Her rash hand, in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate;
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works gave signs of woe.
The symbolic and responsible hand accordingly figures everywhere. The drama of history and of fiction are alike full of it. Pilate vainly washes his hands as he asserts his innocence of the blood of the Just One. “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand!” is the agonised cry of Lady Macbeth. “This unworthy hand!” exclaims the martyr, Cranmer, as he makes it expiate the unfaithful act of signature, as though it were an independent actor, alone responsible for the deed. In touching tenderness the venerable poet Longfellow thus symbolised the entrance on life’s experiences—
Oh, little hands that, weak or strong,
Have still to rule or serve so long;
Have still so much to give or ask;
I, who so long with tongue and pen
Have toiled among my fellow-men,