[Gutenberg 42008] • Telling Fortunes by Cards / A Symposium of the Several Ancient and Modern Methods as Practiced by Arab Seers and Sibyls and the Romany Gypsies

The art of telling fortunes by cards, known professionally as Cartomancy, has been practiced for centuries. In our day and generation divination by cards is chiefly employed for amusement and pastime, for the entertainment of one’s self or one’s company, or at church fairs, charity bazars, and the like; but in the days of the ancients it was practiced by prophets and sibyls as a serious business, and so accepted by all, from king to peasant. Certainly there were some remarkable coincidences, to call them by no other name, in the fulfillment of many cartomantic divinations, of which history maintains a record.