To Miss Jane Norton.

March, 1874.

Your note found me to-day in the midst of a metaphysical composition, and instead of distracting me infused a certain vigor of style into what I went on to write, — as I noted afterwards, or thought I did. Concrete inspirations, such as balmy air, or notes of inspiriting music, have this effect, as I have observed, of making abstraction more sure-footed.

No doubt, I shall gain for my composition (if it is not abandoned or completed before that time) an additional advantage of this sort by my coming down on Friday or Saturday — both will be free days to me — to the level of concrete magic and the entertainment of the children and their friends. At any rate, I shall be pleased to do what my art can for their pleasure on either day, and I will come to lunch as you propose. The only preparation which might be needed for some tricks is the “negative condition of darkness” of the spiritualists, or, at least, a light not especially appropriate to a sunny afternoon. But this, if necessary (and children have a savage’s keenness of perception), may be had by closing the

window-blinds in one of your rooms. It is only in the magical shower of bon-bons and the trick of the magnetized cane, and perhaps in certain card tricks, that two such powers of nature as a bright daylight and a bright child’s sight would together be likely to defeat the powers of magic. In other tricks, however, which may be as good as a feast, I am, as you know, as powerful against light and sagacious observation as any Indian juggler.