mystification and mortification, we have a great abhorrence. They do
not belong to the class of Home Amusements. Let them be relegated
to that bad limbo of “college hazing,” and other ignoble tricks
which some people call fun. Far better the games which call for wit,
originality, and inspiration; which show knowledge, reading, and
a full _repertoire_; and a familiarity with all the three homely
studies--geography, arithmetic, and history, including natural history.
One of these games is called “The Traveler’s Tour,” and may be made
very interesting, if the leader is ingenious. It is played in this
way: One of the party announces himself the “Traveler.” He is given
an empty bag, and counters with numbers on are distributed among the
players. Thus, if twelve persons are playing, the numbers must count
up to twelve--a set of _ones_ to be given to one, _twos_ to two, and
so on. Then the Traveler asks for information about the places to
which he is going. The first person gives it, if he can; if not, the
second, and so on. If the Traveler considers it correct information,
or worthy of notice, he takes from the person one of his counters,
as a pledge of the obligation he is under to him. The next person in
order takes up the next question, and so on. After the Traveler reaches
his destination, he empties his bag, and sees to whom he has been
indebted for the greatest amount of information. He then makes him the
next Traveler. Of course, this opens the door for all sorts of witty
rejoinders, as the players choose to exaggerate the claims of certain
hotels, the geographical position of places, and the hits at such a
place as Long Branch, for instance, by describing it as an “inland
spot, very retired, where nobody goes,” etc., etc. Or it can be played
seriously, with the map of Europe or America in one’s memory. The
absurd way is, however, the favorite style with most, as in this wise:
_Traveler._ “I am going to Newport this summer. Which is the best
route?”
_Answer._ “Well, start by the Erie Railroad and try to form a junction
with the Pittsburg and Ohio.”
_Trav._ “When shall I get there?”
_An._ “If you take the Southern Pacific you may reach Newport before
the Fall River boat gets in” (sarcasm on the slowness of the boat).
_Trav._ “How if I go by the Northern Pacific?”
_An._ “Well, that is better than the _Wickford_ route.”
Or _Trav._ says: “I want to go to San Francisco; how shall I start?”
_An._ “Well, at the rate the Cunarders are going to Europe now, your
quickest way is to take the Gallia, and on reaching Liverpool to go to
India by the Overland Route, and so round the world.”
The rhyming game is also very amusing. It is done in this way:
_Speaker._ “I have a word that rhymes with _Game_.”
_Interlocutor._ “Is it something statesmen crave?”
_Sp._ “No, it is not _Fame_.”
_In._ “Is it something that goes halt?”
_Sp._ “No, it is not _Lame_.”
_In._ “Is it something tigers need?”
_Sp._ “No, it is not to _Tame_.”
_In._ “Is it what we all would like?”
_Sp._ “No, it is not _Good Name_.”
_In._ “Is it to shoot at Duck?”
_Sp._ “Yes, and that Duck to _maim_.”
Such words as Nun, Thing, Fall, etc., which admit of many rhymes, are
very good ones to choose. The two who play it must be quick-witted and
read each other’s thoughts.
The end rhymes, which the French like, are very ingenious.[A] Try
making a poem to fit these words, for instance, and you catch the idea:
Town. Lay. Place. Long. Run. Fame. Rain.
Renown. May. Space. Wrong. Sun. Name. Train.
The game of “Crambo,” in which each player has to write a noun on one
piece of paper and a question on another, is curious. As, for instance,
the drawer may get the noun “Mountain,” and the question, “Do you love
me?” he must write a sonnet or poem in which he answers the one and
brings in the other.
The game of “Preferences” has had a long and a successful career. It is
a very good addition to Home Amusements to possess a blank-book lying
on the parlor-table, in which each guest should be asked to write out
answers to the following questions:
Who is your favorite hero in history?
Who is your favorite heroine in history?
Who is your favorite king in history?
Who is your favorite queen in history?
What is your favorite male Christian name?
What is your favorite female Christian name?
What is your favorite flower?
What is your favorite color?
What is your favorite style of music?
What is your favorite style of climate?
What is your favorite amusement?
What is your favorite study?
What is your favorite exercise?
What is your favorite book?
What is your favorite game? etc., etc.
These questions may be amplified according to the taste of the owner of
the book.
These books are very common in English country houses, and the
statistics of favoritism have been taken. Napoleon Bonaparte, even in
the land of the Duke of Wellington, had the greatest number of admirers
as a hero; Mary, Queen of Scots, was the favorite queen in a majority
of instances; Lord Byron led off as a poet, and the names Edward and
Alice had the greatest number of votes as admired Christian names. Joan
of Arc is always ahead as a heroine. In America, after a five years’
experience, a number of books were compared, and resulted in a close
tie between Washington and Napoleon as hero; between Charles X, of
Sweden, and Francis I as king; with Mary, Queen of Scots, far ahead
as queen; with Theodore and Mary as Christian names in advance. Yet
an occasional originality crops out in these “preferences,” and the
examination of the different opinions is always interesting.
The game of Authors, especially when created by the persons who wish
to play it, is very interesting. The game can be bought, and is a
very common one, as, perhaps, everybody knows; but it can be rendered
uncommon by the preparation of the cards among the members of the
family. There are sixty-four cards to be prepared, with each the name
of a popular author, and any three of his works. The entire set is
numbered from one to sixty-four. Any four cards containing the name
and works of the same author form a book. Thus, “Henry W. Longfellow,
‘Hyperion,’ ‘Evangeline,’ ‘New England Tragedies,’” would form one set.
As the shuffling and distribution of these cards, and the plan of also
drawing from a pile in the middle of the table, creates the greatest
uncertainty as to the whereabouts of a certain card, much amusement
can be derived in the effort to make a book. The cards must be equally
distributed one at a time, beginning at the left of the dealer. The
players then arrange their cards in the hand. If one finds four of a
kind, he immediately declares a book, and lays it face downward on
the table; and then, if holding one of the “Longfellow’s,” he will
say “Evangeline.” He can ask any other player for “Hyperion.” After
receiving either the card or a negative answer, the next player to the
left goes on with his play. Players can only call for such cards as
belong to books of which they hold a portion. Should a player call for
a card which he already holds, that card is forfeited to the person
of whom it was called. The caller always finds the name of the card
he wants among those printed in small type; the person of whom it is
called finds it in large type at the top.
This game may be made very useful by using the names of kings and
queens, and the learned men of their reigns, instead of authors. It is
a very good way to study history. The popes can be utilized, with their
attendant great men, and by playing the game for a season the dates and
the events of some obscure period of history will be effectually fixed
in the memory.
As the numbers affixed to the cards may be purely arbitrary, the count
at the end will fluctuate with remarkable impartiality; thus, the
Dickens cards may count but one, while Tupper will be named sixteen;
Carlyle can be two, while Artemus Ward shall be sixty. This is made
very amusing sometimes. King Henry VIII, who set no small store by
himself, can be made to count very little in the kingly game, while the
poor Edward IV may have a higher numeral than he was allowed in life.
VI.
FORTUNE-TELLING.
We now come to that game which interests old and young. None are so
apathetic but that they relish a look 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 tea-cup, the dream-book, the board with the
mystic numbers, and the Bible and Key, have been consulted from time
immemorial. The makers of games have given in their statistics, and
they declare that there are no cards or games so sure of selling well
as those which foretell the Future.
Now a very pretty Home Amusement is to cultivate, without believing
much in them, the innocent sciences of palmistry and of fortune-telling.
Several years ago this led to the making of a very pretty book
by Mrs. Gilman, of South Carolina--a poetical and very harmless
fortune-teller--made up of lines from the poets. The young ladies of
the period used to draw as future husbands: “A professor, and a log
cabin in the West”; “a lord, and a castle”; “a merchant prince”; “an
irresolute and an obstinate fool”; “a well-favored gentleman,” and so
on, the good fortunes being in great advance of the bad ones. It was a
popular work, and amused many a tea-party.
Many people, since the advent of Spiritualism, have amused themselves
with that wonderful toy, “Planchette,” and other curious caprices of
mind-reading, clairvoyance, table-tipping, and knocks. The Key, which
seems to possess strong magnetic powers, and all the performances which
the unbeliever calls “nonsense,” or worse, and which the believing
call “manifestations,” are also interesting; but we can not recommend
this sort of tampering with nervous and exciting pleasure, as it has
undoubtedly sometimes unhinged the most truly innocent minds. Such
investigations should be left to strong and sober men, and should be
approached in a very philosophical spirit, or not at all.
There can be no harm, however, in a playful consultation of the leaves
of the daisy, the four-leaved clover, the fortunate black cat who
brings us luck, the moon over the right shoulder, the oracular “You
shall travel over land and sea”--believing in all the good fortune,
but in none of the bad. The salt should be carefully thrown over
the left shoulder, if spilled, and all the Fates and Fairies should
be propitiated. It gives delightful variety to life to know all the
superstitions and the lore of old nurses and grandmothers. Did we
follow them back, we should find that they each had a poetical origin.
We all like to believe that we can enumerate on our fingers the false
friends, the enemies; but we may hope that the world could not hold the
admirers and the friends whom one four-leaved clover or one black cat
had given us--or promised us. To be sure, “we had dreamed of snakes,
and that meant enemies.” But, after all, are not enemies next best to
friends? They give us consequences, and who that is worth anything was
ever without them? That would be a very colorless individual who should
go through life without an enemy.
The riches which are hidden in a fortune-telling set of cards
(although like Peter Goldthwaite’s treasure) are very real and
comforting while they last. They are endless, they have few really
trying responsibilities attached, they can not be taxed, they are
absolutely where thieves can not break through and steal. They are so
satisfactory, which real wealth never is; they buy everything we want;
they go farther than any real fortune could go; they are our real and
personal estate, and our poetical dreams; our Lamp of Aladdin, and
our Chemical Bank. They are gained without hurting anybody; they are
dug out of the ground without painful backache or bloodshed; they are
inherited without stain, and can be spent without fear of profligacy.
Of what other fortune can we say as much?
It would be an unending theme to try to make a catalogue of the
superstitions of all nations. The Irish, with their wild belief in
fairies, that _Leprechaun_--the little man in red, who, if you can
catch him, will make you happy and prosperous for ever after; who has
such a strange relationship to humanity that at birth and death the
Leprechaun must be tended by a mortal! to read, as they do--these
imaginative people--a sermon in every stone; to see luck beneath the
four-leaved clover, and to hang a legend on every bush; to follow the
more spiritually-minded Scotchman in his second sight, who holds that
“Coming events cast their shadows before.”
A very learned book has been written on the “Superstitions of Wales”
alone. Eloquent and poetic are the people who have invented the
Banshee, the Brownie (or domestic fairy who does all the work). The
more tragic and less loving superstitions of Italy teach that the “evil
eye” is always to be dreaded. The Breton superstitions are as wild as
the sea-gust which sweeps from their coast. All these are subjects of
profound interest to those who read the great subject of race, from
ethnology, folk-lore, and ballads. The superstitions of a people tell
their innermost characteristics, and are thus profoundly interesting.
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 are able to
foresee events with unusual clearness. Their ingenuity in all technical
contrivances is an additional testimony in the same 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. Mlle. Lenormand, the
sorceress who prophesied to Napoleon his greatness, and to many of the
princes and great men of France their downfall and their misfortunes,
has left us thirty-six cards (to be bought at any book-store), wherein
we can read the decrees of fate. Her preface says, “Thousands of
noblemen did then acknowledge her great talent already during her
lifetime, and did often confess that her method was full of truth and
exactness.” Lenormand was a very clever sibyl; she had great ingenuity;
she throws in enough of the inevitable bad, and finds enough of the
possible good, to at least amuse those who consult her oracles. Whether
we have confidence or faith in the divination, we can not but look for
the lucky cards. In this game “The Cavalier” is a messenger of good
fortune, and, if not surrounded by unlucky cards, brings good news,
which the person may expect either from his own house or from abroad.
This will, however, not take place immediately, but some time after.
“The Clover Leaf” is 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 will soon change to a happy
issue.
“The Ship,” the symbol of commerce, signifies great wealth, which will
be acquired by trade or inheritance. If near to the person, it means an
early journey.
“The House” is a certain sign of success and prosperity, and although
the present position of the person may be disagreeable, yet the future
will be bright and happy. If this card lies in the center of the cards
under the person, this is a hint to beware of those who surround him.
“A Tree,” if distant from the person, signifies good health. Nine
trees, of different cards together, leave no doubt about the
realization of all reasonable wishes.
“Clouds”: if their clear side is turned toward the person, it is a
lucky sign; with the dark side turned toward the person, something
disagreeable will soon happen.
“A Serpent” is a sign of misfortune, the extent of which depends
upon the greater or smaller distance from the person; it is followed
invariably by deceit, infidelity, and sorrow.
“A Coffin,” very near to the person, means, without any doubt,
dangerous diseases, death, or total loss of fortune; more distant from
the person, the card is less dangerous.
“The Nosegay” means much happiness in every respect.
“The Scythe” indicates great danger, which will only be avoided if
lucky cards surround him.
“The Rod” means quarrels in the family, domestic afflictions, want of
peace among married persons, fever, and protracted illness.
“The Birds” mean hardship to be overcome, but of short duration;
distant from the person, they mean the accomplishment of a pleasant
journey.
These are descriptions of a few of the picture-cards with which Mlle.
Lenormand tells fortunes still, although she has gone to the land of
certainty, and has herself found out if her symbols and emblems, and
her combinations, really did draw aside the curtain of the future with
invisible strings. We advise all our readers to possess themselves of
her “Fortune-telling Cards” if they wish to become amateur sibyls.
The cup of tea, and the mysterious wanderings of the grounds around the
cup, so long the favorite medium of the sibyl, seems to be an English
superstition. It fits itself to the old crone domesticity of the
Anglo-Saxon humble home, rather than to the more out-of-door romance of
the Spaniards and the Italians; and yet the most out-of-door people in
the world--the gypsies--use it as a means of discerning the future.
The cup should be filled with a weak infusion of tea--grounds and
all--and then carefully turning the cup toward one, the tea should be
carefully turned out, waving the cup so skillfully that the tea-leaves
are dispersed over the surface of the cup. Happy the maid who can turn
out the tea without spilling the leaves. If one drop of tea is left in
the cup it will mean--a tear.
These grounds, or tea-leaves, have been used from the earliest days as
the alphabet of the Parcæ. Before Chinese tea was brought to England
the old fortune-tellers made some sort of a brew out of powdered herbs,
which left their mark on the cup. We can understand how that sinuous
serpent who has had so much to do with our destiny, as a synonym of
evil, can be pictured or “visualized” by such a process; but where the
sibyl finds the light-haired young man crossing a river, where she
finds gold and where trouble, we must leave to the interpreters.
That most interesting of sibyls, “Norna of the Fitful Head,” used
molten lead as a means of interpreting the unseen, and that can be done
by our modern soothsayers.
Cards from early antiquity have been used to tell fortunes. The Queen
of Hearts is the heroine, and as about her group the propitious reds,
or the gloomy blacks, so may we hope for good or dread bad luck. The
Ace of Spades is a bearer of evil tidings; the King of Hearts, at the
right of the Queen, is the very Fortunatus himself. And now, who is
this goddess so often invoked? _Fortuna_, courted by all nations, was,
in Greek, _Tyche_, or the goddess of chance. She differed from Destiny
or Fate in so far that she worked without law, giving or taking at
her own good pleasure, and dispensing joy or sorrow indefinitely; 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, and determined to live with them for
ever; she seems to have thought better of it, however. She was a sister
of the Parcæ, or Fates, those three who spin the thread of life,
measure it, and cut it off. Fortunatus, he of the inexhaustible purse
of gold and the wishing-cap, is too familiar a figure to the readers of
fairy tales to be mentioned here.
And yet, although all nations have desired to propitiate Fortuna, her
high-priests and interpreters have ever been in disrepute. In Scotland,
that land of demonology and witchcraft, of second-sight, of dreamy
superstition, fortune-tellers were denounced as vagabonds, and their
punishment, by statute, was scourging and burning of the ears. We all
know how the knowledge of the “black art” was denounced in Germany; and
the witches of Salem, while they were approached at dead of night by a
pale magistrate who desired to have his fortune told, were, at his high
behest, tortured, pilloried, and hanged the next week, if the fortune
was a bad one, or, if being well foretold, was slow of accomplishment.
That half-belief which superstitious persons repose in their oracles,
shown in the case of the Indian, who breaks or maims his God if he does
not respond to his prayer, and in the remarkable story of Louis XI, of
France, who used to alternately pray to and abuse his leaden images of
saints, is repeated often in the history of fortune-telling.
Mother Redcap, “a very witch,” was resorted to by hundreds of persons
in England as a fortune-teller; her image remains on a coin dated
1667. The well-known prophecies of her neighbor, Mother Shipton, have
come down to us. Poor Redcap had all the duckings and the batings
of the populace. She and her black cat were the favorite horrors of
the superstitious inhabitants of Kentish Town, and hundreds of men,
women, and children saw the devil come in state to carry her off. But
Mother Shipton (who was born at Knaresborough in the reign of Henry
VII) became the most popular of British prophets, and, although she
was supposed to have sold her soul to the Old Gentleman, she yet died
in her bed decently and in order at an extreme old age. So Fortuna
is capricious, even in her treatment of her votaries. It is not
strange that “Palmistry” should have taken higher ground than mere
fortune-telling, and indeed the lines of the hand will seem to map out
character, and perhaps destiny, with some accuracy. The books say that
the lines running through the palm indicate will or indecision, force
or weakness, quickness or slowness; indeed, all which makes character
and fate. We are the arbiters of at least a part of our fortune.
The power to tell fortunes by the hand can be learned from any of
the French books on palmistry, and there are one or two little
English translations. It can be sufficiently curious and varied to
amuse the home circle, and so long as it is done for that purpose,
fortune-telling can do no harm.
But the moment we rise above the idea that the beans, the tea-grounds,
the black cat, the cards, or the lines in the palm, are but blind
guides, making the most palpable mistakes, then the tampering with the
curtain becomes dangerous, and we had better leave the future alone.
VII.
AMUSEMENTS FOR A RAINY DAY.
It may seem an impeachment of the taste of our readers to have lingered
so long on the lesser lights of games and fortune-telling as “Home
Amusements,” when we have before us the great world of decorative art:
æsthetic embroidery, dinner-card designing, china painting, the making
of screens, and the thousand and one devices by which the modern family
can amuse itself.
The making of screens is an amusement which occupies the whole family
most profitably for a rainy day, even if it is to be only the cutting
out of pictures from the illustrated newspapers, and the subsequent
arrangement of them in curious conjunction on a white cotton or muslin
background. The use of screens has dawned upon the American mind within
a few years. They are delightful in a dining-room to keep off a draught
or to hide a closet-door. They break up a too long room admirably.
They are very useful in a bedroom to shut off the washstand and bath;
and they are very comforting to the invalid, as a protection to his
easy-chair against insidious breezes.
Of course, those of satin or linen, embroidered by a skillful hand;
those painted on canvas by the best painters of to-day; those from
China and Japan--are the screens of the opulent. Very pretty paper
screens may be bought at the shops for three or four dollars. But
those on which a group of pictures are to be pasted are the cheapest
and most amusing of any. And do not go and buy highly-glazed pictures
for the purpose. If you do, the screen looks like a valentine. But
cut out the pictures from old copies of the “London Illustrated
News,” “Punch,” “Harper’s Weekly,” “Harper’s Bazaar,” and the English
“Graphic,” paste them thickly one upon another, and you have a curious
and most interesting mosaic. A lady in 1876, the Centennial year, made
a very beautiful screen of fashion plates from the ordinary magazines
of the period. Already (1881) these fashions look very antiquated,
and the screen is becoming historically valuable. The effect of these
delicately-colored pictures, put on as thickly as possible over the
white muslin, has an effect like a festal procession, and is very
pretty.