Part 8

Six of Hearts.--A generous but credulous person.

Five of Hearts.--Troubles caused by unfounded jealousy.

Four of Hearts.--A person not easily won.

Three of Hearts.--Sorrow caused by a person’s own imprudence.

Two of Hearts.--Great success; but equal care and attention needed to secure it.

Ace of Spades.--Great misfortune, spite.

King of Spades.--A dark, ambitious man.

Queen of Spades.--A malicious, dark woman--generally a widow.

Knave of Spades.--An indolent, envious person; a dark man’s thoughts.

Ten of Spades.--Grief, imprisonment.

Nine of Spades.--A card of very bad import, foretelling sickness and misfortune.

Eight of Spades.--Warns a person to be cautious in his undertakings.

Seven of Spades.--Loss of a friend, attended with much trouble.

Six of Spades.--Wealth through industry.

Five of Spades.--Shows that a bad temper requires correcting.

Four of Spades.--Sickness.

Three of Spades.--A journey.

Two of Spades.--A removal.

Having given the signification of the various cards, we will now proceed to describe how they are to be employed. After having well shuffled, cut them three times, and lay them out in rows of nine cards each. Select any King or Queen you please to represent yourself; and wherever you find that card placed, count nine cards every way, reckoning it as one; and every ninth card will prove the prophetic one. Before, however, beginning to count, study well the disposition of the cards, according to their individual and relative signification. If a married woman consult the cards, she must make her husband the King of the same suit of which she is Queen; but if a single woman, she may make any favorite male friend King of whatever suit she pleases. As the Knaves of the various suits represent the thoughts of the persons represented by the picture-cards of a corresponding color, they should also be counted from.

TO TELL WHETHER YOU WILL GET YOUR WISH.

To try whether you will get your wish, shuffle the cards well, all the time keeping your thoughts fixed upon whatever wish you may have formed; cut them once, and remark what card you cut; shuffle them again, and deal out into three parcels. Examine each of these in turn, and if you find the card you turned up next either the one representing yourself--the Ace of Hearts or the Nine of Hearts--you will get your wish. If it be in the same parcel with any of these, without being next them, there is a chance of your wish coming to pass at some more distant period; but if the Nine of Spades makes its appearance, you may count on being disappointed.

GOOD AND BAD OMENS.

The word omen is well known to signify a sign, good or bad, or a prognostic. It may be defined to be that indication of something future which we get as it were by accident, and without seeking for. A superstitious regard to omens seems anciently to have made very considerable additions to the common load of infelicity. They are in these enlightened days pretty generally disregarded, and we look back with perfect security and indifference on those trivial and truly ridiculous accidents which alternately afford matter of joy and sorrow to our ancestors. Omens appear to have been so numerous, that we must despair of ever being able to recover one-half of them, and to evince that in all ages men have been self-tormentors, the bad omens fill a catalogue infinitely more extensive than that of the good. An extensive set of omens has been taken from what first happens to one, or what animal or person one meets first in the morning, or at the commencement of an undertaking--the first-foot, as it is called. To stumble has been universally held to presage misfortune. Some semblance of a reason might be found for this belief, inasmuch as stumbling may be supposed to indicate that that self-possession and conscious courage, which are in themselves half a victory over circumstances, are lacking--the want of them, therefore, being half a defeat; but in most cases the interpretation seems altogether arbitrary. The dread of a hare crossing the path seems to be widely prevalent; while to see a wolf is a good omen. This feeling is probably a remnant of warlike times, when the timid hare suggested thoughts of cowardice and flight; while the bold wolf, sacred to Odin, was emblematic of victory. The character of the hare for being unlucky is also connected with the deep-rooted belief that witches are in the habit of transforming themselves into hares. That to meet an old woman is unlucky, is another very general belief, arising, without doubt, from the same causes that led to their being considered witches. In some places, women in general are unlucky as first-foot, with the singular exception of women of bad reputation. This belief prevailed as far back as the age of Chrysostom. Priests, too, are ominous of evil. If hunters of old met a priest or friar, they coupled up their hounds and went home in despair of any further sport that day. This superstition seems to have died out, except in the case of sailors, who still consider the clergy a “kittle cargo,” as a Scotch skipper expressed it, and anticipate a storm or mischance when they have a black coat on board. This seems as old as the prophet Jonah. Sneezing, likewise, has long been looked upon as supernatural, for this reason, that it is sudden, unaccountable, uncontrollable, and therefore ominous. The person is considered as possessed for the time, and a form of exorcism is used. A nurse would not think she had done her duty, if, when her charge sneezes, she did not say, “Bless the child,” just as the Greeks, more than two thousand years ago, said, “Zeus protect thee.”

One general remark, however, it is important to make in regard to omens. An omen is not conceived to be a mere sign of what is destined to be--it is conceived as causing, in some mysterious way, the event it forebodes; and the consequence, it is thought, may be prevented by some counteracting charm. Thus the spilling of salt not only forebodes strife, but strife is conceived as the consequence of the spilling of the salt, and may be hindered by taking up the spilled salt, and throwing it over the left shoulder. Perhaps half the superstitious beliefs that yet survive among civilized and Christian communities group themselves round the subject of love and marriage--of such intense interest to all, yet so mysterious in its origin, and problematic in its issue. The liking or passion for one individual rather than any other is so unaccountable, that the God of Love has been fabled blind; it is of the nature of fascination, magic, spell. And then, whether happiness or the reverse shall be the result, seems beyond the reach of ordinary calculation. All is apparently given over to mystery, chance, fortune; and any circumstances may, for what we know, influence or indicate what fortune’s wheel shall bring round. Hence the innumerable ways of prognosticating which of two or more persons shall be first married, who or what manner of person shall be the future husband or wife, the number of children, etc. It is generally at particular seasons, as at the Eve of St. Agnes, and Halloween, that the veil of the future may thus be lifted.

The observation of lucky and unlucky days was once an important matter, and was often the turning-point of great events. It is now mostly confined to the one subject of marriage. In fixing the wedding day, May among months and Friday among days are shunned by many people, both in educated and uneducated circles; for in this matter, which is the exclusive province of women, and in which sentiment and fancy are in every way so much more active than reason, the educated and uneducated are reduced to a level. We will give a large collection of omens, with their interpretation, having selected from all the best works on the subject, and will begin with “Good and Evil Days”:

1. In an old MS., the writer, after stating that the most learned mathematicians have decided that the 1st of August, the 4th of September, and the 11th of March are most injudicious to let blood, and that philosophers have settled that the 10th of August, 1st of December, and 6th of April are perilous to those who surfeit themselves in eating and drinking, continues as follows, assigning reasons why certain days should be marked as infelicitous:

“We read of an old Arabian philosopher, a man of divers rare observations, who did remark three Mundayes in a year to be most unfortunate either to let blood or begin any notable worke, viz., the first Munday of April, ye weh day Caine was borne, and his brother Abell slaine; the 2d is the first Munday of August, the which day Sodom and Gomorrha were confounded; the 3d is the last Munday of December, the which day Judas Iscariott was borne, who betrayed our Saviour Jesus Christ. These three dayes, together with the Innocents’ Day, by divers of the learned are reputed to be most unfortunate of all dayes, and ought to be eschewed by all men for ye great mishaps which often do occur in them.

“And thus much concerning the opinion of our ancient of dayes. So in like manner I will repeat unto you certain dayes yt be observed by some old writers, chiefly the ancient astrologians, who did allege that there were 28 dayes in the yeare which were revealed by the Angel Gabriel to the good Joseph, which ever have been remarked to be very fortunate dayes either to purge, let bloud, cure wounds, use merchandises, sow seed, plant trees, build houses, or taking journies, in long or short voyages, in fighting or giving of battaile, or skirmishing. They also doe alledge that children who were borne in any of these dayes could never be poore; and all children who were put to schooles or colledges in those dayes should become great schollars, and those who were put to any craft or trade in such dayes should become perfect artificers and rich, and such as were put to trade in merchandise should become most wealthy. The dayes be these: the 3d and 13th of January, ye 5th and 28th of Feb., ye 3d, 22d, and 30th of March, the 5th, 22d, and 29th of April, ye 4th and 28th of May, ye 3d and 8th of June, the 12th, 18th, and 15th of July, ye 12th of August, ye 1st, 7th, 24th, and 28th of September, the 4th and 15th of October, ye 13th and 19th of Novr., ye 23d and 26th of December. And thus much concerning ye dayes which are by ye most curious part of ye learned remarked to be good and evill.”