Now we come to a game which interests old and young. None are so apathetic but they relish a peep 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 teacup, the dream-book, the board with mystic numbers, the Bible and key, have been consulted from time immemorial. The makers of games have given in their statistics, and they declare there are no games so popular as those which foretell the future.
Now this tampering with gruesome things which may lead to bad dreams is not recommended, but so long as it is done for fun and an evening's amusement it is not at all dangerous. The riches which are hidden in a pack of fortune-telling cards are very comforting while they last. They are endless, they are not taxed, they have few really trying responsibilities attached, they bring no beggars. They buy all we want, they are gained without headache or backache, they are inherited without stain, and lost without regret. Of what other fortune can we say so much?
Who is not glad to find a four-leaved clover, to see the moon over his right shoulder, to have a black cat come to the house? She is sure to bring good fortune!
The French have, however, tabularized fortune-telling for us. Their peculiar ability in arranging ceremonials and fêtes, and their undoubted genius for tactics and strategy, show that they might be able to foresee events. Their ingenuity, in all technical contrivances, is an additional testimony in the right direction, and we are not surprised that they have here, as is their wont, given us the practical help which we need in fortune-telling.
Mademoiselle Lenormand, the sorceress who foretold Napoleon's greatness and to many of the great people of France their downfall and misfortunes, has left us thirty-six cards in which we can read the decrees of fate. Lenormand was a clever sybil. She knew how to mix things, and throw in the inevitable bad and the possible good so as at least to amuse those who consulted her.
In this game, which can be bought at any bookstore, the cavalier, for instance, is a messenger of good fortune, the clover leaf 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 so on.
Thus Mlle. Lenormand tells fortunes still, although she has gone to the land of certainty, and has herself found out whether her symbols and emblems and her combinations really did draw aside the curtain of the future with invisible strings. Amateur sybils playing this game can be sure that they add to the art of entertaining.
The cup of tea, and the mysterious wanderings of the grounds around the cup, is used for divination by the old crone in an English farmhouse, while the Spanish gypsy uses chocolate grounds for the same purpose. That most interesting of tragic sybils, Norna of the Fitful Head, used molten lead.
Cards from the earliest antiquity have been used to tell fortunes. Fortuna, courted by all nations, was in Greek Tyche, or the goddess of chance. She differed from Destiny, or Fate, in so far as that she worked without law, giving or taking at her own good pleasure. Her symbols were those of mutability, a ball, a wheel, a pair of wings, a rudder. The Romans affirmed that when she entered their city she threw off her wings and shoes, determined to live with them forever. She seems to have thought better of it, however. She was the sister of the Parcae, or Fates, those three who spin the thread of life, measure it, and cut it off. The power to tell fortunes by the hand is easily learned from Desbarolles' book, is a very popular accomplishment, and never fails to amuse the company and interest the individual.
It must not be made, however, of too much importance. It never amuses people to be warned that they may expect an early and violent death.