of vitality, the consequence of a feeble or shattered nervous system; and in either case the cure is to be found in less frequent contact, separate rooms, health, and mutual endeavor to correct the fault.
That a man or woman's real character is written in unmistakable characters, not only upon the entire person and features, but upon every external organ also, is a truth so thoroughly established as not to be denied. The features may be shrouded, but the hand, lips, nose, and brow, can never be. I therefore lay down these twenty-two rules for determining character, by interpreting the knots, lines, furrows, and shape of various hands, so that he or she who carefully studies them, as they should be, need not be deceived in the actual and hidden character of any human being, for the laws and rules here laid down are mathematically correct, and as certain as is death itself. No matter what a party may pass for, or pretends to be, his or her hand will tell the true story with unerring certainty, that is, according to very high French scientific authority, whose correctness of course I cannot positively vouch for:—
A hand something long, and the fingers thick, denote the person to be of a phlegmatic complexion, idle, slothful, but modest.
If the palm of the hand be long, and the fingers well-proportioned, and not soft, but rather hard, it denotes the person to be ingenious, but changeable, and given to theft and vice.
If the hand be hollow, solid, and well-knit in the joints, it predicts long life; but if overthwarted, it then denotes short life.
He whose hand is according to the quantity of his body, and the fingers too short, and thick, and fat at the ends, will be a thief, a lyer-in-wait, and addicted to all manner of evil.
When the palm of the hand is longer than the due proportion requires, and the fingers more thick, by how much they are the more short, it signifies that the man is proud, idle, negligent, and so much the more by how much the hand is more brawny.
Great and long hands betoken a great spirit, liberality, good conditions, craftiness; but the person will be a good counsellor, and faithful to his friends.
Observe the finger of Mercury, — that is the little finger; if the end of it exceed the joint of the ring finger, such a man will rule his own house, and his wife will be pleasing and obedient to him,
