CARDS TOLD BY POETICAL INSPIRATION.
Lay sixteen cards on the table in four rows of four each, face up.
You state that you will leave the room, and, on your return, name any one card touched in your absence.
Fig. 164.
All the clue you ask is such a one as may be found in a passage read out of any poet on your return by any one. This any one, however, must be your confederate. The cards should be placed in the order in which they are here shown, you previously making your confederate acquainted with your mode of proceeding, which is thus: The cards are supposed to be divided into four classes, as A, B, C, D; you class everything in the world as biped (A), quadruped (B), vegetable (C), and mineral (D). Each class is subdivided similarly Class A, No. 1 is the biped; 2, the quadruped; 3, the vegetable; and 4, the mineral; and so with the other classes. When performing the trick your confederate must take care to select an appropriate passage. For example, we will suppose the card No. 12 to have been touched, and that, a volume of Wordsworth having been presented to your confederate to select from, he gives the following lines to be read:
“A violet by a mossy stone,” &c.
The first word which can be classed as above is “violet;” you may thus be certain that the card touched is in class C, a violet being a vegetable. The next word you can fix upon is “stone,” which you rank in the mineral class, and know that card No. 12 was the one touched, it being the mineral of the vegetable class.
Suppose the trick to be repeated, as is very likely, and that Shakspeare is given to your partner; he selects the passage in “Othello” commencing:
“My mother had a maid called Barbara, &c.”
You know, “mother” being the first word that can be classed, the card touched must be in class A (biped), and the next word “maid” being also a biped, the card touched must have been No. 1, which is the biped of the biped class. Many appropriate passages may be easily selected, and your confederate should select a long passage to be read, as it gives greater scope, and helps to mislead the rest of the company; for should they imagine that the card is discovered by the number of lines read, and they touch the same card again, he can select another passage, desiring them to read only as many lines as they choose.