On the former night, the method of divining the future is as follows:--Place a bowl of clear spring water on your lap at midnight, and gaze into it. If you are to be married, you will see the face of your future husband (or bride) reflected in the water; if you are to remain single all your life, you will see nothing; and if you are to die within the year, the water will become muddy. On New Year's Eve a tumbler of water should be placed at midnight before the looking-glass, when any person, or persons, destined to play a very important rôle in your life within the coming year, will suddenly appear and sip the water. Should you be doomed to die within that period, the tumbler will be thrown on the ground and dashed to pieces. The conditions during the trial of both these methods are that you should be alone in the room, with only one candle burning. _The Crystal_ I often practise crystal-gazing, and the results are strangely inconsistent. I see with startling vividness events that actually come to pass, and sometimes with equal perspicuity events that, as far as I know, are never fulfilled. And this I feel sure must be the case with all crystal-gazers, if they would but admit it. My method is very simple. As I cannot concentrate unless I have absolute quiet, I wait till the house is very still, and I then sit alone in my room with my back to the light, in such a position that the light pours over my shoulders on to the crystal, which I have set on the table before me. Sometimes I sit for a long time before I see anything, and sometimes, after a lengthy sitting, I see nothing at all; but when a tableau does come, it is always with the most startling vividness. When I want to be initiated into what is happening to certain of my friends, I concentrate my whole mind on those friends--I think of nothing but them--their faces, forms, mannerisms, and surroundings--and then, suddenly, I see them in the crystal! Visions are sometimes of the future, sometimes of the present, sometimes of the past, and sometimes of neither, but of what never actually transpires--and there is the strange inconsistency. I do not know what methods other people adopt, I daresay some of them differ from mine, but I feel quite sure that, look at the crystal how they will, it will invariably lie to them at times.