"
"Everybody does. Coloured paper lanterns, like the Chinese ones, with a bit of candle inside. With one of these in one hand and a heavy stone or stick in the other, you may get safely through a night-walk among the howling dogs of Stamboul." ”

“ He fears not to tread the dreary path before him, because his lantern, which was kindled at the fireside of his home, will light him back to that same fireside again. And thus we, night-wanderers through a stormy and dismal world, if we bear the lamp of Faith, enkindled at a celestial fire, it will surely lead us home to that Heaven whence its radiance was borrowed. ”

“ Happier my lot, who will straightway hie me to my familiar room and toast myself comfortably before the fire, musing and fitfully dozing and fancying a strangeness in such sights as all may see. But first let me gaze at this solitary figure who comes hitherward with a tin lantern which throws the circular pattern of its punched holes on the ground about him. He passes fearlessly into the unknown gloom, whither I will not follow him. ”

“ A lantern is brought out, and unconsciously and imperceptibly it becomes the centre of dark forms, relieved now and again by rows of beautiful white teeth as the owners indulge in a hearty laugh. At times conversation lags; some one drones a monotonous tune, others smoke in quiet contemplation, while others again follow the example of the dark human mounds scattered about the compound. ”

“ Then came the lantern. The lantern is a puzzle, because a bonfire and delicate scientific instruments appear to have shared its narrow area. Visitors speak, for instance, of a mysterious "mirror" up there, which was even more wonderful than the building itself. ”

“ As it was getting dark, I lit and took with me the big red-silk lantern, and we set out, she leading, and walking confoundedly fast, slackening when I swore at her, and getting fast again: and she walks with a certain levity, flightiness, and liberated furore, very hard to describe, as though space were a luxury to be revelled in. ”

“ Because in the centre of the earth there is neither sun nor moon, the people have to be continually burning lights; and so many and so great were the lanterns of Lantern Land that the town was as bright as day. The edge of the harbor was marked with a row of golden lanterns; there were immense lanterns at every six paces along the streets; a lantern hung from every house ”

“ The Spriggans feared you would pass over this bog to-night, and have set their relations to watch. But they are not so clever as they thought themselves. They know you have the Shoes, but they don’t dream you possess that wee Lantern too.’
‘Is the Lantern any good?’ asked Gerna in surprise. ‘Farmer Vivian said it was only big enough to light home a benighted dumbledory.’
‘It was a joke about the dumbledory,’ laughed the little voice. ‘It can do much more than that. ”

“ LANTERN. To dream of carrying a lantern in a dark night is a good sign, provided you have no difficulty in finding your way, for it shows that you will easily accomplish some fortunate object you may have in view; if you stumble, or have difficulty in finding your way with the lantern, it denotes trouble and vexation, though success will be achieved at last. ”