pages: unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf, 227
This data as json
path | page | folder | text |
---|---|---|---|
unmaskingrobert00houdgoog.pdf | 227 | CHAPTER VII SECOND SIGHT E VIDENTLY second sight was the foundation- stone of Robert-Houdin's success. Reading be- tween the lines of his autobiography, one finds that this was the trick which carried him into the salons of fashion and royalty. Before he introduced second sight into his répertoire, his tricks were so com- monplace that they did not arouse the interest of the court circle, whose approval furnished the seal of success. This trick of second sight he claims body and soul, as the favorite child of his brain. He even goes as far as to relate a story to prove that the trick came to him in the form of an inspiration. I quote directly from the American edition of his "Memoirs," page 255: "My two children were playing one day in the drawing- room at a game they had invented for their own amuse- ment; the younger had bandaged his elder brother's eyes and made him guess the objects that he touched, and when the latter happened to guess right they changed places. This simple game suggested to me the most complicated idea that ever crossed my mind. Pursued by the notion, I ran and shut myself in my workshop, and was fortunately in that happy state when the mind follows easily the combinations traced by fancy. I rested my head in my hands, and in my excitement laid down the first principles of second sight." [200] |