A VISIT TO THE MAGICIAN HERR DOBLER..
THE couplet {" Surely the pleasure is as great
In betug cheated as to cheat,"
has passed into a proverb ; and however it may be excepted to in ti' ordinary affairs of life, it certainly applies to that species of volitntaiy' self-delusion which people indulge in when consulting "cunning men, holding out their palms to fortune-tellers, laying down their money at a thimblerig-table, or having their horoscope cast by Mr. Join; Araut4fr the modern astrologer. A more rational kind of pleasure in being cheated is the amusement of seeing a conjuror perform his tricks : you go to enjoy your own mystification, knowing beforehand that you are to be deceived ; and in order to heighten the gratification, please your- self by trying tg find out how it is done merely for the purpose-vit.._ proving that you are well and satisfactorily cheated. The enjoymede is at its height when yon are completely baffled ; the exclamations of surprise and delight, the laughter and applause that attest the triumph of the conjuror over the senses of his visiters, are the fruition of this singular gratification ; and as you recount the feats of the magician, you sum up your satisfaction by exclaiming, "How it was done I can- not conceive—there- was no detecting him." On the contrary, a trick discovered, however ingeniously contrived or 'expertly performed, is an annoyance : you feel that you have not been well and truly 'deluded. The phrenologists would say the organ of wonder is practised on by the conjuror; and when a trick fails, i. e. is detected, the note struck on this organ is a false one, and spoils the harmony of that dulcet strain of delusion "Oh let me be deceived." Now, whether it arise from a stubbornness of will, an obduracy to any impression not rationally ac- • counted for, an inherent aversion to be "humbugged," or a deficiency of "wonder," or from whatever cause, we mutt confess to a distaste for the tricks of conjurors : they are mostly vulgar fellows, and are apt to "fool you to the top of your bent" Isy gabbling nonsense and playing idle tricks, as if they were dealing with a parcel of:children. One despises them and their arts is proportion to the contempt with which they treat the company, and is in no mood to be made to wonder at such mountebanks. Their apparatus is an affrout to one's 4i$D4 to be tricked with such tinsel trumpery is adding insult to annoyance: the very sight of it is an advertisement of the flimsiness of their preten- sions and the false glitter of their assumption. To be puzzled by such shallow devices is too much: besides, it is tedious, unprofitable amuse- ment; and one is content to cut the matter short by giving the char- latan credit for some dexterity, without being at the pains to estimate its amount. With these feelings towards conjurors our curiosity resisted the assaults of the huge placards announcing Herr DUbler's Natural Magic, in Brobdignag capitals : nor did the accounts in the newspapers move us a jot—it was their cue to exaggerate, and withal there seemed no- thing so very astonishing in their descriptions. We were quite willing to believe Herr Denten a better conjuror than his predecessors Messrs. HENRY and ANDERSON, and yet had no desire to bestow an evening upon him. But, passing the St. James's Theatre the other night, and looking up, thinking how long it would be before we should see BOUPPA there again, we beheld it all ablaze as usual; and Herr DoBLER was attracting crowds of people to his exhibition of Natural Magic. Those big blue letters seemed now to exert a • fascination ; and as :people buy an article, or go to see a per- former, merely from being haunted by huge placards at every step, so we were impelled to get rid of this itching curiosity, by being satisfied from ocular demonstration that Herr Di5BLER was no more of a conjuror than others of his craft. While waiting for the draw- ing-up of the curtain, we could scarcely suppress a contemptuous sneer at the fashionables that filled every box and stall, and the throng that overflowed the narrow bounds of the pit. Habituated as one becomes by practice to discard all prejudice, and present a tabula rasa to the impressions made by a public performance, it was with a grudging difficulty that we got into the state of mind indispensable to perfect fairness. The curtain rose and displayed the dim vision of a glittering array of gilded draperies and gleaming vessels, with myriads of candles not yet lighted. " What a time it will take to light all these candles," thought we ; when, enter a dark figure, off goes a pistol, and the whole forest of candles is at once in a blaze. Such a sudden flare-up was a startling commencement : it was the work of a moment. It must be gas, surely, for the stage-lamps participated in the glare : but the gradual melting of the tallow proclaimed them veritable moulds. The magician thus by the first coup proclaimed himself one of the illuminati. His dress, too—a black velvet tunic, with an open collar, and trunk-hose, like a German student in fall dress—has a good effect ; and his speaking German assists the strangeness of the proceeding : the Germans have been addicted to the "black art" from the time of FAUST, and they have a cognate belief in magic and witch- craft Herr Di5BLER, however, is a most un-magician-looking person : his fair complexion, light hair, smooth face, destitute of any garniture of beard, and his bland, ingenuous, and unaffected manners, are not characteristic of the 4enus conjuror; though there is a lurking devil in Ns eye, spite of his simple smile, and he has a most winning way with him. Notwithstanding the instantaneous illumination, which after all might have been effected by electricity, tOe set our wits to work to de- tect his tricks ; determined not to be baffled, though quite willing to admire his sleight-of-hand. Poor fond mortal to think of finding out the —! • For if Herr Di5BLER has not made a bargain with the Prince of Darkness, we can have no more belief in the evidence of our senses, and nothing is but what is not" After being mystified for the space of three hours, one's personal identity became doubtful; and from being most doggedly sceptical as to modern miracles, we became almost ready to believe in Prince HOHENLOHE'S powers, or that a person in a mes- meric sleep can read the inscription inside a watch through the back cd` the head.
It seems trivial and tedious to recount in words the marvels that Herr Di5BLER performs, since, in compassion to his visiters, he conde- scends to excerise his magic art on the most insignificant objects, and to employ the customary formula of conjurors : he offers spoon-meat for babes ; but the power that can deal as he does with cards, watches, and handkerchiefs, pigeons, rabbits, and "such small deer," may be equally potent with greater things. . Among other incomprehensible doings, he boils four plucked pigeons in a kettle full of water' sus- pended over a fire, and perfectly isolated, and out fly four living birds from the empty vessel; he returns to their owners a score of pocket- handkerchiefs, washed and ironed, that a minute before lay soaking wet in a pail ; and he produces no end of bouquets out of an old hat that he stamps upon and turns inside out, each pressure of the feet or squeeze of the bands being followed by a fresh supply of bunches of real sweet-smelling flowers from the old battered hat. A young lady near us lent her straw bonnet, and was horrified at seeing it crushed up into a ball; but, to her great relief, it reappeared hanging at the top of the proscenium, and being brought down by a pistol-shot, she found it quite undamaged. A handful of gold watches is flung to the back of the stage, and presently they reappear banging from the branches of a plant that had just before been watered and placed under a heated cover for producing this sort of golden fruit: bunches of keys, that seem not to havebeen out of sight, are found attached to the roots of a plant in a 'aiowel-pot; and a head with great goggle eyes, at the summons of a pistol-shot, thrusts out a bunch of rings at the tip of its tongue, and stares-with two gold watches for eye-balls, though one could have sworn both rings and watches were under certain covers. But perhaps one of the .completest puzzles is the pouring out successively of black and red wine and creaming champagne from the identical black bottle that we had just before seen filled with water : this and the dipping for bouquets in the old hat are done in the very faces of the spectators ; and the bottle, when emptied of its various contents, is broken, and a silk handkerchief is found in it. A couple of lemons are handed to the company ; and one of them on being cut is found to contain an egg, which being broken yields a walnut-, that when cracked discloses a ring belonging to one of the audience. If these felts seem wondrous in the telling, they are far more inexplicable in the doing ; for you feel, what cannot be indicated sufficiently in a brief description, the seeming impossibility of them : the illusion is perfect ; you see things vanish under your eyes, and be- hold them in another place while yet they appear to be where they were before, Herr DIIBLER is so frankly audacious, so facile in his adroitness, that one almost resents being cheated so easilT ; thg,teedium seems traimptirmt, but the weans are impenetrable.,
Previous page
