| Reading the Cup is essentially a
domestic form of Fortune-telling to be
practiced at home, and with success by
anyone who will take the trouble to master
the simple rules laid down in these pages:
and it is in the hope that it will provide a
basis for much innocent and inexpensive
amusement and recreation round the tea-table
at home, as well as for a more serious study
of an interesting subject, that this little
guide-book to the science is confidently
offered to the public. This is probably
because the Reading of the Tea-cups affords
but little opportunity to the Seer of
extracting money from credulous folk; a
reason why it was never adopted by the gypsy
soothsayers, who preferred the more
obviously lucrative methods of crossing the
palm with gold or silver, or of charging a
fee for manipulating a pack of
playing-cards.
It is somewhat curious that among the
great number of books on occult science and
all forms of divination which have been
published in the English language there
should be none dealing exclusively with the
Tea-cup Reading and the Art of Telling
Fortunes by the Tea-leaves: notwithstanding
that it is one of the most common forms of
divination practiced by the peasants of
Scotland and by village fortune-tellers in
all parts of this country. In many of the
cheaper handbooks to Fortune-telling by
Cards or in other ways only brief references
to the Tea-cup method are given; but only
too evidently by writers who are merely
acquainted with it by hearsay and have not
made a study of it for themselves.
 The Little Tea Book, we thought you might enjoy a little tea history lesson.
A glance through this book will show that the spirit of the tea beverage is one of peace, comfort, and refinement. As these qualities are all associated with the ways of women, it is to them, therefore, the real rulers of the world, that tea owes its prestige and vogue.
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