New Studies--A Comic Journal--Invention of Second Sight--Curious Experiments--An enthusiastic Spectator--Danger of being a Sorcerer--A Philter or your Life--Way to get rid of Bores--An Electric Touch--I perform at the Vaudeville--Struggles with the Incredulous--Interesting Details. Fontenelle says, somewhere or other, “There is no success, however merited, in which luck does not have a share;” and, although I was of the same opinion as the illustrious Academician, I determined by sheer toil to diminish as much as in me lay the share luck could claim in _my_ success. In the first place, I redoubled my efforts to improve the execution of my tricks, and when I believed I had attained that result, I tried to correct a fault which, I felt, must injure my performance. This was speaking too rapidly; and my “patter,” recited in a schoolboy tone, thus lost much of its effect. I was drawn in this false direction by my natural vivacity, and I had great trouble in correcting it; however, by resolutely attacking my enemy, I managed to conquer it. This victory was doubly profitable to me: I performed with much less fatigue, and had the pleasure of noticing, in the calmness of my audience, that I had realized the scenic truth, “the more slowly a story is told, the shorter it seems.” In fact, if you pronounce slowly, the public, judging from your calmness that you take an interest in what you are saying, yield to your influence and listen to you with sustained attention. If, on the contrary, your words reveal a desire to finish quickly, your auditors gradually submit to the influence of this restlessness, and they are as anxious as yourself to hear the end of your story. I have said that people of the first rank came to my theatre, but I noticed, on the other hand, to my regret, that my pit was scantily filled. As I was ambitious to have my room thronged, I thought I could not effect this more easily than by making my theatre better known than I had hitherto done.