| Show SIDE LIGHTS ON PAL3n > TRY j A FamouH Amateur Palmist Tells Some of the Secrets of Her Art When I read a palm ialways begin 1 by shaking hands with my victim This is my own idea as far as I know though I have recently heard that Des I barolles the past master in the art of chiromancy often egan his readings with a hand shake It is not how Verso Ver-so set down in his book on the sub ject or In any other work I have ever seen WHAT THE HANDSHAKE TELLS I The mere touch of the hand gives you a certain intimate acquaintance with It that all the lines and bumps and even I the general form of the palm and fingers fin-gers cannot tell one For example the pallid slender thinsklned looselyknit moist cool hand of the woman who lives on her nerves indicates lack of health and lack of vitality Such a hand belongs to a sentimental morbid temperament and Is antinvaluable key to the reading of the lines It is easy also to detect from the feeling of the fingers the use to which they are put The violinist with his calloused fingertips finger-tips the elastic spread of the fingers and the development of the muscles across the hand of the practiced pian ist tell the tale of such occupations at once I If the left hand is larger than the right it fs a strong presumption in itself it-self that the owner is left handed In this case ask to shake both hands You can at once detect the lefthanded man by this means and that in spite of the fact he is in the habit of giving the right hand for the purpose pur-pose The stronger muscular development devel-opment and workaday feel of the left hand leaves you in no doubt A firm strong warm clasp bespeak I ing health and heartiness tells you of the unsuspicious generous norml manor man-or woman and such a nature is free from certain petty faults Even If ypu shbuld see thesevery traits wnitt ain the palm lines you realize that they are balanced or overbalanced by virtue of what the haqdshake implies and G 49 o i t J t > = 1 I r I tJ i a iif you Interpret the opposing lines or marks as inherited qualities For to the eye of the keen observer each hand is a record not only of itself but of Its forbears SKIN SIGNS A careful examination of the general form the consistency of the flesh and skin gives you an Idea of the admixture admix-ture of nationality in a person If there has been Latin blood by which I mean French Italian Spanish or the Southern races with AngloSaxon it betrays Itself in a certain difference in texture hard to explain but easy of detection to one who knows it There is a silkiness of the skin and the flesh lies under it like the inside of a ripe peach It is a more sensuous hand to hold or to look at Of such a type is the soft but firm womans hand that slides slowly out of your clasp like a white kitten a hand suggestive of Ro I meos words For palm to palm is holy palmers I kissThe The Turk the Egyptian the Greek have these qualities to a still more marked degree and a deeper shade of color that helps the novice to recognize recog-nize the trace of such blood more easily eas-ily It is extraordinary how one drop of foreign blood inherited from an antagonistic an-tagonistic race will endure and show Itself after generations of pure breeding I breed-ing As an example of this let me tell you the story of an artist a very well know American artist whose hand I read last winter before I knew his nameYou You have Oriental blood in your veins southern at least I said He gave me a quick glance and said How do you know that I smiled I was not at the moment unravelling the mystery of the art as I am now doing I have been American born and bred ever since the battle of Bunker Hill j he said on both sides but my ancestor j I ances-tor who fought therea mere boyhad a Spanish Moorish name inherited from a Spanish Moorh father He the father came over to New Orleans as a refugee about the time when poor Manon Lescant made her tragic journey jour-ney to the same place This ancestor I found his way Bostonwards There hemet he-met married a Puritan maiden and i I their boy at the age of thirteen fought I at the great battlethe Yankee boy with the Moorish name In each generation i gen-eration ever since there has been a Yankee Yan-kee boy with that same name and I am the last of them So here was the strange Oriental blood showing itself in this mans hand after five generations as it showed itself it-self in his name and fame too perhaps for he sees and depicts things as the descendant of a dweller on the Mediterranean Mediter-ranean shores do INDICATIONS OF TASTES AND HABITS The general critical survey of the hand following the handshake will tell you too much about the tastes the habits of the individual The hand Of the athlete is known at once the hand of the sportsman of the surgeon are most easy of detection and every trade I sets its seal upon the hand that practices it only that it requires experience and observation observa-tion which in this art as in every other are worth all the learning of the schools There is a certain precision firmness yet delicacy of touch that makes it almost impossible for one to be deceived about a hand that is in the habit of working with the eye or mind I have never seen Buffalo Bills hand but I should not guess at it if fifty hands were put through a hole in the wall at me and I knew that one of them was Mr Codys His hand should be long brown firm prehensile almost with eyes in the fingertips like a blind mans and the clasp of it should be like iron behind velvet The typical surgeons handand it Is very generally typical I find suggests the scalpel at once to the keen prac tised eye the turn of thp wrist its dexterous dex-terous play and freedom the development develop-ment of muscle at the base of the thumb the machinelike precision of movement make it of all hands the most capable the most human the further fur-ther removed from the elementary type with its short thick fingers and inflexible hard palm Look at your friends hands and try if after a little feeling and gazing you are not able to tell which girl is the girl who embroiders who draws which one is musical which one goes in for tennis and paddling The easiest hand to detect is the natural horsewomans handa hand like Mrs Beachsthe teacher at one of our fashionable riding rid-ing schools in New York and who has ridden many a stubborn frightened green hunter to a safe victory in the annual horse show Such a hand is light as elderdown but with whipcord nerves below The sweetest type of womans hand is the born nurses hand the palm and fingers that soothe with a touch that I brush away with their magic aches and pains and griefs Happy indeed the woman who has the blessed gift of the laying on of hands All this is prologue and preface to your study of palmistry proper io the lines and fingers the joints the stars the crosses the Mount of Venus the Plain of Mars all of the pretty secrets of chiromancy with their hidden and significant meanings M M M |
