Apart from the lines, however, there is a wealth of character in hands: I am never tired of studying them. To me the most beautiful and interesting hands are the pure psychic and the dramatic—the former with its thin, narrow palm, slender, tapering fingers and filbert nails; the latter a model of symmetry and grace, with conical finger-tips and
filbert nails—indeed, filbert nails are more or less confined to these two types; one seldom sees them in other hands.
Then there are the literary and artistic hands, with their mixed types of fingers, some conical and some square-tipped, but always with some redeeming feature of refinement and elegance in them; and the musical hand, sometimes a modified edition of the psychic, and sometimes quite different, with short, supple fingers and square tips. And yet again—would that it did not exist!—the business hand, far more common in England, where the bulk of the people have commercial minds, than elsewhere. It has no redeeming feature, but is short, and square, and fat, with stumpy fingers and hideous, spatulate nails, the very sight of which makes me shudder. Indeed, I have heard it said abroad, and not without some reason, that, apart from other little peculiarities, such as projecting teeth and big feet, the English have two sets of toes! When I look at English children's fingers, and see how universal is the custom of biting the nails, I feel quite sure the day will come when there will be no nails left to bite—that the day, in fact, is not far distant, when nails, rather than teeth, will become extinct.
The Irish, French, Italians, Spanish, and Danes, being far more dramatic and psychic than the English, have far nicer hands, and for one set of filbert nails in London, we may count a dozen in Paris or Madrid.
Murderers' hands are often noticeable for their knotted knuckles and club-shaped finger-tips;
suicides—for the slenderness of the thumbs and strong inclination of the index to the second finger; thieves—for the pointedness of the finger-tips, and the length and suppleness of the fingers. Dominating, coarse-minded people, and people who exert undue influence over others, generally have broad, flat thumbs. The hands of soldiers and sailors are usually broad, with short, thick, square-tipped fingers; the hands of clergy are also more often broad and coarse than slender and conical, which may be accounted for by the fact that so many of them enter the Church with other than spiritual motives. The really spiritual hand is the counterpart of the psychical, and rarely seen in England. Doctors, doctors with a genuine love of their profession, in other words, "born" doctors, have broad but slender palms, with long, supple fingers and moderately square tips. This type of hand is typical, also, of the hospital nurse.
It is, of course, a gross error to think that birth has everything to do with the shape of the hand; for the latter is entirely dependent on temperament; but it is also a mistake to say that as many beautiful-shaped hands are to be found among the lower as among the upper classes in England. It is a mistake, because the psychic and dramatic temperaments (and the psychic and dramatic type of hand is unquestionably the most beautiful) are rarely to be found in the middle and lower classes in England—they are almost entirely confined to the upper classes.
Pyromancy
Predicting the future by fire is one of the oldest methods of fortune-telling, and has been practised from time immemorial. I have often had my fortune told in the fire, but I cannot say it has ever proved to be very correct; only once a prognostication came true,—a sudden death occurred in a family very nearly connected with me, after a very fanciful churchyard had been pointed out to me amid the glowing embers.