Haddo Attacks
Haddo is the magician of the title—though clearly he is a bit more than mere illusionist—but he also considers himself a raconteur and wit. As such, he is always equipped with a remark intended to cut others down to size while increasing his own self-professed magnificence:
“Ah, my dear fellow, I wish I could drive the fact into this head of yours that rudeness is not synonymous with wit. I shall not have lived in vain if I teach you in time to realize that the rapier of irony is more effective an instrument than the bludgeon of insolence.”
The Turning Point
The turning point in the plot occurs in a most unceremonious fashion for a fellow like Oliver Haddo. Bloated physically to nearly the size of his own self-esteem, the one thing which one definitely does not want to be brought down by is a dog. And if a dog it must be, then dear god let it be at a mastiff or at least a rottweiler and not a pup which can be held in one’s arms:
“Suddenly, as though evil had entered into it, the terrier sprang at Oliver Haddo and fixed its teeth in his hand.”
Hypnotic States
Haddo’s magic is not that of shadows and mirrors, but of science and psychology. He possesses the power to guide gullible minds into hypnotic states where they can be more easily manipulated by the powers of suggestion and their own subconscious desires to believe. It is like entering another world for the very suggestible Margaret:
“The night had fallen; but it was not the comfortable night that soothes the troubled minds of mortal men; it was a night that agitated the soul mysteriously so that each nerve in the body tingled.”
A Thing Called Guilt
Funny how people will feel guilt over circumstances which they really could never have changed even if a serious effort had been made. It eats away and poisons the soul, especially when the guilt is stimulated by the foreboding certainty that something very bad is almost positively bound to happen:
“He was sure that a great danger threatened Margaret. He could not tell what it was, nor why the fear of it was so persistent, but the idea was there always, night and day; it haunted him like a shadow and pursued him like remorse.”
Darkness
Darkness is everywhere in fiction. That is speaking metaphorically or, rather, speaking literally about darkness as metaphor. Keep an eye out for it and within a week you will be trying instead not to see it everywhere:
“There is only one subject upon which the individual can speak with authority, and that is his own mind, but even here he is surrounded with darkness.”
“She seemed to stand upon a pinnacle of the temple, and spiritual kingdoms of darkness, principalities of the unknown, were spread before her eyes to lure her to destruction.”
