Eliza Fowler Haywood's brief critical assessment of Mid-1740's English cartomancy and cold reading.
This is typical of a certain elite critique of the practice, but here from a feminine (even feminist) point of view, aimed at dissuading women that the charms allowed them were those best for them.
Re: c. 1745 English Cartomancy & Cold Reading
2Thank you for sharing this Jess, it's fascinating.
I love some of the words she uses, "Fopperies", and better yet, "Coffee-throwers"!!!
And what a wise summation: "How ready we are to believe what we eagerly desire!"
Or this:
"How many animosities have the idle stories told this way, formented among families! -- What jealousies between married people, -- the most innocent actions are misconstrued, the best friends suspected, if once imagination presents the figure of a snake or cat among the grounds of the coffee! -- How monstrous is this to reason, and even commons sense! Too low, indeed, for any long animadversion, and it must pass among the number of those other fireign follies, which, of late years, have been transplanted into England."
Those damned French occultists again?
I love some of the words she uses, "Fopperies", and better yet, "Coffee-throwers"!!!
And what a wise summation: "How ready we are to believe what we eagerly desire!"
Or this:
"How many animosities have the idle stories told this way, formented among families! -- What jealousies between married people, -- the most innocent actions are misconstrued, the best friends suspected, if once imagination presents the figure of a snake or cat among the grounds of the coffee! -- How monstrous is this to reason, and even commons sense! Too low, indeed, for any long animadversion, and it must pass among the number of those other fireign follies, which, of late years, have been transplanted into England."
Those damned French occultists again?