pages: practicalmagicia00harr.pdf, 16
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practicalmagicia00harr.pdf | 16 | 6 THE PRACTICAL MAGICIAN. shall not, therefore, in these elementary papers advert to those experiments which require ample resources, or a prepared stage, for exhibiting them-or which can only be displayed to advan- tage by consummate skill and the most adroit manipulation- but confine my remarks at present to thosè branches of the art to the performance of which a young amateur may aspire with prospect of success. A few hours' practice will enable the learner to execute the simple tricks that I shall first treat of; and they will only re- quire for their display such articles as are readily available in every household. Most of them will be supplied by any com- pany of a few friends, and if not in the parlor, can be brought from no greater distance than the kitchen or housekeeper's room ; such as handkerchiefs, coins, oranges, or eggs, a glass bowl, etc., etc. There may only remain a few inexpensivo articles to bo supplied from repositories for the sale of conjur- ing apparatus, or they may be had direct from the publishers of this work. It may be well explicitly to avow that the time is quite gone by when people will really believe that conjuring is to be donc by supernatural agencies. No faith is now reposed in the "black art of sorcery," or even in the art to which the less re- pulsive name was given of "white magic.' Many years havo elapsed sinco conjurors have seriously assumed to themselves any credit as possessing supernatural powers, or as enabled by spiritual agency to reveal that which is unknown to science and philosophy, or mysteriously to work astonishing marvels. A well-marked contrast exists between the old school O. con- jurors and those of modern times. The former, who used bold- ly to profess that they employed mysterious rites and preter- natural agency, designedly put the spectator upon false inter- pretations, while they studiously avoided giving any elucidation of tho phenomena, nor would ever admit that tho wonders dis- played were to bo accounted for by the principles of science and natural philosophy. Modern conjurors advance no such pretensions. They use as scientifically as possible the natural properties of matter to aid |