Signification of Different Cards of the Same Denomination.
Four Aces, coming together, or following each other, announce danger, failure in business, and sometimes imprisonment. If one or more of them be reversed, the danger will be lessened, but that is all.
Three Aces, coming in the same manner.—Good tidings; if reversed, folly.
Two Aces.—A plot; if reversed, will not succeed.
Four Kings.—Rewards, dignities, honors; reversed, they will be less, but sooner received.
Three Kings.—A consultation on important business, the result of which will be highly satisfactory; if reversed, success will be doubtful.
Two Kings.—A partnership in business; if reversed, a dissolution of the same. Sometimes this only denotes friendly projects.
Four Queens.—Company, society; one or more reversed, denotes that the entertainment will not go off well.
Three Queens.—Friendly calls; reversed, chattering and scandal or deceit.
Two Queens.—A meeting between friends; reversed, poverty, troubles, in which one will involve the other.
Four Knaves.—A noisy party—mostly young people; reversed, a drinking bout.
Three Knaves.—False friends; reversed, a quarrel with some low person.
Two Knaves.—Evil intentions; reversed, danger.
Four tens.—Great success in projected enterprises; reversed, the success will not be so brilliant, but still it will be sure.
Three tens.—Improper conduct; reversed, failure.
Two tens.—Change of trade or profession; reversed, denotes that the prospect is only a distant one.
Four nines.—A great surprise; reversed, a public dinner.
Three nines.—Joy, fortune, health; reversed, wealth lost by imprudence.
Two nines.—A little gain; reversed, trifling losses at cards.
Four eights.—A short journey; reversed, the return of a friend or relative.
Three eights.—Thoughts of marriage; reversed, folly, flirtation.
Two eights.—A brief love-dream; reversed, small pleasures and trifling pains.
Four Sevens.—Intrigues among servants or low people, threats, snares, and disputes; reversed, that their malice will be impotent to harm, and that the punishment will fall on themselves.
Three sevens.—Sickness, premature old age; reversed, slight and brief indisposition.
Two sevens.—Levity; reversed, regret.
Any picture-card between two others of equal value—as two tens, two Aces, etc.—denotes that the person represented by that card runs the risk of a prison.
It requires no great efforts to commit these significations to memory, but it must be remembered that they are but what the alphabet is to the printed book: a little attention and practice, however, will soon enable the learner to form these mystic letters into words, and words into phrases; in other language, to assemble these cards together, and read the events, past and to come, their pictured faces pretend to reveal.
There are several ways of doing this; but we will give them all, one after another, so as to afford our readers an ample choice of methods of prying into futurity.