Random Thoughts on Magic
By Henry R. Evans, Litt. D
I never beheld a real live magician until I saw old Prof. Wyman at Forrest Hall, Georgetown, D. C, when I was quite a small boy. I was fresh from the Arabian Nights, where powerful genii are confined in brass bottles and wicked wizards go around the streets crying "New lamps for old"; and the most impossible things happen. I was surfeited with this sort of literature until an inherited skepticism began to turn against it, and I was assailed by hideous doubts as to the reality of magic. And then I saw Wyman! My skepticism was immediately overthrown, and I became once more a thoroughgoing believer in necromancy. My father attempted to explain away the professor's tricks, but I always had some new objection to his theories as to "how they were done". Nothing at that period of my life could have made me doubt the reality of magic. I went back to my favorite fairy stories with renewed interest and vigor. Wyman certainly made a profound impression on my youthful imagination, which extends to this day. First impressions are everything. I have taken every Masonic degree from the Entered Apprentice to the 33° inclusive, witnessing some of the grandest and most impressive ceremonials ever staged by man, and yet the first degree of Masonry, although simplicity itself, lingers still in my mind and overshadows all the rest, and this after the lapse of thirty-two years. And so with magic. I have had the pleasure of seeing some of the greatest magicians that ever trod the boards, in this country and Europe, and yet my mind goes back this Yuletide to good old Wyman and his entertainment in the town hall of Georgetown, D. C. I hear his voice; I see his kindly humorous face. His long table draped almost to the floor with black velvet; his shelf in the rear of the stage filled with mysterious apparatus; the black hangings that boxed in the scene; the burning candles set in antique candelabra—in short, the entire mise-en-scene of Wyman the wizard appears before me like the phantasmagoria in a necromancer's mirror.
Some boys obtain their introduction to magic through the medium of a box of tricks, others from reading a book on the art. But believe me, dear reader, when I say that the best, the most perfect introduction to the magic art is to see a magician on the stage, and not to have the slightest inkling as to how his feats are done. This fires the imagination to the nth degree, to use a mathematical term, and makes one long to penetrate into the Kadosh Kadoshim of the Mysteries. Thank heaven, the necromancer came first with me and not the box of tricks or the magic book. When I grew older I saw Robert Heller and Alexander Herrmann, and was initiated into their tricks by reading Hoffman's Modern Magic, that classic of conjuring. Magic books come and go, but Hoffman goes on forever, like the fabled brook. It was not until I was a man, a hustling, busy journalist, that I opened up a correspondence with Angelo Lewis, which I kept up vigorously until his death. Lewis was as delightful a correspondent as he was a writer on magic, and possessed some shrewd opinions on his contemporaries in conjuring. I once asked him about the real merit of Anderson, the "Wizard of the North," and he replied: "I saw Anderson perform, when I was a young man, but he did not impress me as a great magician. He was bombastic in the extreme, and his work was a bit ponderous. He lacked the fire of genius." But after all is said the Wizard of the North was a great showman; he was the Barnum of modern magic, and knew how "to put it over" the dear unsophisticated public to an unlimited degree. As an advertiser (adopting the methods of the patent-medicine man) he was perfection itself. He had the faculty of making money but not of keeping it. Few theatrical people have. The artistic temperament, as a rule, does not make for business management, as witness the careers of Alexander Herrmann, who tried to establish a chain of theatres in this country and went broke. He was on the road to recoup his fortune when death, overtook him. How much better it would have been had he invested his splendid receipts in good real estate in New York City, and then waited! May Irwin and the incomparable Lotta did it and reaped the "golden harvest". A few good lessons in thrift would do some theatrical folks a world of good, and convince them that "growing rich quick" is a snare and a delusion. Kellar once told me that after dropping some $40,000 in Wall Street, he became alarmed, and determined to invest a big sum in an annuity with some life insurance company. He did so and walked on velvet the rest of his days. His income from the annuity paid him $10,000 a year. Of course this is a selfish way to invest one's funds if one has children or very near and dear relatives. But Kellar's wife had been long dead and he had well provided for his nephew and niece when he bought his annuity. Kellar told me a curious story about Trewey in this regard. Trewey, when last performing in the United States, made considerable money. He was induced to invest a portion of it in an annuity with a New York Company. It proved to be his salvation. When the World War came on he lost his fortune in Russian bonds, for the Soviet Government repudiated the debts of the old regime, and the annuity purchased in "little old New York" kept him from starvation. It was not a large income, but it kept a roof over the old artist's head and his stomach comfortably filled. Dear old Trewey, how your genial face haunts me this Christmastide. He was my correspondent to the last. But never did he so much as hint the state of his finances. Kellar, Trewey's closest friend in America alone knew the truth. Trewey kept in the attic of his little villa at Asnieres-sur-Seine all of the stage settings and apparatus he used in his show. In his will he left it to the municipality of his home town, in the south of France, as a memorial of himself, presuming that it would be cared for in the public museum. It was a harmless bit of vanity on the old man's part. When Trewey died, his wife wrote to the Mayor and informed him about the donation in her husband's will, and asked him to send for the magic tables and aparatus of the renowned conjuror, mimic and shadowgraphist. But, alas, the Mayor and city council of Trewey's town would not pay for the boxing and expressage of the stuff, and doubted its value as a public exhibit. So much I have from Madame Trewey. Now, what has become of the paraphernalia of one of France's greatest and most versatile artists? Who knows?
The vicissitudes of fortune have played havoc with many magicians, as we have seen in the careers of such artists as Herrmann, Trewey, Anderson and Bertram. Pinetti, Bosco, and Philippe were hard hit by Fate, which, says Dante, "knows our path";—not Dante the American conjurer who is taking out Thurston's second company but the Florentine poet.
A clever American performer says regarding magic: "It is all in the stick". But I am of the opinion that it is all in the box office receipts judiciously invested. A truce to joking, however. What the conjurer was alluding to was the power of the wand to accomplish his magic feats. Every conjurer should have some favorite slogan to enliven his performance. After every trick Charles Bertram would exclaim, "Isn't it wonderful!" It always provoked a laugh. The gentleman of the Stick (I think he was Reno) always ejaculated: "It is all in the stick"—meaning the wand. A dainty touch of the wand adds tremendously to the effect, for the wand has been the symbol of the magician from time immemorial. Too many conjurers (notably Thurston) have abandoned the wand, substituting therefor the so-called "magic whistle" or a six-shooter. This is not in keeping with the magic art. Read what Houdin has to say on the subject. With this, I end my random thoughts on magic and magicians. The curtain falls to the sound of Christmas bells on the frosty air.
I wish you, Brethren of the Wand, a Merry Yuletide and a Happy New Year!
Originally published in the M-U-M in Vol. XIII, No. 6, (Whole No. 129) in New York, December 1923.
