This is a strange story. I am of the opinion that Herr Alexander is laboring under a mistake in trying to identify the illusionist Orzini with the celebrated revolutionist Orsini. In the first place, there is the different spelling of the names—“Orzini” and “Orsini”; but Mr. Houdini may have incorrectly reported Alexander in this respect. There is no record of Orsini having come to the United States. Again, he was not killed in the attempted assassination of Napoleon III, in the rue Lepelletier, Paris, January 14, 1858. He was captured and suffered imprisonment, and was guillotined March 13, 1858. While in prison he wrote his memoirs.
Herr Alexander is the author of a work entitled Der Moderne Zauberer (“The Modern Magician”).
FRIKELL.
PROF. WILJALBA FRIKELL’S CHRISTMAS ENTERTAINMENT.
(As Exhibited Before Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle.)
Wiljalba Frikell was born in Scopio, a village of Finland, in 1818. His family was well-to-do and gave him advantages in the way of education. He graduated at the High School of Munich in 1840, in his twenty-second year. During his scholastic days he became interested in legerdemain, and read with avidity every work on the subject he could find. He attended {183} the performances of all conjurers who came to Munich. Refusing to study for one of the learned professions, greatly to the disappointment of his parents, he went on the stage, and visited the principal cities of Europe, after which he journeyed to Egypt. In the land of the pyramids Frikell had the honor of performing before Mehemit Ali, who presented him with a gold medal. Returning to Europe he visited Greece, Italy, and Spain. Subsequently he went to India and investigated the thaumaturgy of the fakirs. He made his first appearance in London in 1851, and performed before Queen Victoria and the Royal Family, at Windsor Castle. His broken German and peculiarity of manner caused him to be described by Punch as “a comic Charles Matthews.” The same journal also compared him to “a monster raven in full dress for evening party.” His success was marked. The Czar of Russia presented Frikell with a diamond ring of great value, and the King of Denmark made him a Knight of Dannebrog. Just when this remarkable man retired from the stage I have been unable to ascertain. In his old age he became {184} a recluse and denied himself to visitors. In fact, it was supposed by the profession that he was dead, until Mr. Houdini discovered his whereabouts in Krotschenbroda, a few miles from Dresden, Germany, February, 1903, and called at his villa, but did not succeed in obtaining an interview. Nine months later Frikell died. He contemplated writing his memoirs à la Robert-Houdin, but, alas, death cut short the undertaking. That they would have been extremely entertaining and full of curious incidents of travel, admits of no doubt. An extract from a letter written by Mr. Houdini to his American friend, H. S. Thompson, of Chicago, will prove of interest to the reader.
“Dresden, Oct. 20, 1903.
“I have some news for you that may be of interest. You may remember that I sought an interview last February with Dr. Wiljalba Frikell, but was unable to meet him. Since then we have been in correspondence, and he wrote me that if I ever came to Dresden he would be pleased to see me. On arriving in Dresden I sent him word that I would call upon him on October 10th last. I accordingly went to the Villa Frikell about 1 o’clock, and you can imagine with what sorrow and astonishment I learned that Dr. Frikell had died of heart failure three hours before. He was awaiting my arrival at the time. Fate willed it that I should see Herr Frikell, but that we should not speak to each other.
“He was buried on October 13th. I attended the funeral and laid two large wreaths on his grave; one on behalf of the Society of American Magicians, and the other from myself. The S. A. M. wreath was the largest and handsomest there.
“Herr Frikell was 87 years old and had made all arrangements to live to 100. He always claimed he would live to over 100 years and would tell why he expected to reach that age. Too bad we could not have held a conversation ere he departed this life.
“Sincerely yours,
“HARRY HOUDINI.”
Frikell was an innovator in the art of magic. He dispensed with apparatus. In his Lessons in Magic, he says: “The use of complicated and cumbersome apparatus, to which modern conjurers have become addicted, not only greatly diminishes the amount of astonishment they are enabled to produce,—a defect which is not compensated by the external splendor and imposing effect of such paraphernalia,—but the useful lesson, how fallible our senses are, by means the most ordinary and at everybody’s command, is entirely lost. It has been my object {185} in my performances to restore the art to its original province, and to extend that to a degree which it has, I believe, never yet hitherto reached. I banish all such mechanical and scientific preparations from my own practice, confining myself for the most part to the objects and materials of every day life. The success I have met with emboldens me to believe that I have followed the right path.”
There is more or less truth in what Frikell says. But one can go to extremes in the avoidance of magic paraphernalia. The happy course is the middle one—a combination of sleight of hand and apparatus. I quote, as follows, from an article by Prof. Hoffmann (Mahatma): “The scientific school of conjuring, of which Robert-Houdin was the originator, had its drawbacks. It involved the use of costly and cumbersome paraphernalia, which grew and grew in quantity, till we find Anderson, the Wizard of the North, traveling with seven tons of luggage! Further, a trick, which, like Robert-Houdin’s automatic figures, obviously depends upon ingenious mechanism, palls upon the spectator. Such figures, at the present day, would be no more regarded as magic than the Strasburg clock. Lastly his electrical tricks produced an extraordinary effect, because very few persons in his day were acquainted with the properties of electricity, but now that there are electric bells in every household, and electrical motor cars in every street, its magical prestige exists no longer.