We now come to that game which interests old and young. None are so apathetic but that they relish a look behind the dark curtain. The apple-paring in the fire, the roasted chestnut and the raisin, the fire-back and the stars, have been interrogated since time began. The pack of cards, the tea-cup, the dream-book, the board with the mystic numbers, and the Bible and Key, have been consulted from time immemorial. The makers of games have given in their statistics, and they declare that there are no cards or games so sure of selling well as those which foretell the Future. Now a very pretty Home Amusement is to cultivate, without believing much in them, the innocent sciences of palmistry and of fortune-telling. Several years ago this led to the making of a very pretty book by Mrs. Gilman, of South Carolina—a poetical and very harmless fortune-teller—made up of lines from the poets. The young ladies of the period used to draw as future husbands: “A professor, and a log cabin in the West”; “a lord, and a castle”; “a merchant prince”; “an irresolute and an obstinate fool”; “a well-favored gentleman,” and so on, the good fortunes being in great advance of the bad ones. It was a popular work, and amused many a tea-party. Many people, since the advent of Spiritualism, have amused themselves with that wonderful toy, “Planchette,” There can be no harm, however, in a playful consultation of the leaves of the daisy, the four-leaved clover, the fortunate black cat who brings us luck, the moon over the right shoulder, the oracular “You shall travel over land and sea”—believing in all the good fortune, but in none of the bad. The salt should be carefully thrown over the left shoulder, if spilled, and all the Fates and Fairies should be propitiated. It gives delightful variety to life to know all the superstitions and the lore of old nurses and grandmothers. Did we follow them back, we should find that they each had a poetical origin. We all like to believe that we can enumerate on our fingers the false friends, the enemies; but we may hope that the world could not hold the admirers and the friends whom one four-leaved clover or one black cat had given us—or promised us. To be sure, “we had dreamed of snakes, and that meant enemies.” But, after all, are not enemies next best to friends? They give us consequences, and who that is worth anything was ever without them? That would be a very colorless individual who should go through life without an enemy. The riches which are hidden in a fortune-telling set of cards (although like Peter Goldthwaite’s treasure) are very real and comforting while they last. They are endless, they have few really trying responsibilities attached, they It would be an unending theme to try to make a catalogue of the superstitions of all nations. The Irish, with their wild belief in fairies, that Leprechaun—the little man in red, who, if you can catch him, will make you happy and prosperous for ever after; who has such a strange relationship to humanity that at birth and death the Leprechaun must be tended by a mortal! to read, as they do—these imaginative people—a sermon in every stone; to see luck beneath the four-leaved clover, and to hang a legend on every bush; to follow the more spiritually-minded Scotchman in his second sight, who holds that
A very learned book has been written on the “Superstitions of Wales” alone. Eloquent and poetic are the people who have invented the Banshee, the Brownie (or domestic fairy who does all the work). The more tragic and less loving superstitions of Italy teach that the “evil eye” is always to be dreaded. The Breton superstitions are as wild as the sea-gust which sweeps from their coast. All these are subjects of profound interest to those who read the great subject of race, from ethnology, folk-lore, and ballads. The superstitions of a people tell their innermost characteristics, and are thus profoundly interesting. The French have, however, tabularized fortune-telling “The Clover Leaf” is a harbinger of good news, but if surrounded by clouds it indicates great pain; but if No. 2 lies near No. 26 or 28, the pain will be of short duration, and will soon change to a happy issue. “The Ship,” the symbol of commerce, signifies great wealth, which will be acquired by trade or inheritance. If near to the person, it means an early journey. “The House” is a certain sign of success and prosperity, and although the present position of the person may be disagreeable, yet the future will be bright and happy. “A Tree,” if distant from the person, signifies good health. Nine trees, of different cards together, leave no doubt about the realization of all reasonable wishes. “Clouds”: if their clear side is turned toward the person, it is a lucky sign; with the dark side turned toward the person, something disagreeable will soon happen. “A Serpent” is a sign of misfortune, the extent of which depends upon the greater or smaller distance from the person; it is followed invariably by deceit, infidelity, and sorrow. “A Coffin,” very near to the person, means, without any doubt, dangerous diseases, death, or total loss of fortune; more distant from the person, the card is less dangerous. “The Nosegay” means much happiness in every respect. “The Scythe” indicates great danger, which will only be avoided if lucky cards surround him. “The Rod” means quarrels in the family, domestic afflictions, want of peace among married persons, fever, and protracted illness. “The Birds” mean hardship to be overcome, but of short duration; distant from the person, they mean the accomplishment of a pleasant journey. These are descriptions of a few of the picture-cards with which Mlle. Lenormand tells fortunes still, although she has gone to the land of certainty, and has herself found out if her symbols and emblems, and her combinations, really did draw aside the curtain of the future with invisible strings. We advise all our readers to possess themselves of her “Fortune-telling Cards” if they wish to become amateur sibyls. The cup of tea, and the mysterious wanderings of the grounds around the cup, so long the favorite medium of the The cup should be filled with a weak infusion of tea—grounds and all—and then carefully turning the cup toward one, the tea should be carefully turned out, waving the cup so skillfully that the tea-leaves are dispersed over the surface of the cup. Happy the maid who can turn out the tea without spilling the leaves. If one drop of tea is left in the cup it will mean—a tear. These grounds, or tea-leaves, have been used from the earliest days as the alphabet of the ParcÆ. Before Chinese tea was brought to England the old fortune-tellers made some sort of a brew out of powdered herbs, which left their mark on the cup. We can understand how that sinuous serpent who has had so much to do with our destiny, as a synonym of evil, can be pictured or “visualized” by such a process; but where the sibyl finds the light-haired young man crossing a river, where she finds gold and where trouble, we must leave to the interpreters. That most interesting of sibyls, “Norna of the Fitful Head,” used molten lead as a means of interpreting the unseen, and that can be done by our modern soothsayers. Cards from early antiquity have been used to tell fortunes. The Queen of Hearts is the heroine, and as about her group the propitious reds, or the gloomy blacks, so may we hope for good or dread bad luck. The Ace of Spades is a bearer of evil tidings; the King of Hearts, at the right of the Queen, is the very Fortunatus himself. And now, who is this goddess so often invoked? Fortuna, courted by all nations, was, in Greek, Tyche, or the goddess of chance. She differed from Destiny or Fate in so far that And yet, although all nations have desired to propitiate Fortuna, her high-priests and interpreters have ever been in disrepute. In Scotland, that land of demonology and witchcraft, of second-sight, of dreamy superstition, fortune-tellers were denounced as vagabonds, and their punishment, by statute, was scourging and burning of the ears. We all know how the knowledge of the “black art” was denounced in Germany; and the witches of Salem, while they were approached at dead of night by a pale magistrate who desired to have his fortune told, were, at his high behest, tortured, pilloried, and hanged the next week, if the fortune was a bad one, or, if being well foretold, was slow of accomplishment. That half-belief which superstitious persons repose in their oracles, shown in the case of the Indian, who breaks or maims his God if he does not respond to his prayer, and in the remarkable story of Louis XI, of France, who used to alternately pray to and abuse his leaden images of saints, is repeated often in the history of fortune-telling. Mother Redcap, “a very witch,” was resorted to by hundreds of persons in England as a fortune-teller; her image remains on a coin dated 1667. The well-known prophecies of her neighbor, Mother Shipton, have come down to us. Poor Redcap had all the duckings and the The power to tell fortunes by the hand can be learned from any of the French books on palmistry, and there are one or two little English translations. It can be sufficiently curious and varied to amuse the home circle, and so long as it is done for that purpose, fortune-telling can do no harm. But the moment we rise above the idea that the beans, the tea-grounds, the black cat, the cards, or the lines in the palm, are but blind guides, making the most palpable mistakes, then the tampering with the curtain becomes dangerous, and we had better leave the future alone. |