<strong><strong>Dream</strong>s</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Dream</strong>-<strong>Stories</strong> <strong>by</strong> <strong>Anna</strong> <strong>Kingsford</strong> expedition to Switzerl<strong>and</strong>, the fierce conflict of which amply fulfilled any predictive significance it may have had.] [Page 56] PARIS, February 15, 1883 Page 34
<strong><strong>Dream</strong>s</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Dream</strong>-<strong>Stories</strong> <strong>by</strong> <strong>Anna</strong> <strong>Kingsford</strong> - 19 - THE GAME OF CARDS I dreamed I was playing at cards with three persons, the two opposed to me being a man <strong>and</strong> a woman with hoods pulled over their heads, <strong>and</strong> cloaks covering their persons. I did not particularly observe them. My partner was an old man without hood or cloak, <strong>and</strong> there was about him this peculiarity, that he did not from one minute to another appear to remain the same. Sometimes he looked like a very young man, the features not appearing to change in order to produce this effect, but an aspect of youth <strong>and</strong> even of mirth coming into the face as though the features were lighted from within. Behind me stood a personage whom I could not see, for his h<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> arm only appeared, h<strong>and</strong>ing me a pack of cards. So far as I discerned, it was a man’s figure, habited in black. Shortly after the dream began, my partner addressed me, saying, “Do you play <strong>by</strong> luck or <strong>by</strong> skill” I answered” “I play <strong>by</strong> luck chiefly; I don’t know how to play <strong>by</strong> skill. But I have generally been lucky." In fact I had already, lying <strong>by</strong> me, several tricks I had taken. He answered me: — “To play <strong>by</strong> luck is to trust to without; to play <strong>by</strong> skill is to trust to within. In this game, Within goes further than Without.” “What are trumps” I asked. “Diamonds are trumps,” he answered. I looked at the cards in my h<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> said to him: — “I have more clubs than anything else.” [Page 57] At this he laughed, <strong>and</strong> seemed all at once quite a youth. “Clubs are strong cards, after all,” he said. “Don’t despise the black suits. I have known some of the best games ever played won <strong>by</strong> players holding more clubs than you have.” I examined the cards <strong>and</strong> found something very odd about them. There were four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs, <strong>and</strong> spades. But the picture cards in my h<strong>and</strong> seemed different altogether from any I had ever seen before. One was queen of Clubs, <strong>and</strong> her face altered as I looked at it. First it was dark, — almost dusky, — with the imperial crown on the head; then it seemed quite fair, the crown changing to a smaller one of English aspect, <strong>and</strong> the dress also transforming itself. There was a queen of Hearts, too, in an antique peasant’s gown, with brown hair, <strong>and</strong> presently this melted into a suit of armor which shone as if reflecting fire-light in its burnished scales. The other cards seemed alive likewise, even the ordinary ones, just like the court-cards. There seemed to be pictures moving inside the emblems on their faces. The clubs in my h<strong>and</strong> ran into higher figures than the spades; these came next in number, <strong>and</strong> diamonds next. I had no picture-cards of diamonds, but I had the Ace. And this was so bright I could not look at it. Except the two queens of Clubs <strong>and</strong> Hearts I think I had no picture-cards in my h<strong>and</strong>, <strong>and</strong> very few red Page 35
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