Quite recently I had a letter from a girl who has gone on a visit to British Columbia, asking me if I would "do the cards" for her, as she could not find anyone in her vicinity who was particularly good at divination. She went on to say that "there is a perfect rage for fortune-telling out here, and everyone is keen on it." Another instance of this universal popularity was given to me by a friend who had recently been to America. She was amazed at the numbers of women whom she saw absorbed in the reading of their tea-cups each day of the voyage.
The male sex holds aloof and leaves us to "perform these follies." Some ascribe it to man's superiority. Or as briefly summed up by a delightful member of their sex, who when declaiming against the possibility of the future being made visible, said, "With all apologies to you, I must say I am not so profoundly stupid as to believe in these things; it cannot be anything more than rot."
It is remarkable how such protests die away when clairvoyant evidence, either by cards, tea-leaves, or other means, has accurately predicted some event of the distant future that at the time appeared absurd and impossible of happening.
Woman may lawfully claim superiority with regard to her intuitive faculty, and thus she is well equipped for exercising her divinatory powers.
Who need be dull or bored when the language of symbolism remains to be learned? Perhaps I should say, studied; for completely learned it can never be, seeing that fresh events are constantly occurring in the world, and new symbols appear representing each.
There are few things more fascinating than personal discovery, and those who become students of divination by tea-leaves, or cards, may safely be promised a taste of this pleasing sensation of achievement. It is limited to the few to discover the marvels of radium, or the discomforts of the South Pole, but a fragment of their glory is shared by those who find new evidence of the far-reaching knowledge of symbolism.
CHAPTER V
SOME HINTS FOR DIVINERS
REMARKABLE INSTANCES OF PROPHECY BY THE TEA-LEAVES
"For a man's mind is sometimes wont to tell him more
than seven watchmen that sit above in a high tower."