Originally published 1907.
My best trick without doubt is my invention of a new method of doing old tricks, thereby bringing magic into the demand it is to-day.
Eight years ago magic was very much on the wane, so far as public opinion was concerned, as I found to my great disappointment when I tried to obtain my first engagement. Nobody wanted an unknown magician, although unknown dancers, acrobats, etc., could find engagements.
I was told by one manager that even if I were excellent he could not have me, as the public did not care to be annoyed by being asked to draw cards and otherwise assist in the conjurer's performance.
I set my brains to work, lying awake night after night, trying to think of something new and great in the magic line. At last I hit upon the idea of doing all my tricks, both new and old, in a new and original manner. My idea was to cause all my tricks to follow one another in rapid succession, and omit the patter which, so far back as magicians had been heard of, had been considered most essential, giving sufficient time to perform the trick, and also as a method of getting the attention of the audience away from the movement, which the audience was not supposed to see.
I produced my new act in fear and trembling. It was something so entirely different from the usual methods, and I had myself hitherto depended so much on my patter to assist me.
I have been amply repaid for all my worry and anxiety, as it has given me the opportunity of appearing before nearly all the crowned heads of Europe, and as often as four times in eight days, which makes the record for Royal commands in England.
I have felt convinced that my efforts have done some good in the world, as my new methods revived public interest and generally brought magical acts in demand as if by magic (and it was truly Goldin's magic), thereby bringing the salaries up 70 per cent and although I have invented many new and original tricks since then, I think my best trick was in tricking the public to like me and my tricks, and thereby tricking the managers into paying at least three times the amount of salary to conjurers ever paid before.