the warmth and protectiveness of the hand are most homefelt to me who have always looked to it for aid and joy. i understand perfectly how the psalmist can lift up his voice with strength and gladness, singing, "i put my trust in the lord at all times, and his hand shall uphold me, and i shall dwell in safety." in the strength of the human hand, too, there is something divine. i am told that the glance of a beloved eye thrills one from a distance; but there is no distance in the touch of a beloved hand. even the letters i receive are—
kind letters that betray the heart's deep history,
in which we feel the presence of a hand.
it is interesting to observe the differences in the hands of people. they show all kinds of vitality, energy, stillness, and cordiality. i never realized how living the hand is until i saw those chill plaster images in mr. hutton's collection of casts. the hand i know in life has the fullness of blood in its veins, and is elastic with spirit. how different dear mr. hutton's hand was from its dull, insensate image! to me the cast lacks the very form of the hand. of the many casts in mr. hutton's collection i did not recognize any, not even my own. but a loving hand i never forget. i remember in my fingers the large hands of bishop brooks, brimful of tenderness and a strong man's joy. if you were deaf and blind, and could have held mr. jefferson's hand, you would have seen in it a face and heard a kind voice unlike any other you have known. mark twain's hand is full of whimsies and the drollest humours, and while you hold it the drollery changes to sympathy and championship.
i am told that the words i have just written do not "describe" the hands of my friends, but merely endow them with the kindly human qualities which i know they possess, and which language conveys in abstract words. the criticism implies that i am not giving the primary truth of what i feel; but how otherwise do descriptions in books i read, written by men who can see, render the visible look of a face? i read that a face is strong, gentle; that it is full of patience, of intellect; that it is fine, sweet, noble, beautiful. have i not the same right to use these words in describing what i feel as you have in describing what you see? they express truly what i feel in the hand. i am seldom conscious of physical qualities, and i do not remember whether the fingers of a hand are short or long, or the skin is moist or dry. no more can you, without conscious effort, recall the details of a face, even when you have seen it many times. if you do recall the features, and say that an eye is blue, a chin sharp, a nose short, or a cheek sunken, i fancy that you do not succeed well in giving the impression of the person,—not so well as when you interpret at once to the heart the essential moral qualities of the face—its humour, gravity, sadness, spirituality. if i should tell you in physical terms how a hand feels, you would be no wiser for my account than a blind man to whom you describe a face in detail. remember that when a blind man recovers his sight, he does not recognize the commonest thing that has been familiar to his touch, the dearest face intimate to his fingers, and it does not help him at all that things and people have been described to him again and again. so you, who are untrained of touch, do not recognize a hand by the grasp; and so, too, any description i might give would fail to make you acquainted with a friendly hand which my fingers have often folded about, and which my affection translates to my memory.
i cannot describe hands under any class or type; there is no democracy of hands. some hands tell me that they do everything with the maximum of bustle and noise. other hands are fidgety and unadvised, with nervous, fussy fingers which indicate a nature sensitive to the little pricks of daily life. sometimes i recognize with foreboding the kindly but stupid hand of one who tells with many words news that is no news. i have met a bishop with a jocose hand, a humourist with a hand of leaden gravity, a man of pretentious valour with a timorous hand, and a quiet, apologetic man with a fist of iron. when i was a little girl i was taken to see[a] a woman who was blind and paralysed. i shall never forget how she held out her small, trembling hand and pressed sympathy into mine. my eyes fill with tears as i think of her. the weariness, pain, darkness, and sweet patience were all to be felt in her thin, wasted, groping, loving hand.
few people who do not know me will understand, i think, how much i get of the mood of a friend who is engaged in oral conversation with somebody else. my hand follows his motions; i touch his hand, his arm, his face. i can tell when he is full of glee over a good joke which has not been repeated to me, or when he is telling a lively story. one of my friends is rather aggressive, and his hand always announces the coming of a dispute. by his impatient jerk i know he has argument ready for some one. i have felt him start as a sudden recollection or a new idea shot through his mind. i have felt grief in his hand. i have felt his soul wrap itself in darkness majestically as in a garment. another friend has positive, emphatic hands which show great pertinacity of opinion. she is the only person i know who emphasizes her spelled words and accents them as she emphasizes and accents her spoken words when i read her lips. i like this varied emphasis better than the monotonous pound of unmodulated people who hammer their meaning into my palm.
some hands, when they clasp yours, beam and bubble over with gladness. they throb and expand with life. strangers have clasped my hand like that of a long-lost sister. other people shake hands with me as if with the fear that i may do them mischief. such persons hold out civil finger-tips which they permit you to touch, and in the moment of contract they retreat, and inwardly you hope that you will not be called upon again to take that hand of "dormouse valour." it betokens a prudish mind, ungracious pride, and not seldom mistrust. it is the antipode to the hand of those who have large, lovable natures.
the handshake of some people makes you think of accident and sudden death. contrast this ill-boding hand with the quick, skilful, quiet hand of a nurse whom i remember with affection because she took the best care of my teacher. i have clasped the hands of some rich people that spin not and toil not, and yet are not beautiful. beneath their soft, smooth roundness what a chaos of undeveloped character!
i am sure there is no hand comparable to the physician's in patient skill, merciful gentleness and splendid certainty. no wonder that ruskin finds in the sure strokes of the surgeon the perfection of control and delicate precision for the artist to emulate. if the physician is a man of great nature, there will be healing for the spirit in his touch. this magic touch of well-being was in the hand of a dear friend of mine who was our doctor in sickness and health. his happy cordial spirit did his patients good whether they needed medicine or not.
as there are many beauties of the face, so the beauties of the hand are many. touch has its ecstasies. the hands of people of strong individuality and sensitiveness are wonderfully mobile. in a glance of their finger-tips they express many shades of thought. now and again i touch a fine, graceful, supple-wristed hand which spells with the same beauty and distinction that you must see in the handwriting of some highly cultivated people. i wish you could see how prettily little children spell in my hand. they are wild flowers of humanity, and their finger motions wild flowers of speech.
all this is my private science of palmistry, and when i tell your fortune it is by no mysterious intuition or gipsy witchcraft, but by natural, explicable recognition of the embossed character in your hand. not only is the hand as easy to recognize as the face, but it reveals its secrets more openly and unconsciously. people control their countenances, but the hand is under no such restraint. it relaxes and becomes listless when the spirit is low and dejected; the muscles tighten when the mind is excited or the heart glad; and permanent qualities stand written on it all the time.
