nts the day may be expected to bring
forth. To 'look in the cup' three or four times a day, as some
silly folk do, is simply to ask for contradictory manifestations and
consequent bewilderment, and is symptomatic of the idle, empty, bemused
minds that prompt to such ill-advised conduct.

Of course the tea-cup may be employed solely for the purpose of asking
what is known to astrologers as 'a horary question', such, for instance,
as 'Shall I hear from my lover in France, and when?' In this case the
attention of the consultant when turning the cup must be concentrated
solely on this single point, and the seer will regard the shapes taken
by the tea-leaves solely in this connection in order to give a definite
and satisfactory answer. An example of this class of horary question is
included among the illustrations (Fig. 10).

CHAPTER IV

AN ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SYMBOLS WITH THEIR SIGNIFICATIONS

A question that will very naturally occur to persons of an enquiring
turn of mind in regard to the figures and symbols seen in the tea-cup
is: Why should one symbol necessarily signify one thing and not
something quite different?

The answer, of course, is that the meanings given to the symbols are
purely arbitrary, and that there is no scientific reason why one should
signify one thing and not another. There is no real reason why the
ace of clubs, for instance, should not be considered the 'House Card'
instead of the nine of hearts, or why the double four in dominoes should
signify an invitation instead of a wedding, like the double three.

It is obviously necessary, however, in attempting to read the future by
means of any kind of symbols, whether pips, dots, numbers or anything
else, to fix beforehand upon some definite meaning to be attributed to
each separate symbol and to hold fast to this meaning in all events.
In the case of tea-leaves, where the symbols are not mere 'conventional
signs' or numbers but actual figures like the pictures seen in the fire
or those envisaged in dreams, there is no doubt that the signification
of most of them is the result of empyrical experience. Generations of
spae-wives have found that the recurrence of a certain figure in the
cup has corresponded with the occurrence of a certain event in the
future lives of the various persons who have consulted them: and this
empyrical knowledge has been handed down from seer to seer until a
sufficient deposit of tradition has been formed from whic