The Lock and Key Library eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 255 pages of information about The Lock and Key Library.

The Lock and Key Library eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 255 pages of information about The Lock and Key Library.

This will probably seem to my readers very extraordinary; but I shall surprise them still more, when I say that I have just amused myself by repeating this curious experiment.  Though thirty years have elapsed since the time of which I am writing, and though I scarcely once touched the balls during that period, I can still manage to read with ease while keeping three balls up.

The practice of this trick gave my fingers a remarkable degree of delicacy and certainty, while my eye was at the same time acquiring a promptitude of perception that was quite marvelous.  Presently I shall have to speak of the service this rendered me in my experiment of second sight.  After having thus made my hands supple and docile, I went on straight to sleight-of-hand, and I more especially devoted myself to the manipulation of cards and palmistry.

This operation requires a great deal of practice; for, while the hand is held apparently open, balls, corks, lumps of sugar, coins, etc., must be held unseen, the fingers remaining perfectly free and limber.

Owing to the little time at my disposal, the difficulties connected with these new experiments would have been insurmountable had I not found a mode of practicing without neglecting my business.  It was the fashion in those days to wear coats with large pockets on the hips, called a la proprietaire, so whenever my hands were not otherwise engaged they slipped naturally into my pockets, and set to work with cards, coins, or one of the objects I have mentioned.  It will be easily understood how much time I gained by this.  Thus, for instance, when out on errands my hands could be at work on both sides; at dinner, I often ate my soup with one hand while I was learning to sauter la coupe with the other—­in short, the slightest moment of relaxation was devoted to my favorite pursuit.

II

“SECOND SIGHT”

[A thousand more trials of patience and perseverance finally brought to the conjurer a Parisian theater and an appreciative clientele.  But he never ceased to labor and improve the quality of his marvelous effects.]

The experiment, however, to which I owed my reputation was one inspired by that fantastic god to whom Pascal attributes all the discoveries of this sublunary world:  it was chance that led me straight to the invention of second sight.

My two children were playing one day in the drawing-room at a game they had invented for their own amusement.  The younger had bandaged his elder brother’s eyes, and made him guess the objects 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 up in my workroom, and was fortunately in that happy state when the mind follows easily the combinations traced by fancy.  I rested my hand in my hands, and, in my excitement, laid down the first principles of second sight.

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The Lock and Key Library from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.