[10] There are few things more remarkable, or to reasoning minds more inexplicable, than the readiness with which men undertook in old times, and even now undertake, to interpret omens and assign prophetic significance to casual events. One can understand that foolish persons should believe in omens, and act upon the ideas suggested by their superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these superstitions came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the idea that a particular line in the palm of the hand is the line of life; and what can possibly have suggested so absurd a notion? To whom did the thought first present itself that the pips on playing-cards are significant of future events; and why did he think so? How did the 'grounds' of a teacup come to acquire that deep significance which they now possess for Mrs. Gamp and Betsy Prig? If the believers in these absurdities be asked _why_ they believe, they answer readily enough either that they themselves or their friends have known remarkable fulfilments of the ominous indications of cards or tea-dregs, which must of necessity be the case where millions of forecasts are daily made by these instructive methods. But the persons who first invented those means of divination can have had no such reasons. They must have possessed imaginations of singular liveliness and not wanting in ingenuity. It is a pity that we know so little of them. [11] Wellington lived too long for the astrologers, his death within the year having unfortunately been predicted by them many times during the last fifteen years of his life. Some astrologers were more cautious, however. I have before me his horoscope, carefully calculated, _secundum artem_, by Raphaël in 1828, with results 'sufficiently evincing the surprising verity and singular accuracy of astrological calculations, when founded on the correct time of birth, and mathematically calculated. I have chosen,' he proceeds, 'the nativity of this illustrious native, in preference to others, as the subject is now living, and, consequently, all possibility of making up any fictitious horoscope is at once set aside; thus affording me a most powerful shield against the insidious representations of the envious and ignorant traducer of my sublime science.' By some strange oversight, however, Raphaël omits to mention anything respecting the future fortunes of Wellington, showing only how wonderfully Wellington's past career had corresponded with his horoscope.