A modest, pensive looking girl, apparently about seventeen, was timidly holding forth her hand for examination, at the time we entered. Avarabet, (for that was the name of this philosopher,) uttered two or three words, with a significant shake of his head, upon which I saw the rising tear in her eyes. She withdrew her hand, and had not courage to let him take another look.
A fat woman, of a sanguine temperament, holding a little girl by the hand, then stepped up and showed her fingers. He pronounced her amorous, inconstant, prone to anger, and extravagant; that she had made one man miserable, and would probably make another. She also abruptly withdrew, giving manifest signs of one of the qualities ascribed to her.
An elderly matron then approached, holding forth one trembling, palsied hand, with a small volume in the other. Avarabet hesitated for some time; examined the edges as well as the surface of the nails; drew his finger slowly over them, and then said,—"You have a susceptible heart; you are in sorrow, but your affliction will soon have an end." It was easy to see, in the look of the applicant, signs of pious resignation, and a lively hope of another and a better state of existence.
I thought I perceived in the scene that was passing before us, an exhibition that is not uncommon on our earth, of cunning knavery imposing on ignorance and credulity; and I expressed my opinion to the Brahmin; but he assured me that the class of persons in the moon, who were resorted to on account of their supposed powers of divination, was very different from the similar class in Asia or Europe, and that oracular art was here regularly studied and professed as a branch of philosophy. "You would be surprised," said he, "to find how successful they have been in investing their craft with the forms and trappings of science, the parade of classification, and the mystery imparted by technical terms. By these means they have given plausibility enough to their theories, to leave many a one in doubt, whether it is really a new triumph of human discovery, or merely a later form of empiricism. Its professors are commonly converts to their own theories, at least in a great degree; for, strange as it may seem, there can mingle with the disposition to deceive others, the power of deceiving one's self; and while they exercise much acuteness and penetration in discovering, by the air, look, dress, and manner of those who consult them, the leading points in the history or character of persons of whom they have no previous knowledge, they at the same time persuade themselves that they see something indicative of their circumstances in their finger nails. Such is the equivocal character of the greater part of their sect: but there are some who are mere honest dupes to the pretensions of the science; and others again, who have not one tittle of credulity to extenuate their impudent pretensions.
"When I was here before, I remember a physician, who acquired great celebrity by affecting to cure diseases by examining a lock of the patient's hair; and, not content with merely pronouncing on the nature of the disease, and suggesting the remedy, he would enter into an elaborate, and often plausible course of reasoning, in defence of his system. That system was briefly this: that the hair derived its length, strength, hue, and other properties, from the brain; which opinion he supported by a reference to acknowledged facts—as, that it changes its hue with the difference of the mental character in the different stages of life; that violent affections of the mind, such as grief or fear, have been known to change it in a single night. Science on this, as on other occasions, is merely augmenting and methodizing facts that the mass of mankind had long observed—as, that red hair had always been considered indicative of warm temperament; that affliction, and even love, were believed to create baldness; and that in great terror, the hair stands on end. The different ages too, are distinguished as much by their hair as their complexion, their facial angle, or in any other way. He was led to this theory first, by observing at school that a boy of a stiff, bristly head of hair, was remarkably cruel. He professed to have been able, from a long course of observation, to assign to every different colour and variety of hair, its peculiar temperament and character. One mental quality was indicated by its length, another by its fineness, and others again as it chanced to be greasy, or lank, or curled. He would also blow on it with a bellows, to see how the parts arranged themselves: hold it near the fire, and watch the operation of its crisping by the heat: and although he had often been mistaken in his estimates of character, by the rules of his new science, he did not lose the confidence of his disciples on that account—some of them refusing to believe the truth, rather than to admit themselves mistaken; and others insisting that, if his science was not infallible, it very rarely deceived."
It was now our turn to submit our hands to Avarabet for examination. He discovered signs of the loftiest virtues and most heroic enterprise in the Brahmin; and, near the bottom of one of his nails, a deep-rooted sorrow, which would leave him only with his life. A transient shade of gloom on the Brahmin's countenance was soon succeeded by a piercing, inquisitive glance cast on the diviner. He saw the other's eyes directed on the miniature which he always wore, and which discovered itself to Avarabet as he stooped forward. A smile of contempt now took the place of his first surprise, and he seemed in a state of abstraction, during the continued rhapsodies of the oracle.
My hand was next examined; but little was said of me, except that I had been a great traveller, and should be so again; that I should encounter many dangers and difficulties; that I possessed more intelligence than sensibility, and more prudence than generosity. Thus he discovered in me great courage, enterprise, and constancy of purpose.
A hale, robust, well-set man, now bursting through the crowd, and thrusting out his hand, abruptly asked the wise man to tell him, if he could, in what part of the country he lived. Avarabet mentioned a distant district on the coast of Morosofia.
"Good," said the other; "and what is my calling?"
After a slight pause, he replied, that he got his living on the water.