"The deception recurred to by phantasmagorists is further increased by the mystery that conceals, from the eyes of the public, their operations and optical instruments: but it is easy for the showman to snatch from them this superiority, and to strengthen the illusion for the children whom you choose to amuse with this sight. For that purpose, he has only to change the arrangement of the sheet, by requiring it to be suspended from the ceiling, between him and the spectators, much in the same manner as the curtain of a playhouse, which separates the stage from the public. The transparency of the cloth shews through it the coloured rays, and, provided it be not of too thick and too close a texture, the image presents itself as clear on the one side as on the other.
"If to these easy means you could unite those employed by ROBERTSON, such as the black hangings, which absorb the coloured rays, the little musical preparations, and others, you might transform all the galantee-shows into as many phantasmagorias, in spite of the priority of invention, which belongs, conscientiously, to Father KIRCHER, a German Jesuit, who first found means to apply his knowledge respecting light to the construction of the magic lantern.
"The coloured figures, exhibited by the phatasmagorists, have no relation to these effects of light: they are effigies covered with gold-beater's skin, or any other transparent substance, in which is placed a dark lantern. The light of this lantern is extinguished or concealed by pulling a string, or touching a spring, at the moment when any one wishes to seize on the figure, which, by this contrivance, seems to disappear.
"The proprietors of the grand exhibitions of phantasmagoria join to these simple means a combination of different effects, which they partly derive from the phenomena, presented by the camera obscura. Some faint idea of that part of physics, called optics, which NEWTON illuminated, by his genius and experience, are sufficient for conceiving the manner in which these appearances are produced, though they require instruments and particular care to give them proper effect."
Such is the elucidation given of the phantasmagoria by an intelligent observer, whose friend favoured me with this communication.
[LETTER XXXVII.]
Paris, December 21, 1801.
If Paris affords a thousand enjoyments to the man of fortune, it may truly be said that, without money, Paris is the most melancholy abode in the world. Privations are then the more painful, because desires and even wants are rendered more poignant by the ostentatious display of every object which might satisfy them. What more cruel for an unfortunate fellow, with an empty purse, than to pass by the kitchen of a restaurateur, when, pinched by hunger, he has not the means of procuring himself a dinner? His olfactory nerves being still more readily affected when his stomach is empty, far from affording him a pleasing sensation, then serve only to sharpen the torment which he suffers. It is worse than the punishment of Tantalus, who, dying with thirst, could not drink, though up to his chin in water.
Really, my dear friend, I would advise every rich epicure to fix his residence in this city. Without being plagued by the details of housekeeping, or even at the trouble of looking at a bill of fare, he might feast his eye, and his appetite too, on the inviting plumpness of a turkey, stuffed with truffles. A boar's head set before him, with a Seville orange between its tusks, might make him fancy that he was discussing the greatest interests of mankind at the table of an Austrian Prime Minister, or British Secretary of State; while pâtés of Chartres or of Périgord hold out to his discriminating palate all the refinements of French seasoning. These, and an endless variety of other dainties, no less tempting, might he contemplate here, in walking past a magazin de comestibles or provision-warehouse.
Among the changes introduced here, within these few years, I had heard much of the improvements in the culinary art, or rather in the manner of serving up its productions; but, on my first arrival in Paris, I was so constantly engaged in a succession of dinner-parties, that some time elapsed before I could avail myself of an opportunity of dining at the house of any of the fashionable