It seems likely that the invention of this primitive apparatus may have been due to the fact that some eighteenth-century conjurer happened to observe the sand running out of an hour-glass, and set about to find some means whereby this escape of sand could be utilized in his art. The hollow rod, the escaping sand, and the descending weight have long since been discarded; but the illusion of the Rising Cards survives and is now performed in an unending variety of ways. The pack may be held in the hand of the performer, without the use of any case; or it may be placed in a glass goblet; or it may be tied together with a ribbon and thus suspended from cords that swing to and fro almost over the heads of the spectators, and however they may be isolated, the chosen cards rise obediently when they are bidden. The original effect subsists, even tho the devices differ.
It was left for Mr. Devant to give a new twist to this old illusion. For a full pack of playing-cards he substituted ten cards two or three times larger than playing-cards, and with the ten numerals printed or painted in bold black. These pasteboards are given for examination, and so is a case into which they fit. After they have been duly inspected they are put into the case which is hung from chains. A clean slate is also shown, and wrapped up and given to a spectator to hold. Then three members of the audience are invited to write each a number composed of three figures, and these three numbers are added by a fourth spectator. The total is found to be written on the slate; and then at the behest of the performer the cards containing the figures of this total rise in proper sequence out of the case. It may be noted that the writing on the slate is also an old and well-worn device, and so is the method of making sure that the total of the three numbers written by different persons shall agree with that already concealed on the slate. Yet these three familiar effects are here united in a refreshingly novel experiment in magic, being now fitted into a new plot. The devices themselves are old enough, but Mr. Devant is entitled to full credit for the new combination.
IV
The fundamental principles which Robert-Houdin accepted and which he seems to have taken over from Torrini, Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant have elucidated in their philosophic disquisition, and yet in one particular their practise is not yet level with their preaching. Before Robert-Houdin and Frikell, or at least before Torrini, and even after these three artists had set a better example, the majority of conjurers filled the stage with gaudy apparatus and insisted on its blazing with an unnecessary prodigality of lights. One magician in the middle of the nineteenth century came forward on a stage absolutely dark, and suddenly fired a pistol, thereby lighting two hundred candles arranged in pyramids behind him. Another hung his stage with black velvet and adorned it with skulls. Torrini and Robert-Houdin made an approach to the unadorned simplicity of an actual drawing-room, altho Robert-Houdin seems to have permitted himself a long shelf at the back of his stage on which his various automatic figures were assembled awaiting their summons to take part in the program. Even Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant are satisfied with a stage-setting which is frankly only a stage-setting—as stagy, in fact, as the ordinary scenery to be seen in a variety-show.
Now, it may be admitted that a nondescript set of this sort, vaguely Oriental, with arches and curtains, and somewhat suggestive of comic opera, may not be inappropriate when any one of the bolder illusions is to be presented—the Box Trick or the Aerial Suspension, the Mystic Cabinet or the Talking Sphinx. Indeed, a special set of scenery is often actually necessary for the presentation of marvels depending mainly on optics or mechanics. But for the first part of the program, when the performer appears in ordinary evening-dress, and when he is presenting himself as a gentleman in a drawing-room, amusing other gentlemen, by means of experiments in magic, every one of which may be likened to a little play, why should not the stage-set be that of a drawing-room, or of a bachelor's study, as accurately reproduced as similar rooms are reproduced in the modern comedies of Mr. Henry Arthur Jones and Mr. Augustus Thomas? The set accepted by Messrs. Maskelyne and Devant is devoid of the actuality of a real room; it is fantastically stagy, and therefore it lacks both veracity and dignity.
Sooner or later some modern magician, in advance over his rivals, will take this final step, and the curtain will rise on a stage with a box-set realistically reproducing a handsome room, with all its decorations and hangings and furniture in harmony, Jacobean in style, or Chippendale, as the performer's preference may be. There will be chairs and tables in their proper places; there will be book-cases, and window-boxes of flowers; and perhaps there will be a cellaret, where the performer may procure any goblet or decanter he needs. There will be a broad desk in the center, with its writing-pad and its book-rack, and possibly its heap of magazines and weekly papers. This set thus furnished will look like a room that has really been lived in; it will have a door in each of the side walls, and when the curtain rises the stage will be empty. Then the doorbell will ring, and the servant will enter at one door, and, going across the stage to the other, he will admit his master—the master at last of the truly modern art of magic. The magician will give his hat and coat to the servant, who will take them out, and who will never appear on the stage again except in response to the master's pressure on the electric button, ordinarily used to summon a servant. And the magician will present his succession of experiments in magic, utilizing only the objects which he may borrow from the spectators, or which would naturally be found in a gentleman's room. The apparent absence of all apparatus, the naturalness of the environment, the easy simplicity and the convincing reality of the back-ground—all these elements will coalesce to heighten the effect of the marvels to be wrought by a comedian playing the part of a magician.
(1912.)
XVI
THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF
PUNCH AND JUDY