Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1877-03-28
Hand Language.

| lie long Ungers, Win large knuckles
and narrow pinched waists in between,
are painful indications in the matter OF
health. They threaten consumption
betOken scrofula; are never associated
with robust physique, whatever the
appearances of things may be. When
the tips are very pointed they are like
the hands of skeleton, and suggest
he most distressing thoughts. We
have seen hands of this kind, with the
skin just wrapped loosely over the
bones, that were fearful to look at and
terrible to touch. Opposite to these are
the fingers swollen by chilblains into
the semblance of small sausages, where
there are no knuckles at all, and the
whole jointless member is like stuffed
pincushiOn, doughy, without resistance
or elasticity. And some fingers. long
lean. shapeless. have no protuberant
joints and no slim waists between, but
are like pipe-shanks, of the same thick
ness all through. And man with these
fingers Is invariably fond of waving
his hands about. when yOu are irresis-
tibly reminded of spiders legs, and like
the comparison.
If finger-tip have a language of
their own SO have the nails: and the
manner of keeping them is as eloquent
as all the rest. Some keep them long
and pointed like "reminiscences of claws:
others bite theirs close TO the quick;
some pare and trim and scrape and
polish up to the highest point of artifi-
cial beanty; and others, carrying the
doctrine of nature to the outside limit,
let them grow wild, with jagged edges.
broken tracts, and agnails or back
friend as the agoniziDg consequences.
Sometimes you see the most beautiful
nails, pink, transparent, tilbert-shaped,
with the delicate filmy little Half
moon indicated at the base-all the
conditions of beauty carried to perfec-
tiOns but all rendered of no avail by
dirt and sloyenliness; while others.
thick, white ribbed, square, with no
half-moon, spotted like so many circus
horses with gifts" and friends" and
the like-that is, without beauties and
with positive blemishes-are yet pleas
ant to look at for the care bestowed on
them, their dainty perfection of clean
illness being charm in itself. Nothing,
indeed, is more disgusting than dirty
and neglected nails. as nothing gives
one such a sense of freshness and care
rs the same members well kept. But
one of the ugliest things in nails is
when they are bitten; which, to judge
by what one sees, is habit having ir-
resistible fascinations for those given
over to it. IL is an action, by the way,
that has more than one significance. 1t
may mean consideration, doubt, hesi-
fancy; or it may mean anger OF annoy
ance; or, as a habit, it may point to the
not remote possibility of madness. In
any case it is ugly to look at. and
worse than ugly in is results. bare fin
ger tips, with the protecting cover
gnawed to the bleeding flesh, belong
ing to the list of things mutilated and
wilfully spoiled-therefore taken out
of the category of things ugly by na-
ture, hence misfOrtunes for which the
sufferer is in no wise accountable.
There is the animal loving hand,
large, the broad aud firm; beauty low
ing hand, with palm noticeabiy pink in
hue, and warm and slightly moist in
feeling. There is the artists hand,
wich is all this and something more;
and the poets hand, which has less
practical capacity than the artists.
There is the surgeons hand. which is
for the most part the perfection of a
hand, seeming to unite every distinct
i've quality of all other well-fashioned
hands in itself. and to be made ex-
pressly for the delicate, firm, percep-
tive work it has to do; and yet there
have been before now eminent sur
geons with immense hands, who have
achieved as much success as those of
their brethren whose hands were SEEM
ingly more directly fitted for their task.
There are hands with those crooked
little fingers which seem as if they had
been broken, and hands with ''fly-
thumbs. bending back as if double
jointed; hands whence the cold, clammy
damps can never be dried-and these
hands are the apologies for gloves as
are their congeners, the hands which
are warm and moist, as if they had been
newly plunged in hot water, and