I

SELF-TRAINING

[Sleight-of-hand theories alone cannot explain the mysteries of “magic” as practiced by that eminent Frenchman who revolutionized the entire art, and who was finally called upon to help his government out of a difficuity—­Robert-Houdin.  The success of his most famous performances hung not only on an incredible dexterity, but also on high ingenuity and moral courage, as the following pages from his “Memoirs” will prove to the reader.  The story begins when the young man of twenty was laboring patiently as apprentice to a watchmaker.]

In order to aid my progress and afford me relaxation, my master recommended me to study some treatises on mechanics in general, and on clockmaking in particular.  As this suited my taste exactly, I gladly assented, and I was devoting myself passionately to this attractive study, when a circumstance, apparently most simple, suddenly decided my future life by revealing to me a vocation whose mysterious resources must open a vast field for my inventive and fanciful ideas.

One evening I went into a bookseller’s shop to buy Berthoud’s “Treatise on Clockmaking,” which I knew he had.  The tradesman being engaged at the moment on matters more important, took down two volumes from the shelves and handed them to me without ceremony.  On returning home I sat down to peruse my treatise conscientiously, but judge of my surprise when I read on the back of one of the volumes “Scientific amusements.”  Astonished at finding such a title on a professional work, I opened it impatiently, and, on running through the table of contents, my surprise was doubled on reading these strange phrases: 

The way of performing tricks with the cards—­How to guess a person’s thoughts—­To cut off a pigeon’s head, to restore it to life, etc., etc.

The bookseller had made a mistake.  In his haste, he had given me two volumes of the Encyclopaedia instead of Berthoud.  Fascinated, however, by the announcement of such marvels, I devoured the mysterious pages, and the further my reading advanced, the more I saw laid bare before me the secrets of an art for which I was unconsciously predestined.

I fear I shall be accused of exaggeration, or at least not be understood by many of my readers, when I say that this discovery caused me the greatest joy I had ever experienced.  At this moment a secret presentiment warned me that success, perhaps glory, would one day accrue to me in the apparent realization of the marvelous and impossible, and fortunately these presentiments did not err.

The resemblance between two books, and the hurry of a bookseller, were the commonplace causes of the most important event in my life.

It may be urged that different circumstances might have suggested this profession to me at a later date.  It is probable; but then I should have had no time for it.  Would any workman, artisan, or tradesman give up a certainty, however slight it may be, to yield to a passion which would be surely regarded as a mania?  Hence my irresistible penchant for the mysterious could only be followed at this precise period of my life.