Player: Chaos
Rank: Common (Rank 0)
Religion: Church of England
Email: samuel_cartwright@albion.chaosdeathfish.com
A popular conjurer with the King and one seen about Oxford in Albion. Though a commoner, he is incredibly skilled at his art and has become a notable entertainer at court. Some suggest that he is a true philosopher, and to him life is but an illusion…
From “Mattean Theatre in Oxford: A Critical History”, Oxford: Cain's College Press, 1850
“…the first performance of the now-classic A Fleeting Illusion, popularly regarded as the canonical example of the great 17th-century 'Spectacle' pieces. Modern dramatists should be aware not only of the scope but of the scale of this performance, possessing as it did none of the modern advantages of illusekinetographic techniques which are now so commonly used for public performances and open-air concerts; every illusion was painstakingly constructed by hand by the producer, the Marvellous Mystico, and personally performed from his flagship, the Pride of Yugorsk.
To the citizens of an early-modern Oxford it must have seemed an astounding site; an epic show of illusion featuring, in much colour and splendour, entire fleets of ships with a truly spectacular sea battle scene and numerous mystical illusory creatures. Telling the story of a race of ocean-dwelling people who live aboard ships but in turmoil, constantly fighting each other often without cause, it must have rung very true for the men and women of the capital, embroiled in the Great Riots.
After a huge battle many of the ships on which the ocean-dwelling folk live lie in ruins, and the people find themselves sinking deep into the ocean. Here they meet the sea-dragon Arusio, who with the aquatic subjects over whom he rules tries to show them that there are more noble causes than fighting one's own people. (Arusio has often been seen by modern critics as an allegory for King Matthew.) The citizenry come to see that all of the reasons they had for their conflict and their hatred for each other were mere illusions that they had convinced themselves into seeing, and through Arusio's power are returned to the ocean's surface, their ships restored, where they go on to live in harmony as a mighty nation.
The show finishes on that now-famous musical note with a song of the same name, sung by the illusions of the ocean people, Arusio and his subjects and accompanied by a great light show with fireworks and the like. (Full lyrics for the original version of “A Fleeting Illusion” given below; while many are familiar with the tune, critics will note some differences between the original and versions used in modern performances. The song has often been updated to reference contemporary strife or political events, and a study has been made of the song's history through the ages by Stabetzi [Oxon 1792]…”
Verse
Compelled wherefore did we fight?
When nothing ever seemed right,
Of what we were we had lost sight,
But that all has changed this night…
The past a distant memory,
Sinking ever into the sea,
Oh now we know what we must be,
And now we seek our true glory!
Chorus
A fleeting illusion, oh!
Life is but one of these,
So the truth we see now will save us, and how!
Our lives carried in the breeze!
Verse
Our generous guide has revealed much,
Our wavering hearts he could touch,
Now we know that to our views we must not clutch,
For their falsehoods are known such.
The battle lost, but the war won,
The truth exposed to everyone,
Glad are we that we see the illusion,
For now all our troubles have gone!
Chorus
A fleeting illusion, oh!
Life is but one of these,
So the truth we see now will save us, and how!
Our lives carried in the breeze!
Our lives carried in the breeze!
A fleeting illusion, oh!
Life is but one of these,
All your troubles are but illusion, so,
Let them be carried in the breeze!
Let them be carried in the breeze!
Carried away in the breeze!
Carried away in the breeze!
Dramatic finale
Extracts from “Man and Mystic”, the popular biography of Samuel Cartwright released by Clarendon, 1970.
“…although speculation on a later rivalry between the Marvellous Mystico and the other great illusionist of court, Reginald Grover, has been explored in other tomes, evidence from recently uncovered diaries and records suggests that Cartwright never took the position of Court Conjurer simply because he had no wish to be tied down to a single country, let alone a single city. While Grover remained at home in Oxford, performing illusions for King and Country and producing show after show at the New Rose, Cartwright was travelling the globe in search of fame and adventure. Visits to the court of the Dauphin, the King of Spain, Prague, Cornwall, Muscovy and the Philippine Islands resulted in an ever-increasing series of appointments as Conjurer Extraordinary to princes and potentates, and Cartwright is rumoured to have joked later in life that he would have to employ an Alchemist to invent an entirely new and sturdier type of paper merely to hold the weight of all his titles.
Not all went absolutely to plan – the anecdote concerning the Marvellous Mystico fleeing the Vatican with a regiment of Swiss Guard and local zealous Catholics in hot pursuit, intent on burning the 'Witch' and his 'daemonic' assistant, the beautiful Muscovite girl known as Myriad, is well-known; and, of course, the Tlaxcallan Incident which still has diplomatic repercussions in the hill-country today. However, with a very few exceptions, the Marvellous Mystico and his retinue were soon welcome across the courts of the Known World and even further afield, and bored diplomats began to jovially compete to see who could throw the best reception in the hope of attracting the great illusionist back once again…
….recent conspiracy theorists of the “Medici Code” fashion have made much of the academic cooperation and regard between Nathaniel Medici and the Marvellous Mystico. However, the astute reader has to look no further than the common illusiphote for the real explanation for these two great thinkers' collaboration; for it was the Inventive genius of Nathaniel Medici, in combination with the illusory principles of Mystico's great work, which allowed the creation of the prototype for the device one can now find in any home, and without which illusojournalism, kinematography, and even the common ulteriphote would surely be impossible…
…it is, of course, critical to remember that for all the famous flash and show of the illusionist, Cartwright was a scholar as well as a performer. Throughout his life, he never gave up the search for what he called the “ultimate illusion”. Journals and accounts of his colleagues suggest that he believed that with sufficient application of illusory magic and applied Conjuration, it would be possible to bend the substance of the world itself; to change by will the nature of the universe, or to see the absolute truths lying beyond it. (Sceptics and those inclined to dismiss Cartwright as deluded or insane are advised to read the recent paper released by the Institute for Experimental Metareality on applied Conjuration and its effects upon large-scale Theurgic accelerators in a particle-rich environment.)
Whether Cartwright succeeded or not is a question that will be argued down the ages. What is known is that, towards the end of his life, still spry and agile despite his greying hair, the Marvellous Mystico took the Pride of Yugorsk, his assistant Myriad, and a small crew of his dedicated followers, and sailed into the West, telling no-one of his destination.
He never returned; but on the last evening that he was seen in the lands of men, every man, woman and child across the Western Hemisphere saw the sun set in a cloud of brilliant orange doves, which wheeled across the sky, seeming to trace in letters of fire “M.M.”, and disappeared in a great puff of smoke. The sun set; darkness fell across the land; and, so the poets say, the sun that rose the next morning was never quite as bright or as pleasing to the eye as it had once been.”