The curtain rose again, and I approached my audience with a smile on my lips. I judged of this change in my face by those of my spectators, for they began all at once to share my good humor.
How many times since have I tried this imitative faculty on the part of the public? If you are anxious, ill-disposed, or vexed, or should your face bear the stamp of any annoying impression, your audience, straightway imitating the contraction of your features, begins to frown, grows serious, and ill-disposed to be favorable to you. If, however, you appear on the stage with a cheerful face, the most sombre brows unwrinkle, and every one seems to say to the artist: "How d'ye do, old fellow, your face pleases me, I only want an opportunity to applaud you." Such seemed to be the case with my public at this moment.
It was more easy for me to feel at my ease as I was beginning my favorite experiment, "the surprising pocket-handkerchief," a medley of clever deceptions. After borrowing a handkerchief, I produced from it a multitude of objects of every description, such as sugar-plums, feathers of every size up to a drum-major's, fans, comic journals, and, as a _finale_, an enormous basket of flowers, which I distributed to the ladies. This trick was perfectly successful, but, to tell the truth, I had it at my fingers' ends.
The next performance was the "orange-tree," and I had every reason to calculate on this trick, for, in my private rehearsals, it was the one I always did best. I began with a few juggling tricks as introduction, which were perfectly successful, and I had every reason to believe I was getting through it capitally, when a sudden thought crossed my mind and paralyzed me. I was assailed by a panic which must have been felt to be understood, and I will try to explain it by an illustration.
When you are learning to swim, the teacher begins by giving you this important piece of advice; "Have confidence, and all will be well." If you follow his advice, you can easily keep yourself up on the water, and it seems perfectly natural; thus you learn to swim. But it often happens that a sudden thought crosses your mind like lightning: "Suppose my strength failed me!" From that time you hurry your movements, you redouble your speed, the water no longer sustains you, you flounder about, and, if a helping hand were not by, you would be lost.