ELEMENTARY TREATISE

PRACTICAL MAGIC

CHAPTER I

DEFINITION OF MAGIC

You know the story of Christopher Columbus's egg, do you not? I shall not tell it to you, then.
This story proves that, generally speaking, there is nothing more difficult to find than simple things. Now, if magic seems so obscure and so difficult to understand (for those who study it seriously, that is), it is obviously because of the complications in which the student entangles himself from the very beginning. We pass, among our regular readers, for an author who loves to use—and even abuse—images and comparisons: whether that be a flaw or a quality, it is an ingrained habit that we shall abandon no more in this work than in our previous ones. Therefore, we cannot better begin our study of magic than with a question that may seem absurd: Have you ever watched a hansom cab a light, two-wheeled covered carriage wandering the streets of Paris? — Why this bizarre request, you might ask? — Simply because, if you have seriously observed this cab,