Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/120

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THE STRAND MAGAZINE.
119

creativeness; of cunning; hands of the ruler, the statesman, the soldier, the author, and the artist. To philosophers disposed to resolve a science from representative examples here is surely no lack of matter. It would, on the whole, be difficult to garner from the century's history a more glittering array of celebrities in all the various departments of endeavour than is here presented.


Princess Alice's hand.

The Prince of Wales's hand.

First and foremost, entitled to precedence almost by a double right, for this cast antedates, with one exception, all the rest, are the hands of Her Majesty the Queen. They were executed in 1844, when Her Majesty had sat upon the throne but the throne but seven years, and, if I do not greatly err, in connection with the first statue of the Queen after her accession. They will no doubt evoke much interest when compared with the hand of the lamented Princess Alice, who was present at the first ceremony, an infant in arms of eight months. In addition to that of the Princess Alice, taken in 1872, we have the hands of the Princesses Louise and Beatrice, all three of whom sat for portrait statues to Sir Edgar Boehm, R.A., from whose studio, also, emanates the cast of the hand of the Prince of Wales.


Princess Beatrice's hands.Pricess Louise's hands.

In each of the manual extremities thus presented of the Royal Family, similar