Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1886-06-16
Character in Hands.

| Our Oriental friends, who are or a
more slow and dignilied character, DIS
approve of the Western custom of TAX
ing hold of the precious person of an
acquaintance and shaking him for well
come. 1t may be more dignified t.
bow, but if frankness and activity be
our characteristics, We like the trustful
mystery of hand-clasp. 1t is al index
in itself. The formal and cold charac-
| tiers offer straight fingers for an i'll
stant; the dull and apathetlc lets us
| take hold of hand like a 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 afIectionate swIftness,
comes out most readily and longingly.
And is there anything more natural to
a reverent love than the kissing of the
hand that has been bOuntiful in love to
US? See how far we have gone among
mysteriesl
Character, habits, and age, are the
three things that are told by the hands.
When he drew the character Of Heep,
the hypocrlte-and, as schoolboys
would say. ''the sneak"-Dickens did
not neglect this tell-tale: ''Oh! what 4
clammy hand his wasl as ghostly to the
touch rs to the sight; rubbed mine
afterwards to warm 1t, and to rub his
of. 1t was such an uncomfortable
hand, that when L went TO my room,
it was still cold and wet upon my men,
ory." Even if it be not that OF Heep,
the hypocritically humble hand is apt
to writhe and squeeze It's bending fin
gers together.
The hand that little Jack HOrner
made sticky with his own pie in his own
corner, undoubtedly became with big
Jack Horner thick-fngered puffy
index Of his partiality 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-
demnation as the Dragging seals and
tie chain that anchor ship.
The stingy man has tight hand; his
fingers keep fast hold of sixpence, and
his palm makes careful hollow out of
which 1t cannot roll, until he is quite
sure he Is obliged to part with it.
The rough and the refined hand are
different with u difference like that of
education in the man. The lowest ex.
tremity of roughness is the haHd Of
brute viOlence-a colossal paw, of iron
strength, huge with muscle, vein and
sinew, but lacking all sensitiveness
and ileXibility-deliant Ill its attitudes
"A human tool that has been turned
into weapon.
There are refined hands that are
criminal also, but their character is the
more hateful because no trace is made
upon outward affection. and their
beauty is lie. One reads In the we'll
cared for, or, as we might say, tn
educated hand, not only its own refine
ment, 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 if it has never been
tasked with physical labor; the mans
hand that is not effeminate, the girls |
hand that is not pretty waxwork, but |
a part of helpful someone, who would
be sweetly willing to do something for
somebody else. Unless it be the weak (,
hand Of sickness, which is a most pit !
eous sight, the hand of the weak char .
acter 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.