Thus temper and misunderstanding triumphed,
after so many strange and bitter trials had
failed.

GIVE ME YOUR HAND.

MANIAS are remittent fevers which seize the
public mind at uncertain intervals. There will
often occur a temporary lull, when a mania is
laid, used up, exhausted, and the symptoms of
its successor have not yet broken out. But it
may be assumed as a rule tliat the civilised
public cannot go on long without some dominant
mania. Manias, by their very nature, are
social, gregarious, wide-spreading, contagious
affections of the national intellect. They are
epidemics pervading, either the whole country,
or considerable classes and communities of
the country. They do not exist as solitary
cases; for if, indeed, they show themselves
in the eccentricities of single individuals, they
cease to be manias, and become monomanias
merely.

Manias, like comets, mostly come upon us
unexpectedly. Some of them, nevertheless, cast
their flaming tails before. Therefore, although
prophecies are hazardous, I venture to announce
the proximate coming of a new-old mania which
has long since been left to charlatans and
mountebanks, but which is now reappearing,
tinkered up, repaired, and renovated, with
additions and emendations, backed by pseudo-
scientific proof enough to shake the most hardened
scepticism. Fortune-telling, by crossing the
hand with a piece, not of silver, but of gold, is
already becoming the mode abroad. M.
Desbarrolles is being made so much of by the high-
minded dwellers in German schlosses, that he
cannot get back to his Parisian home;
notwithstanding which he announces, in reply to
numerous inquiries, his place of residence there,
and that the price of his chiromantic consultations
is twenty francs.

Certainly, what with spirits and supernaturalities,
we are making great psychological
advances in this our nineteenth century. While
all was still dark in 1745, Dennis de Coetlogon
(Knight of St. Lazare, M.D., and Member of the
Royal Academy of Angers) published, in
English, his decided opinion: " Chiromancy, from
????, hand, and ???????, divination, is the Art
of Divining the Fate, Temperament, and
Disposition of a Person, by the Lines and Lineaments
of the Hand; otherwise called Palmistry.
This fictitious Art is only practised by Gypsies,
Vagabonds, and silly old Women; who have,
however, cunning enough to make the Vulgar
believe that the seven Planets predominate over
the seven Mountains, which this Art places in
the Palm of a Man's Hand; that the lines
therein have a Doctrine of Community with
the Length of Life; and that Riches,
Accidents, or other Events, are to be judged
thereby."

Earlier still, in 1712, our old friend the Spectator
says (in No. 505): "This natural
impatience to look into futurity, and to know
what accidents may happen to us hereafter, has
given birth to many ridiculous arts and inventions.
Some found the prescience on the lines
of a man's hand, others on the features of his
face; some on the signatures which nature
has impressed on his body, and others on his
own handwriting. Notwithstanding these follies
are pretty well worn out of the minds of the
wise and the learned in the present age,
multitudes of weak and ignorant are still slaves to
them"— worn out even in the so-called Augustan
age.

Sir Thomas Browne, fond as he was of the
marvellous, displays no faith in Palmistry. He
turns up the ridiculous side of the question.
"Great variety there is in the lines of the hand.
There are also master and principal lines, in some
analogy to these, in creatures of five divisions
of foot, as apes, monkeys, frogs, with like lesser
also, and in great variety. These are also
observed in most digitate animals, and variously
disposed, as in dogs, cats, &c.; in fin-footed
birds, swans, geese, ducks." The kitchen-maid,
therefore, while killing her ducks and geese,
may beguile her pensive thoughts by telling
their fortunes.

In 1863, the wise and learned are endeavoured
to be converted to mysterious arts which are
despised by multitudes of weak and ignorant
people. M. Desbarrolles asserts that chiromancy
is as true as nature, because it is based
on the harmonies of nature.* He admits that
his book was laughed at when it first came out;
but when men saw that it was such a big one,
so full of research, quotation, and so on, that
they began to fancy there must be something in
it. It has rapidly attained its fourth edition,
which is more than its author expected,
especially in France, for it treats of a science long
decried, and which at the first glance appears
inexplicable. Now, with slight hopes of gaining
the ear of his countrymen, he is sanguine as to
the conversion to chiromancy of Germany, and
by-and-by of England. He is convinced that it
will come in time.

That the hand is a feature, cannot be denied.
In proof whereof, there are two classes of
portrait-painters; those who can, and those who
cannot paint a hand— the multitudinous
limners who stick it out of sight in their sitter's
pocket, and the real artists who, like Vandyke,
delight in working out its beauty and its
individuality. As Physiognomy judges character
from the aspect of the countenance, so
Chirognomy appreciates it from the aspect of the
hand.

The light broke upon M. d'Arpentigny in
this wise: While quite young, he lived in the
country, and frequently attended the parties
given by the great man of the neighbourhood,

* Les Mysteres de la Main Révelés et Expliqués,
Art de connaitre la vie, le caractère, les
aptitudes et la destinée de chacun d'après la seule
Inspection des Mains. Par Ad. Desbarrolles. Quatrième
édition. Pp. 624.