Fortunes and dreams

In Short

This book is a comprehensive 1917 compendium of folk wisdom, occult practices, and parlor divinations. It functions as a practical manual for the curious, cataloging techniques for interpreting dreams, palmistry, physiognomy, and cartomancy, alongside older traditions involving dice, dominoes, and the language of flowers. While it acknowledges the shift toward viewing these arts as mere amusement, it remains deeply rooted in the historical belief systems of the early 20th century, offering readers a structured, encyclopedic window into the superstitions and social anxieties of a bygone era.

The Story

The narrative arc of the book is not one of plot, but of deepening immersion into the occult. It begins by grounding the reader in the vast, systematic machinery of the heavens, treating astrology as the foundational layer of fate. It provides the reader with the tools to calculate "lucky" and "unlucky" days through mathematical formulas based on the phases of the moon, effectively placing the control of one’s destiny into the hands of the individual.

From the macrocosm of the stars, the book moves inward to the tangible tools of human prophecy. The story of the cards is presented as a bridge between the historical grandeur of Napoleon’s era and the intimate, everyday concerns of the reader—love, money, and social standing. The author meticulously explains the horseshoe layout of a card reading, assigning specific, often grim or joyous, meanings to every suit and rank. The tension throughout these sections is the tension of the seeker: the inquirer is always portrayed as someone standing on the precipice of a decision, waiting for the cards to signal whether to marry, to move, or to trust a friend.

As the book progresses, it turns the gaze toward the physical body itself. Through the chapters on palmistry and physiognomy, the reader is taught that character is an open book written in the shape of a finger, the slope of a forehead, or the set of a lip. The narrative here is one of classification; the reader learns to sort humanity into categories of "criminal," "workman," or "refined woman."

The final movement of the book shifts from active divination to passive signs. It explores the interpretation of dreams as a dictionary of symbols—where a cat might denote deceit and a bridge might signify success—before concluding with the subtle, coded communication of flowers and the ancient lore of precious stones. The book ends not with a grand resolution, but with a collection of practical oddities, such as memory rhymes for the parts of speech or instructions for determining a horse’s age by its teeth. By the final page, the reader is left with the impression that the world is a dense thicket of signs, and that every aspect of life, no matter how mundane, contains a hidden meaning waiting to be decoded.

How It Unfolds

The celestial framework The book opens by defining the influence of the twelve zodiac signs upon human life. It provides tables that allow the reader to ask specific "primal questions" about love, travel, and success, matching their personal situation against the governing planet to receive a definitive, often blunt, answer.

The mechanics of chance The focus shifts to cartomancy, explaining how playing cards map to the seasons and months of the year. The author guides the reader through specific layouts, demonstrating how to interpret the placement of cards to resolve dilemmas regarding marriage and business.

Reading the human vessel The text transitions into the physical sciences of palmistry, phrenology, and physiognomy. Here, the reader learns to analyze the shape of a hand or the protuberances on a skull to determine the hidden moral character and temperament of others.

The world of symbols The final section acts as a reference guide, providing a dictionary of dream interpretations and a lexicon for the language of flowers. It concludes with a miscellany of traditional wisdom, including weather prophecies and the "language" of postage stamps, ensuring that no aspect of daily life is left uninterpreted.

The People

The "people" in this manual are archetypes. There is the Inquirer, the central figure who serves as the reader’s proxy. The Inquirer is defined by a specific set of anxieties: they are forever worrying if a lover is sincere, whether a journey will be prosperous, or if a secret will be discovered. Their desires are universal—wealth, love, and security—and they turn to the book for a sense of agency in an uncertain world.

Opposing the Inquirer are the Figures of the Cards and the Physical Types. The King of Spades, for instance, is the "unscrupulous man," a dangerous enemy who stalks the card layouts. The "criminal" and the "workman" appear in the chapters on palmistry as fixed, static personas that the reader is encouraged to identify in their own acquaintances. These figures do not evolve; they exist as obstacles or archetypes of character, providing the Inquirer with a frame of reference for judging the intentions and worth of those around them. By the end of the manual, the Inquirer is meant to be a person who has moved from ignorance to a state of heightened, if paranoid, awareness, capable of reading the "stars" and "features" of everyone they encounter.

In Its Own Voice

The following passage captures the book's utilitarian approach to the abstract world of dream interpretation:

"The condition of our digestion may also influence our dreams; if the digestive functions are properly performed, our dreams are apt to be pleasant, whereas every one knows the torturing dreams that may follow an indigestible supper of Welsh rabbit or lobster."

The author provides a pragmatic, albeit dated, explanation for the source of our nightly visions.

Regarding the gravity of the cards, the author writes:

"To many people a pack of cards comes next in importance to the Bible; to others they are supposed to be the devil’s own handbooks of destruction."

This quote highlights the intense, dual nature of the cultural relationship with divination in the early 20th century.

What It's Really About

At its core, this manual is a study of human desire for control. It argues that the universe is not chaotic but coded. By providing systems to interpret everything from the "mounts" on a palm to the dream-meaning of a boiled cabbage, it offers a bulwark against the inherent unpredictability of life. The underlying anxiety is that the world is opaque; the proposed solution is a systematic, almost compulsive, process of categorization. It asks the question: If we can read the signs, are we truly at the mercy of fate? The manual suggests that while we cannot change our fortune, we can at least be warned of it, transforming the terrifying unknown into a series of identifiable, manageable events.

Why Read It Today

Readers with an interest in the history of occultism, folklore, or the social history of the early 1900s will find this a fascinating document. It is a time capsule of the specific anxieties of its period, reflecting a world where one might consult a palmist to verify a business partner's integrity or check the language of flowers before composing a letter.

It is important to note that the book reflects the era's rigid and frequently judgmental attitudes. The classifications of character based on physical features, for instance, are presented as scientific fact, despite being rooted in the prejudices of the time. The prose is functional and didactic, lacking the warmth of modern self-help literature; it speaks with the cold authority of a manual. You will not find profound spiritual enlightenment here, but you will find something perhaps more interesting: a mirror held up to a society that was desperately trying to calculate its future by counting the pips on a card or the bumps on a head. It is a challenging read if one is looking for nuance, but an essential one if one wants to understand the lengths to which people have gone to soothe their fear of the future.