Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1886-08-25
Character In hands.

Our Oriental friends, who are of s
more slow and dignified character
disapprove of the Western custom Of
taking hold of the precious person Of
an acquaintance, and shaking him fol
welcome, Itmay be more dignified tc
bow, if frankness and activity be ou1
characteristics, we like the trustfu]
mystery of a ha' d-clasp. 1t is an index
in itself. The formal and cold charac.
ter offers straight fingers for an instant
the dull and apathetic letsus take hold
of hand like dead fish; the energetic
business man meets an old friend with
grip that brings the water into his
eyes; the warm-hearted takes our hand
and holds it. The nervous hand, with
an affectionate swiftness, comes out
most readily and longingly. And is
there anything more natural to a rev.
erent love than the kissing of the hand
that has been bountiful in love to US
See how far we have gone among
mysteries!
Character, habits, and age are the
three things that are told by the hands.
When we draw the character of Heep,
Heep, the hypocrite-and, as
school boys would say "the
sneak dickens did not neglect
this telltale:-"Oh! a what clamn,y
hand his was! as ghosJly to the touch
as to the sight; rubbed mine after
wards to warm it. and to rub his off.
1t wss such an uncomfortable hand,
that when went to my room, it was
still cold and wet upon my memory"
Even if it be not that of Reep, the hyp-
ocritically humble hand is apt to
writhe and squeeze its bending fingers
together.
The hand that little Jack Homer
made sticky with his own pie in his own
corner undoubtedly became thick
fingered puffy index of his partially
for pies and plums.
Little does the swaggerer who chinks
his small change and cocks his thumbs
out of his pockets, imagine that his
thumbs and hands are as much his con-
domination as the Dragging seals and
the chains that would anchor q ship.
The stingY man has tight hand;
his fingers keep fast hold of a sixpence.
and his palm makes a careful hollow
out of which it candot roll, until he is
quite sure he is obliged to part with it.
The rough and the refined hand are
different with difference like that of
education in the man. The lowest ex-
tremity of roughness is the hand of
brute violence-a colossal paw. of iron
strength, huge with muscle, vein and
sinew, but lacking I'LL sensitiveness and
f1exibility-decent in its attitudes "A
human tool that has been turned into
a weapon.
There are refined hands that are
criminal also, but their character is the
more hateful because no trace is made
upon outward perfection, and their
beauty is a lie. One reads in the we'll
cared for, or, as we might say, the
educated hand, not only its own re-
finement, but that of other generations
the ancestors who lived at leisure
from bodily toll, whose muscles were
not stretched by labor, whose fingers
little used, went slender to the tips,
whose very finger-nails revealed easy
times, by their oval shape, not pressed
and worn into hard-worked diminutive
half circles.
Yet one likes the strong hand-mor-
ally strong even it has never been
tasked with physical labor; the mans
hand that Is not efeminate, the girls
hand that is not q pretty waxwork,
but a part of q helpful someone, who
would be sweetly willing to do some
thing for somebody else. Unless it be
the weak hand of sickness, which is q
most piteous sight, the hand of the
weak character is not what anyone
cares to clasp. More and more in this
world we want the hands that can do
something, AS Carlyle says, the first
doing would be for many . revelation.
r CasselT Family MAGAZINE.