“Yes,” I answered, “you are Louis Warner of London.” He laughed and said:
“You have a very good memory, Mr. Wilder, but I have taken another name. I wish to be known as Cheiro. I have chosen that name as it is the Greek word for ‘hand,’ and while appropriate it is also an attractive one for professional work. You see, I have followed your advice, and taken up palmistry as a business.”
I introduced him to a great many of my friends, and he was most successful in reading their palms correctly. A little later, a lady called upon me, asking me to give her topics for newspaper work. I gave her some letters to friends of mine,—well known men, asking them to let her take an impression of their hands. She visited, among others, Mr. Russell Sage, Mr. Chauncey Depew and Sir Henry Irving, who was in town, taking impressions of their hands on paper with printer’s ink. She also entered the Tombs and obtained the impression of the hand of a notorious forger. These she took to Cheiro, and without knowing whose hands they were he read each and every one correctly. Among them was an impression of my own hand. He picked it up, and said immediately:
“This is the hand of my friend, Marshall Wilder.” To my mind, this was the greatest test of his powers.
The story was written up, readily sold to a newspaper, and was copied many times, widely read and commented upon. Since then Cheiro’s work has become known all over the world.
XXII
HUMAN NATURE
Magnetism and Its Elements.—Every one Carries the Marks of His Trade.—How Men are “Sized Up” at Hotels.—Facial Resemblance of Some People to Animals.—What the Eye First Catches.—When Faces are Masked.—Bathing in Japan.—The Conventions in Every-Day Life that Hide Us from Our Fellows.—Genuineness is the One Thing Needful.
The oftener a man—any man, from the beginner at vaudeville to the great actor or orator—appears before audiences, the more he is impressed by the many varieties of human nature and the many ways there are of comprehending it.
A few people who have to meet large numbers of their fellow-beings have no trouble on this score, for they possess something that for lack of a better name is called magnetism. Some actors who are full of faults succeed by means of this quality; twenty times as many who are more intelligent and thorough fail through lack of it. The same may be said of Congressmen, lawyers, preachers and presidents. Magnetism seems to be a combination of sensitiveness, affection, impulse and passion, so it is not strange that only a few people of any profession possess it.