Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1877 — An Uncommon Beauty. [ARTICLE]

An Uncommon Beauty.

Wk frequently read of beautiful hands; we do not very frequently see them. From lime immemorial they have been held to be the badge of aristocracy; and a person with a slender, smooth, and shapely white hand, tot that petaon be M vulgar as possible, to seldom considered to be vulgar Voty likely the reason of thia association dr the fine hand with aristocratic origin to because the hands of the so-called well-bom have been idle hands for generations, ro far as any heavy work to to be taken into account, anything creating mus de, that to, straining jdnta swelling veins, or sending too much blood there for the requisite pallor; so that, there being nothing to increase its size or rednew, it has remained small and white, and the habit of whiteness and symmetry has become congenital, and has been handed down, like any other habit of the body, from parent to child, till, when we see such a hand, we read in it a long story of ancestral wealth and elegance. In this country there are few people whose ancestors, as far back as their greatgrandparents, have been always exempt from some sort of handiwork. And, Indeed, our general diffusion of comfort has depended in great measure upon every* one's doing something; and the women of the land, except for the small minority, are universally employed in sewing, housework, writing, handling goods, even those who teach doing some of the first; so that we do not very often inherit any peculiar whiteness or smallness of the hand, to begin with. And if we are ever so idle ourselves, that will not undo the work of past generations; while even if by idleness, should it begin early, we may succeed in keeping our hands tolerably white and shapely, we seldom have them small. Ana we presume there are few willing to purchase this white hand by a sacrifice of conscience and an indulgence in forbidden indolence. Although the American foot is famous for its small size, the American hand does not correspond, and the glove-makers abroad are obliged to make the fingers of our gloves larger than those for any other market. In the Southern States the hand to smaller than in the Northern, which, as a general thing, to owing to the fact that slaves have done all there was to do there. The glove, however, to not an exact criterion, as there are many people who really do not know how to glove themselves.

Still there are exceptions to all rules, and flaws in all theories. We have seen great beauties with very indifferent hands that it took all the gems and gold possible to disguise; we have seen a washerwoman with a hand that might be the lost one of some of the antique statues. There have been Queens with large bony red hands; and there are some American women with those that a sculptor could not improve. Sometimes individual traits are more than all inherited ones, and a tall and large person, out of a raw-boned family, will have a supple, small and snowy hand that it is • least for the eyes to look on. Although we can account for the aristocratic presage of a>beautiful hand, we do not know why it is that we always feel as if a beautiful hand were the herald of a beautiful nature, and that after our attention has once been drawn to it, it satisfies us for the absence of much beauty In the face; and we can only explain it by the supposition that beauty of outline, if not so pleasing at first, is really nobler and longer-lived than beauty of sparkle and color. Yet it is true that there is a great deal of one’s nature betrayed in the hand, something perhaps of the beauty of one’s soul, and with this all great painters have been acquainted; for although Vtadyck, in portraying the hands of Kings and Queens, found it necessary to copy one recurring model of a merely idle hand, yet Titian told the whole character of old Pope Paul IV. iu an eager, clutching, talon-like hand for all its well-modeled beauty—for the hand is full of expression, a quick and subtle interpreter. Of this, palmistry long since took note, as well as dactyliomancy, that read fate by the fln£ia, and onycbomancy, that read it by b nails, the whole shape of the hand being supposed anciently —by many even of to-day—to indicate a great deal of the owner’s temperament; the rounding palm, for instance, telling of generosity, it is said; the thick outer muscle of sensuality; the small thumb of constancy and persistency; the large thumb of intellectuality, a large thumb, in the northwestern portion of France, being still the certain sign of a sorcerer. Although the small hand is desirable, the beautiful hand is not always necessarily small; symmetry and whiteness, not size, are to be the determining features of its beauty. It is to be long and narrow; no bone in it is to show with a reminder of its osseous construction; and it is to be set with dimples, more choice and lovely than jewels. The fingers are to taper, without the enlargement of a single joint on the way; and the nails are to be rosy, round, unmarked, and exactly as long as the finger. Some degree of whiteness may be given by use of various lotions and practices, but this shapeliness is a thing not to be forced; and when a hand is long and slender, and yet plump enough to be dimpled, and still remaining small, it is the very perfection of a hand. It is of no use to say that such a hand when unadorned is adorned the most, for our own eves tellus to the contrary; and we know that a band of pearls, a glitter- . ing gem, sets off its symmetry as much as a great star does the velvet roundness of the evening sky. And the only beauty it can ever lack is that of gentle gesture and generous deed.—Harper’* Batar.