Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

CHAPTER XVIII. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. It now only remains to give the neophyte a few parting hints of general application. In getting up any trick, even the simplest, the first task of the student should be to carefully read and consider the instructions given, and to make quite certain that he perfectly comprehends their meaning. This being ascertained, the next point will be to see whether the trick involves any principle of sleight-of-hand in which he is not thoroughly proficient; and if it does, to set to work and practise diligently, till the difficulty is conquered. Having thus mastered the elements of the trick, he should next attack it as a whole, and in like manner practise, practise, practise, till from beginning to end he can work each successive step of the process with ease and finish. Having achieved this much, he may perhaps consider that his task is at an end. By no means. Being perfect in the mechanical portion of the illusion, he must now devote himself to its dramatic element, which, as regards the effect upon the spectator, is by far the more important portion. The performer should always bear in mind that he fills the character of a person possessing supernatural powers, and should endeavour, in every word and gesture, to enter into the spirit of his part. As the true actor, playing Hamlet, will endeavour actually to be Hamlet for the time, so the soi-disant magician must, in the first place, learn to believe in himself.