[Transcribed by Ruth Hart [email protected]]

[Transcriber's note: for this HTML edition I changed all the sidebars to section headings. Also in the paragraph starting "Let it be minded..." I changed "Sex in Court Cards" to "Six in Court Cards".  All other spelling remains the same.]

THE SQUARE OF SEVENS

AN AUTHORITATIVE SYSTEM OF CARTOMANCY

WITH A PREFATORY NOTICE

BY E. IRENAEUS STEVENSON

NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
PRINTERS & PUBLISHERS
MDCCCXCVII

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS

All rights reserved

TO JOHN DAVIS ADAMS

this new forth-setting of an old mystery is cordially offered.

Editorial Preface

"'Tis easy as lying."—Hamlet

It is safe to presume that even the most inquisitive book-hunters of the present day, and few of the fellowship during two or three generations past, have encountered the scarce and curious little volume here presented, as in a friendly literary resurrection—Robert Antrobus's "The Square of Sevens, and the Parallelogram." Its mathematical title hardly hints at the amusement that the book affords. With its solemn faith in the gravity of its mysteries, with its uncertain spellings and capital-icings such as belong to even the Eighteenth Century's early part, with its quaint phrases and sly observations (all the time sticking strictly close to business), it has a literary character, as well as me occult, that is quite its own.

Fortune-telling with cards and belief in fortune-telling with cards—like a hundred greater and lesser follies of the mind—were straws floating along the current of British life, intellectual and social, during the reign of George the Second. This was the case, in spite of the enlightening influences of religion, science, and philosophy. Modish society was addicted to matters over which argument was hardly worth while—in which respect we find modish society the same in all epochs. Our ancestresses particularly were often charming women, and almost as often sensible women; but, like the men of Athens, they were too superstitious. Often were they such in a fond and amusing degree. Lady Betty or Lady Selina—for that matter, even Sir Tompkin and my lord Puce—might be spirited men and women of the world. But they did not repudiate the idea of ghosts. They abhorred a mirror's breakage. They disliked a Friday's errand. They shuddered over a seven-times sneeze or at a howling dog at midnight. And the gentle sex, especially, would and did tell fortunes almost as jealously as play quadrille and piquet. Let us be courteous to them. Let us remember that Esoteric Buddhism, Faith Healing, and Psychic Phenomena were not yet enjoying systematic cultivation and solemn propagandism; and that relatively few dying folk were allowed to "go on with their dying" as part of a process of healing which excludes medicine and insists on the conviction that the invalids are not ill!

But to our "Square of Sevens"—with which even a Gallio may deign to be diverted—especially if in using it the air is found to be full of coincidences. The story of the book is already alluded to, as odd. The inquisitive reader may be referred to "certain copies only." Therein, "inserted by Afterthought on the Author's part" (and therefore in a mere fraction of whatever represented the extremely small edition of the work), may be sought the "Prefatory Explication, made for the Benefit of My Friends, Male and Female." In recounting the origin of the manual, its author is candid, but at the same time too long-winded for quoting entire. Enough to say, as the substitute for a lengthy tale of facts, that prior to the year 1731 the author of "The Square of Sevens," Mr. Robert Antrobus, "a Gentleman of Bath," was called in the month of November to pass sundry months in Tretelly, that antique but still lively little town of Cornwall. He describes himself as "exceedingly vexed and inconvenienced by Summons on my Affairs connected with the Parcelling of a piece of Property, unexpectedly acquired." Mr. Antrobus—who, by-the-bye, may perhaps be associated in the memories of readers of minor Eighteenth-Century correspondence with such notables of the day as William Pitt, Dr. Johnson, Admiral Byng, Mark Akenside, William Pulteney, the Duke of Cumberland, and many others of the time—was a shy, silent man of wealth. Also was he one of considerable learning, out of the way and other, including an interest in gypsies and gypsy language remarkable for the period.

He lodged at "the only Inn of any suitability" in the place. Thereby be made an unexpected acquaintance. Before a week had elapsed, he became much interested in the fact that under the same roof, but in more bumble quarters than his own, was lying and dying another stranger in the place. This was a man of some forty years, known only as "Mr. George." His home is not a clear matter, nor that he had any relatives except a little girl of six or seven years old, his child. It is likely that in alluding to him in the "Prefatory Explication" mentioned, Mr. Antrobus disguised what was already obscure, and that "Mr. George" of the "troublesome Talk of the Inn-people" is an abbreviated pseudonyme.

Mr. Antrobus was a humane and benevolent man, as well as an inquisitive one. He delicately assisted to make the sick guest more comfortable in his wasting body. He won his confidence, genuinely compassionated his anxieties, and presently pledged himself to a most kindly office—the care and provision in future for the child soon to be fatherless; long before this time motherless. Whether she was motherless by the actual death of the parent, or not, Mr. Antrobus did not learn, or does not tell. But he did learn, by a confession, that "Mr. George" was really George X—, a gypsy, and one withal of unusual education and breeding. More remarkable still, he was a gypsy intensely embittered against' a race from which he had lived for many years wholly withdrawn. The cause of such sentiments and renegade existence good Mr. Antrobus "tryed in vain, with much Delicacy" to discover. At the clearest, it appeared to him to date from the dying man's marriage and from some stormy period of his career. In any case, the renunciation of "Mr. George" in lot and part in gypsydom was of savage sincerity. He would not tolerate the idea of his child being left open to such influences; and, as a matter of her happy fortune in meeting with our kind Bath antiquarian, she never encountered them.

Recognising in his benefactor not only a generous man, but one genuinely interested in the whole topic of gypsy life, character, and affairs (moderately studied at the time preceding a Borrow or a Leland), "George X—" entertained Mr. Antrobus "for hours and dayes" in what must have been an extraordinarily free parliament. It discussed not merely the concerns in general, but the secrets, of Egypt. "Mr. George" bad travelled much. He bad acquired a deal of special knowledge delightful to Antrobus. It is provoking that Antrobus did not commit more of it to paper. But, among other matters, Mr. Antrobus was enlightened on the secrets of  looking into dukkeripens in a degree of minuteness that few gorgios enjoy.

As part of this last confidence—the rarest from one of the Blood—did George X— disclose in course of certain séances the "Square of Sevens," that most particular and potent method of prying into the past and present and future. In it figures the wonderful "Parallelogram," with its "Master Cards," "Influences," and so on—which our book records. Moreover, George X— declared that whereas most of his race can or will use only corrupted or quite frivolous versions of it, this statement set its real and rare self forth with the utmost purity, value, and completeness, in a degree "known to only a few of all the families of Egypt." As such a weighty bit of Black Art did Mr. Antrobus