valuable, influential friend,
whose death will plunge you in very great distress and poverty: the six
of spades announces a mediocrity of fortune, and great uncertainty in
your undertakings: the five of spades is rather doubtful as to success
or a rise in life; but it promises luck in the choice of your companion
for life, although it shows that your own temper is rather sullen--and
so to get a 'fond creature' to take care of you, with such a temper, is
a mighty great blessing, and more than you deserve: the four of spades
shows sickness speedily, and injury of fortune by friends: the trey
of spades shows that you will be fortunate in marriage, but that your
inconstant temper will make you unhappy: the deuce of spades is the
UNDERTAKER, at last; it positively shows a COFFIN, but who it is for
must depend entirely on the cards that are near it.(83)

(83) Or,--the ace of spades denotes death, malice, a duel, a general
misfortune; the king, a man of very dark complexion, ambitious, and
unscrupulous; the queen, a very dark-complexioned woman of malicious
disposition, or a widow; the knave, a lawyer, a person to be shunned;
the ten, disgrace, crime, imprisonment, death on the scaffold; the
eight, great danger from imprudence; the six, a child, to the unmarried
a card of caution; the five, great danger from giving way to bad temper;
the trey, a journey by land,--tears; the deuce, a removal.

'The nine of hearts is termed the wish card. After the general fortune
has been told, a separate and different manipulation is performed, to
learn if the pryer into futurity will obtain a particular wish; and
from the position of the wish card in the pack the required answer is
deduced.

'The foregoing is merely the alphabet of the art; the letters, as it
were, of the sentences formed by the various combinations of the cards.
A general idea only can be given here of the manner in which those
prophetic sentences are formed. As before stated, if a married woman
consults the cards, the king of her own suit, or complexion, represents
her husband; but with single women, the lover, either in esse or posse,
is represented by his own colour; and all cards, when representing
persons, lose their own normal significations. There are exceptions,
however, to these general rules. A man, no matter what his complexion,
if he wear uniform, even if he be the negro cymbal-player in a
regimental band, can be represented by the king of diamonds:--note, t