by Marcus Katz
17. 9 of Cups. Reproduced by permission of U.S. Games Systems.
This character is clearly “puffed out” in his own self-importance. Yet he does it to protect something; we feel that too from his body language. This, along with our later Falstaff connection, deepens the card dramatically and provides profound meaning in a reading.
All the World’s a Stage
Pamela’s connection between the theatrical tradition and her art has been emulated with decks that specifically draw upon theatre as well as other influences on Pamela, such as the Blake Tarot created by Ed Buryn.25 There are at least four Shakespearian-themed tarot decks in publication:
I Tarocchi di Giulietta e Romeo: by Luigi Scapini, also known as
the Shakespeare Tarot and the Romeo and Juliet Tarot, (U.S. Games
Systems, 1996).
The Shakespearian Tarot: conceived by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki,
artist Paul Hardy (U.S. Games Systems, 1993).
The Shakespeare Oracle: conceived by A. Bronwyn Llewellyn with artwork by Cynthia von Buhler (Fairwinds Press, 2003).
Russian Shakespeare Tarot: edited by Vera Skljarova, in 2003.26
In several of these decks we are given correspondences between the cards and Shakespearian characters and quotes. In the Shakespeare Oracle are given:
Sceptres (Wands)
Chalices
Quills (Swords)
Coins
King
Philip the Bastard
Antony
Richard III and Henry Bolingbroke
Shylock
Queen
Katharine of Aragon
Hermione
Beatrice
Helena
Lord (Knight)
Richard Plantagenet
Valentine
Armado
Falstaff
Lady (Page)
Volumnia
Rosalind
Viola
Mistress Page
We provide variant choices for the court cards in a separate chapter, as understanding the dramatic nature of these characters can deepen their relevance to our everyday dramas.
Pamela’s Working Life
As a self-styled bohemian artist, Pamela’s working life was without plan or structure. She also appears to have paid little attention to her finances. Her letters constantly refer to lack of funds and the pittance she has earnt from her publishers or colleagues. She seemed to always have many low-income projects on the go as we might suspect was necessary; advertisements for her work in the back of The Green Sheaf magazine included lace designs, a school of hand colouring, portraiture, and a storytelling service.
Her humour, lack of reverence, and self-styled childlike nature may have also stopped her progressing in her artistic career long-term. She described W. B. Yeats not in terms of the awe that some held him in, but as a “rummy critter.” Her description of a reading of “The Shadowy Waters” by Yeats and Florence Farr testifies to her childlike perspective: because of the curiously ill-chosen voices for the sailors’ chorus, she said she had to “laugh in [her] hankie” most of the time. One suspects she had deliberately arrested her development given her language, such as “it was fun and we all liked it very much!” and talking about “how very much they liked his bloomin poetry.” 27
The Pall Mall Gazette of November 28, 1899 reviewed children’s books for Christmas, and it carried a brief review of In Chimney Corners, a book for “older children.” Whilst admiring Mr. McManus’s storytelling, the reviewer remarks that “one doubts that the grotesques of Miss Pamela Colman Smith will add to the book’s attractiveness, though that she has some of the qualities for her task is proved by the fantasy of the illustration which faces the title page.” 28
18. Pamela Colman Smith in The Lamp, 1903. (Illustration courtesy of authors, private collection.)
Pamela also provided posters, such as noted in the Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition held at Grantham, reported in the Grantham Journal of January 25, 1902 (2). Her poster announcing a dramatic performance onboard the SS Menominee, on the return voyage of the Lyceum tour, was particularly admired as it carried the signatures of both Irving and Terry in addition to a portrait of Irving.
We also know that Pamela produced a poster for the Polish Victims Relief Fund in 1915.29 If she was indeed a friend of Laurence Alma-Tadema (1865–1940), the Secretary of the Fund, then perhaps they shared the same feelings as evidenced in this poem by Alma-Tadema:
If no one ever marries me,—
And I don’t see why they should,
For nurse says I’m not pretty,
And I’m seldom very good—
If no one ever marries me
I shan’t mind very much;
I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,
And a little rabbit-hutch:
I shall have a cottage near a wood,
And a pony all my own,
And a little lamb quite clean and tame,
That I can take to town:
And when I’m getting really old,—
At twenty-eight or nine—
I shall buy a little orphan-girl
And bring her up as mine.
Alma-Tadema lectured on the secret of happiness, saying that happiness is attained by “working hard, controlling one’s self, and developing one’s faculties to the limit.”30 We wonder if Pamela shared this gauge of happiness.
Like Pamela, she also never married and, interestingly, lived in Wittersham, in a large cottage called Fair Haven she renamed “The Hall of Happy Hours,” where she performed music and plays. The interesting thing is that Wittersham is less than three miles south of Smallhythe Place.
Pamela was involved in charity work and supporting women’s causes several times. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported by wire from London on December 9, 1903 that there would be a Christmas “Hans Andersen” Bazaar, opened by the Princess Alexis Dolgorouki in aid of the Girls’ Realm Guild of Service (6). At this bazaar would be Miss Pamela Colman Smith who “has already won a reputation for the telling of quaint West Indian stories of the ‘Brer Rabbit’ order,” and was sure to “delight the children of the audience.”
The Grantham Journal of September 24, 1904, carried a listing of “A Quaint Story-Teller” (Miss Pamela Colman Smith) by J. A. Middleton in the Lady’s Home Magazine (6d).31Pamela was still earning a living of sorts from storytelling in 1907, when she is reported by the Nelson Mail (May 4) as entertaining Mark Twain—who apparently laughed like a child all the way through her recital.
In 1907, Pamela wrote to Stieglitz and told him she had managed to sell all the platinotypes he had sent, for $35, to “Mrs Lance’s Mother.”32 Her business sense and organisation—or lack of both—is clearly evident in this letter, as is—perhaps—her lack of confidence. She asks him to deduct “the part of it which is yours” from the $35. She was also concerned and confused about the literature she had been sent from a Philadelphia exhibition, which might have carried her portfolio; she asked Stieglitz if it had been put on display, and “did people shout with glee? Or were they just scornful?” A side note asked him to send a copy of something she had lost. She continued that she had been doing a “lot of stuff” for the Herald.33 Like her others, this letter seems lively but scattered.
Earlier that year she had written to him from the return trip, on stationary headed by the SS Minnehaha, to thank him for “all your kindness and interest in my work” and to say she had sent him her piece,
Hushwood, and that a prior piece, Faith, she would like to be called The Triumph of Faith.
19. A Letter from Pamela to Stieglitz, 1907. (Illustration courtesy of authors, private collection.)
In 1912, the Kent & Sussex Courier of May 31 (7) spoke of the recitals of Miss Jean Sterling Mackinlay, who was assisted by “Miss Pamela Colman Smith, who tells amusing folk stories from Jamaica.” Mackinlay (and likely Pamela in support) was giving recitals at Eastbourne and Madame Pavlova’s special matinees at the Palace Theatre, London, throughout the summer of 1912. She also had an exhibition of her work in New York in the spring of that year, followed by another in Ghent, Belgium, in 1913.
Pamela’s Pennies
We have only one reference known regarding the payment Pamela received for her work, which was in her letter to her art agent and promoter, Stieglitz. She explained she had received “very little cash” for the “big job.” At the time, she completed the job literally a few weeks before the British government enacted the 1909 Trades Board Act, guaranteeing a minimum wage to all workers. Unfortunately, even once this act was in place there was no evidence it applied prior to the outbreak of the first World War some five years later.
Average wage was about three shillings a day, and it appears likely Pamela received even less, for she was just completing the job and still requiring “money for Christmas.” If she worked on the deck during her stay at Ellen Terry’s, earning money through nannying, personal assistance, or paying her keep by work, then it is probable that in today’s money, she would have earned less than seven hundred pounds for the entire project.
William Rider and Sons advertised the deck (without postage included) at five shillings.
Pamela and Sherlock Holmes
On the banks of the river Connecticut, in East Haddam above the ferry, stands a castle. It was completed in 1919 by its designer, William Gillette (1853–1937). Gillette was famous for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes and one of America’s greatest actors of the time. He was also related through the Hooker family to Pamela’s parents. The connection must have been known at the time, or Pamela came into touch with Gillette through their common theatrical bonds, as in 1900, Pamela created several illustrations for a Gillette souvenir book.
However, there are other interesting overlaps to the story of Sherlock Holmes that intersect with magick; the famous deerstalker hat and pipe were not in Doyle’s original books but added in illustrations by Sidney Paget (1860–1908). These were used by Gillette in his own role, bringing the iconic elements to the character. Paget was a member of the Golden Dawn and friend of Florence Farr, another significant member of the Order. He even performed
in a play of Farr’s, The Beloved of Hathor, as King of Egypt.
Furthermore in these overlapping connections, Doyle (who had himself considered joining the Golden Dawn in 1898) first offered the role of Holmes to Henry Irving but then had passed it on to Gillette because Irving wanted to play both Holmes and his nemesis, Moriarty.
The bow that ties these connections up in a nice present is to be found in Gillette’s Castle; if you visit today, you can see several original portraits by Pamela hanging on the walls, collected by Gillette.
20. Pamela Colman Smith Picture in Gillette Castle. (Courtesy of Gillette Castle State Park, used with permission.)
Far From the Garden of the Happy:
Pamela and the Golden Dawn
It appears that Pamela’s time in the Golden Dawn was somewhat of a cursory affair; she likely joined on November 2, 1901, and by 1904 she was still in the Zelator grade.34 Whilst to date it has been uncertain as to her exact date of initiation, we can now compare, courtesy of the membership roll of the Golden Dawn, the name of the person she may have been initiated with, to the census, where we discover indeed that Ethel P. F. Fryer-Fortesque was living in the same property, 14 Milbourne Grove, London, as Pamela in 1901. So it is very likely they initiated together, Ethel aged thirty-five and Pamela aged twenty-three. In fact, this may be the same “Mrs. Fortesque” with whom Pamela set up a shop selling hand-coloured prints, engravings, drawings, pictures, and books in 1904.35
21. Golden Dawn Membership Roll. (Courtesy of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London, used under license.)
Ethel was the daughter of the Davis family, her mother being Ellen Davis, aged seventy-two and a widow at the time. There were five people living in the property and a servant, and this is where Pamela was recorded as boarding, but it also had rooms next door at number 13 where Ransome attended her gatherings.36
The date on the membership roll was recorded against Alexander Davidson-Gordon, a doctor who took the name Lux e Tenebris (“light in darkness”).37 So perhaps the initiation was performed on these three candidates together; it was often that a small group of candidates were initiated at the same time. If it did, it occurred on a rather strange Saturday when the centre of London was enveloped in a “black fog,” which even crept into theatres and music halls, obscuring the stages. One report gave a description of link-boys (bearing lanterns) leading the well-to-do back to their homes, giving a bizarre medievalism to the city. It would be with some irony then that Davidson-Gordon took the motto that night, “light in darkness.”
22. Golden Dawn Membership Roll Close-Up with Pamela’s Name. (Courtesy of the Library and Museum of Freemasonry, London, used under license.)
So Pamela would have experienced the Neophyte ritual, and possibly the Zelator ritual, in which the first symbols of esotericism would have been richly presented.
For one such symbol, she would have entered the Hall bound and blindfolded, a motif which appears in the deck—particularly on the 2 and 8 of Swords. Her initiators would have spoken:
The Three Fold Cord bound around your waist was an image of the three-fold bondage of Mortality, which amongst the Initiated is called earthly or material inclination, that has bound into a narrow place the once far-wandering soul; and the Hood-wink was an image of the Darkness, of Ignorance, of Mortality that has blinded men to the Happiness and Beauty their eyes once looked upon.38
The altar, the black and white pillars, the ever-burning lamps, all of these would have been part of the tapestry being woven in her consciousness as she was initiated.
If she had also been formally initiated as a Zelator, then further mysteries would have been revealed to her. These would have included the mystery of the rainbow: the three paths leading up the Tree of Life, spelling QShTh, Hebrew for “rainbow.” She would have been told:
The Three Portals facing you in the East are the Gates of the Paths leading to the three further Grades, which with the Zelator and the Neophyte forms the first and lowest Order of our Fraternity. Furthermore, they represent the Paths which connect the Tenth Sephirah Malkuth with the other Sephiroth. The letters Tau, Qoph, and Shin make the word Quesheth—a Bow, the reflection of the Rainbow of Promise stretched over the Earth, and which is about the Throne of God.39
That she did not progress beyond this grade even before the various schisms that disrupted and eventually broke apart the Order is perhaps because of her natural inclination towards intuitive art and not intellectual learning.
There were various knowledge lectures bestowed upon the candidate at this point, and we have no evidence that Pamela learnt these materials or progressed to more advanced studies. However, she would have likely remembered the experience and teachings of these ceremonies, which are powerful even for those without her intuitive talent.
Her teaching materials would have included rudimentary descriptions of the Tree of Life (and a diagram), basic teachings of astrological signs and symbols, a little alchemy, and most importantly, in the second Knowledge Lecture of a Zelator, she would have been first introduced to the tarot:
The traditional Tarot consists of a pack of 78 cards made up of Four Suits of 14 cards each, together with 22 Trumps, or Major Arcana, which tell the story of the Soul.
Each suit consists of ten numbered cards, as in the modern playing cards, but there are instead three honours: King or Knight, Queen, Prince or Emperor, Princess or Knave.
The Four Suits are:
Wands or Sceptres comparable to Diamonds.
Cups or Chalices comparable to Hearts.
Swords comparable to Spades.
Pentacles or Coins comparable to Clubs.40
We can only remark with astonishment that this brief paragraph may have been Pamela’s first and only formal teaching in tarot, and yet some several years later she created—in just five months—what is arguably the world’s most popular and emulated tarot deck.
The initiate of the Zelator grade is given the mystical title of Periclinus de Faustis, which “signifies that on this Earth you are in a wilderness, far from the Garden of the Happy.”41 It is perhaps this garden that Pamela was always attempting to attain.
The Sola Busca Deck
The Sola Busca deck is the earliest complete tarot deck known, and until recently it belonged to the Sola Busca family. It was acquired in 2009 by the Italian Ministry of Heritage and Culture from the heirs of the family and presented to the Pinacoteca di Brera gallery for display and archiving. An exhibition of the deck was held in late 2012, which the present authors attended.
In attending this exhibition, we were again following the footsteps of Arthur and Pamela, who just over a century before had likely attended a display of photographs of the same cards held in the British Museum in 1907. The black and white photographs of the entire deck were displayed in the museum next to twenty-three original engravings that had been acquired by the museum previously in 1845.42
