Meaning
Richmond's Fours are contentment, and in Hearts the contentment is domestic: “Satisfaction in love and a happy home”, with affection that succeeds. It is one of the calmest entries in his book.
We read the card as a liking for steady affection and a household that feels secure. The tradition sees the people born under it as loyal, protective and willing to work to keep a home warm, and it puts their lesson in keeping that security open enough for change and for new people.
In the spreads
The Four of Hearts begins the Neptune row, the last full row of the Life Spread, at its right-hand end. Its path therefore runs to the end of the spread and over the top: its Neptune, Pluto and Result cards are the three cards of the crown line, the Ten of Clubs, the Eight of Diamonds and the King of Spades, and its Cosmic Lesson is the Three of Hearts, back at the head of the spread. Its Moon card is the Jack of Diamonds and its Mercury card the Four of Diamonds, another Four.
It gives to the Four of Spades and receives from the Ten of Spades. Its three birthdays fall under Scorpio, Sagittarius and Capricorn; a 31 October birth, under Scorpio, takes two ruling cards, the Eight of Hearts and the Eight of Diamonds, for Mars and Pluto.
Life path and karma cards
Read from the Life Spread: the card before the Four of Hearts, then the ten after it, the order running on from the crown line back to the top right. The names of the places are Camp's, used descriptively.
| Place on the path | Card |
|---|---|
| Moon (the card before it) | Jack of Diamonds |
| Mercury | Four of Diamonds |
| Venus | Two of Spades |
| Mars | Eight of Hearts |
| Jupiter | Six of Clubs |
| Saturn | Six of Spades |
| Uranus | Queen of Hearts |
| Neptune | Ten of Clubs |
| Pluto | Eight of Diamonds |
| Result | King of Spades |
| Cosmic Lesson | Three of Hearts |
| Karma card it gives to | Four of Spades |
| Karma card that gives to it | Ten of Spades |
Birthdays and ruling cards
The ruling card is the card of the life path in the place of the Sun sign's ruling planet; Leo takes the birth card itself and Scorpio two cards.
| Birthday | Sun sign and its ruler | Ruling card |
|---|---|---|
| 31 October | Scorpio (Mars and Pluto) | Eight of Hearts and Eight of Diamonds |
| 29 November | Sagittarius (Jupiter) | Six of Clubs |
| 27 December | Capricorn (Saturn) | Six of Spades |
For every sign, as the tradition's modern rulers give them: Aries (Mars): Eight of Hearts; Taurus (Venus): Two of Spades; Gemini (Mercury): Four of Diamonds; Cancer (the Moon): Jack of Diamonds; Leo (the Sun): Four of Hearts; Virgo (Mercury): Four of Diamonds; Libra (Venus): Two of Spades; Scorpio (Mars and Pluto): Eight of Hearts and Eight of Diamonds; Sagittarius (Jupiter): Six of Clubs; Capricorn (Saturn): Six of Spades; Aquarius (Uranus): Queen of Hearts; Pisces (Neptune): Ten of Clubs.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Suit in Richmond (1893, p. 28)
- The emblem of spring and of the first quarter of life, when “love is the master passion” sourced
- The suit's season and planets in Richmond (pp. 27 to 28, 41)
- Spring; Venus, ruling “from a point of friendship and love”, and Mercury, “from a point of passion”. Facts about his book, not about anyone born under the card sourced
- Number in Richmond (pp. 42 to 45)
- Fours: satisfaction and contentment, read across his tables sourced
- Richmond's table for the card (p. 82)
- “Satisfaction in love and a happy home”, and success in affection sourced
- Our keyword line (2026)
- Contentment in love and a settled home. our construction
- Our theme for the suit
- Love, Feeling, Friendship, Family our construction
- A suit element or a single planet
- None in Richmond or any founding text; the sets other sites give disagree, and ours was dropped in October 2026 disputed
How the schools read it
- Olney H. Richmond (1893)
- An emblem of solar value 4 and spirit value 40, read through its suit, love and friendship, and its number, contentment: one meaning under each of the seven planets, most of them events (p. 82).
- Randall and Campbell, Lein, Camp (1947 onward)
- Read the birth card as character rather than events. Camp's line adds the life path, the karma cards and the yearly spreads used on this page, and gives the card a nickname, which we do not use.
- EsoTerrier
- Read here as steady affection and a home that feels safe, kept open enough to let new people in.
Claims about it
-
Each suit has an element and a ruling planet.
disputedWhat the record shows: No founding text gives the suits elements, and the sources that do disagree with each other. Richmond gives each suit a season and two planets (pp. 27 to 28, 41), which we report as his. We dropped the attributes in October 2026.
-
Each card has a traditional nickname.
disputedWhat the record shows: The nicknames are Camp's coinages, or Randall and Campbell's, not Richmond's; taken as a set they mark a text as derived from his. We use none of them.
Elsewhere on EsoTerrier
- Four of Spades its first karma card, the card it gives to
- Ten of Spades its second karma card, the card that gives to it
- Jack of Diamonds its Moon card, the card before it in the Life Spread
- Four of Diamonds its Mercury card, the card after it in the Life Spread
- Natal Chart where the Sun sign that picks the ruling card is worked out
