Modern Magic: A Practical Treatise on the Art of Conjuring

TO GUESS, BY THE AID OF A PASSAGE OF POETRY OR PROSE, SUCH ONE OF SIXTEEN CARDS AS, IN THE PERFORMER’S ABSENCE, HAS BEEN TOUCHED OR SELECTED BY THE COMPANY.--This feat is performed by confederacy, the assistance of the confederate being open and avowed, but the mode in which the clue is given constituting the mystery. You allow the pack to be shuffled, and then deal sixteen cards, the first that come to hand, either face upwards or face downwards, in four rows on the table. The sole preparation on the part of yourself and your confederate is to commit to memory the following simple formula--animal, vegetable, mineral, verb, signifying respectively one, two, three and four. You retire from the room while the card is chosen, your confederate remaining. Upon your return your confederate selects and hands for your perusal a passage in any book which the audience may select, only taking care that the first word in such passage which comes within either of the four categories above mentioned, shall be such as to represent the number of the row in which the card is, and that the second word which comes within either of those categories shall represent the number at which the card stands in that row. We will suppose, for instance, that the passage handed to the performer is that portion of Hamlet’s soliloquy commencing, “Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt.” Here the first word which comes within either of the four categories is “flesh,” which, being clearly animal (1), indicates that the chosen card is in the first row. The second word coming within either of the categories is “melt,” which, being a verb (4), indicates that the chosen card is the fourth of its row. Had the passage been “To be, or not to be, that is the question,” the two verbs would have indicated that the card was the fourth of the fourth row. “How doth the little busy bee,” etc., would have indicated the first of the fourth row, and so on. With a little tact and ingenuity on the part of the operators, this may be made an admirable trick, and, unlike most others, will bear being repeated, the mystery becoming deeper as passages of varying character and different length are employed.