Four of Wands, the Rider-Waite-Smith card drawn by Pamela Colman Smith (1909)
Pamela Colman Smith, Rider-Waite-Smith deck (1909). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Minor Arcana · Wands · Fire

Four of Wands

UprightThey are for once almost on the surface— country life, haven of refuge, a species of domestic harvest-home, repose, concord, harmony, prosperity, peace, and the perfected work of these.
ReversedThe meaning remains unaltered; it is prosperity, increase, felicity, beauty, embellishment.

Read to know yourself, not to surrender yourself: relate to the card; never obey it. These are what two traditions wrote, not predictions.

In Waite's words: The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1911)

From the four great staves planted in the foreground there is a great garland suspended; two female figures uplift nosegays; at their side is a bridge over a moat, leading to an old manorial house.

A. E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (London: William Rider & Son, 1911), public domain.

In the Golden Dawn's Book T (1912)

Lord of Perfected Work

TWO White Radiating Angelic Hands, as before, issuing from clouds right and left of the card and clasped in the centre with the grip of the First Order, holding four wands or torches crossed. Flames issue from the point of junction. Above and below are two small flaming wands, with the symbols of Venus and Aries representing the Decan.

Perfection or completion of a thing built up with trouble and labour. Rest after labour, subtlety, cleverness, beauty, mirth, success in completion. Reasoning faculty, conclusions drawn from previous knowledge. Unreadiness, unreliable and unsteady through over-anxiety and hurriedness of action. Graceful in manner, at times insincere, etc.

Chesed of י (Settlement, arrangement, completion).

Herein are ננאאל> and ניתהל> Angelic rulers.

Correspondences

Decan: Venus in Aries (the 3rd decanate of its sign).

Sephirah: Chesed in Atziluth (the Archetypal World).

Book T as printed in The Equinox I(8), 1912, public domain (notes in square brackets are Crowley's). The correspondences are this site's compilation from Book T. Open it in the Golden Dawn deck.

Images: Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951), public domain. Texts: Waite (1911) and Book T (1912), public domain. Selection and arrangement CC-BY-SA-4.0 (PlayfulProcess). Data: github.com/PlayfulProcess/recursive-tarot.