Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-10-14
Some Strange Hands.

Hands reveal habits, occupations,
trades. A crop of them rises at the
thought, like the thrust up from a
crowd in homer os a candidate after an
election speech. There is the carpen-
ter's Sith the broad thumb. and those
of the fraternity of -four, ingrained.
mealy, and white; the musicians with
the powerful wrist and the fingers deli
cate, sensitive, and agile to the last de-
gree; the hand of the seamstress, with
an honorable little bit of nutmeg-grater
on the forefinger that works so hard; of
the scientific man, who lectures to ex-
plain mysteries to lower mortals, and
whose exactitude of touch is the image
of his mental precision, while the nerv-
ous stretch of his fingers corresponds
with his tension of mind.
The sleight-of-hand professor is II
man of long fingers. A conjurer with
q slow and chubby hand would betray
the awful secrets of the plun-pudding
that is taken from the depths of your
best hat.
But besides character and trade, the
hands tell the age. Soft and round, the
baby's pair of puff-balls, with their fat
wrists deeplyringed, appear as if they
never can do anything in this world.
Yet the girls hand will become treas
ure, and the boys hand will battle with
life and with his fellow-men for the
mastery. 1t is appalling to think what
those helpless little puff-balls have be-
fore them.
Oh, little hands, that, weak or strong,
Have still to serve or rule so long,
Have still so long to give or ask
/, who so much with book or pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men
Am weary thinking Of your task!
After the first dimples, they become
the inky hands of school, then the awk-
ward hands, that don't know what to
do with themselves. Years pass, the
boys hand ceases to grumble at gloves
yea, he wears them in eXtravagant
freshness, in comparison as his collars
grow upward, and his shoes tighten
within an inch of his life. The result
of these phenomena is that ring be-
gins to shine with charming strange
ness on another hand, that seemed but
a child yesterday. The young wife tell;
by her hands that it is not long since
the wedding, because she can not let
that new ring alone, but twists il
round for its novelty, and admires it
with an unconscious knack OF caressine
it in idle moments Her dimples dis
appear as the children gather to make q
home circle; it is the hand of the wonn
an now, with its very framework trace
able.
Dimples, bones, and wrinkles mark
the three stages of life's progress. With
the wrinkled stage the steadiness o.
youth often remains in resolute charac'
ters. When the Duke of Wellington wa:
very old man he could still fill glas!
of water to the last possible drop, anc
hold it up steadily, brimful. The helpful
hands keep their youthful activity, too
far into the whitening age. And in the
nobly-loving natures there is a sort o.
immortality of youth; the warmth o
affection has given more than roya
prerogative; the hand is beautiful al
ways to the eyes that know it familiar
ly. The latter years may stamp /
with the impress of longer past o
tenderness, faithfulness, and bounty
| 1t is not the "old' hand, but the "dear'
hand, and it never grows older, but on
ly more dear. He who doubts the trutl
of this last mystery has not yet foun'
out that hands, as we'll as hearts, hav
a peculiar place in our knowledge ant
love of one another. - CGsSetrS Fcn1at
Magazine for May.