In the year 1904, he and Mr. Cooke moved their show to St. George’s Hall, having outgrown the old quarters at Egyptian Hall. Since that time Mr. Cooke died at an advanced age. Associated with Mr. Maskelyne and his son is David Devant, a good sleight of hand performer. {123} ROBERT-HOUDIN—CONJURER, AUTHOR AND AMBASSADOR. “Robert-Houdin was a man of remarkable ingenuity and insight. His autobiography is throughout interesting and psychologically valuable, and his conjuring precepts abound in points of importance to the psychologist.”—JOSEPH JASTROW: “_Fact and Fable in Psychology_.” “To Robert-Houdin I feel I owe a double debt; first, for the great satisfaction I have had in such slight skill as I have acquired in his art, and, secondly, for such an insight into its underlying principles as to keep me clear of all danger from evanescent delusions which follow one another in fashion.”—BRANDER MATTHEWS: “_Books that have helped me_.” I. Nostradamus is said to have constructed a magic mirror of great power. In its shining surface, he conjured up many remarkable visions. But I know of a more wonderful wizard’s glass than that of the French necromancer. It is the “mirror of the mind”—that mystery of mysteries. I am able, at will, to evoke in it a phantasmagoria of the past. I need no aid from cabalistic spells, no burning of incense. Presto!—a picture appears radiant with light and life. I see a wainscoted room in a quaint old mansion. Logs are ablaze on the hearthstone. A boy is ensconced in the deep embrasure of the window. He is immersed in a book, and entirely oblivious of the scene without, where the Snow King is busy laying a white pall upon the frozen earth. Snow flakes like white butterflies skim hither and thither. The wind rumbles mournfully in the chimneys like a lost spirit. It is the witching Christmas Tide, when of old the Magi led by the burning star (the weird pentagram of the Initiates) came from afar to visit the lowly cradle of the Nazarene {124} child. Beautiful old legend! It still haunts these later years of mine, breathing joy and peace ineffable; for is it not an allegory of the search for, and the discovery of, the Lost Word of the Adepts of the Temples—the word that signifies eternal life? Let us take a peep over the reader’s shoulder, at the volume in his hand. It is the autobiography of “Robert-Houdin, conjurer, author, and ambassador.” And the reader is myself. O vanished years of boyhood: you still live in the magic mirror of memory! And intimately associated with those years is the mystic book of Robert-Houdin. Can I ever forget the enjoyment I had in poring over the faded yellow leaves of that fascinating work? Happy the youth who early dips into its golden pages. The Arabian Nights forms a fitting prologue to it. I followed Houdin in the Conjurer’s Caravan; rejoiced in his successes at the Palais Royal; and in far-off Algeria, watched him exhibiting his magic feats before the Marabouts.