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S: mzritas si rarmina lauuzs Ddiciam, xamis bumilis si mnuirsr anis, Be: rua, tc pramr, :harris intents quisquam facts quzsr, nictis ut nan majors sunnsint: dist nnbis huluissz satis. .fmt numzra paxba Btsputtil Q U Q O Bamsquc :adams piarabir mins; nz: iilis Semper insurers taurus rant! bosxia carnu. lbic qusquz sir urarus parbus inbox, ur rib! possim Inn: alias aiiosquz memo: rnmpanm UIIBUS. O ' I t O St quuncumque mn: pamunz aunm Qramaznaz Stu tihi pu pomunt, szu quon spzs abnuir ultra, Siu minus, rmzquz canzm minus, omnz babzmus but tibi; nec tanto canst mibi tannins rbarta. O O 0 3 Qum quonrumque mum-est; nnsrri si narbuia cum Qi: tihi Quanta iibzt: si sit mobo: nan mibi nuns lguia, nan maani porin: sir fama Grunt; lpossc jkldmzas nn malltm mirmz cbmas. ihunh rtbi si versus nwzr mrusuz, mtnusbz, dict hm: sit nstus, summa bd inmzt in an: 1 Bulls mibi smruznr inzm te fate canenni. Hhuin mam mea cum uunulus cnnrznriz nssa; Gnu marura nies czlzmn prayers: mibi ummm, Qluanuacumquz bominzm mr lungs :mums mas lncmis uc zz subaxam carmtna cbanis. ['rib., "P¢»m," i.] D gnizea by Google ii PREFACE. HEIROGNOMY, the science of declaring the characters, aptitudes, and mental conditions of men by a glance at the formations of their hands, came suddenly into existence, without any known precedent. Adrien Desbarrolles, the cheiromant, whose death has created only recently so much stir among cheirosophists, not only in Paris, but all over the world, tells us in his book " "Les Mystéres de la Mash [p. I07], that one day he asked d'Arpentigny how he had discovered his " system. By a Divine inspiration," quoth he. However this may be, we know how our author tabulated his system, and from what materials. M. Gourdon de Genouillac has told us how his attention was first drawn thereto in Spain. M. Desbarrolles has told us how he completed his investigations, and how he formulated his observations so as to be able to act upon his experience. It appears that when he was still quite young and living in the country, he was in the habit of going to the parties of a rich land- owner who lived near him. This gentleman being imbued with a strong taste for exact sciences in general and mechanics in particular, his assemblies 3 8 PREFACE. were mainly composed of geometricians and mechanicians. His wife, on the other hand, was passionately fond of art, and received none but artists; the natural result was, that each of them received on different days, and d'Arpentigny, being neither a mechanician nor an artist, went to the receptions of both. Having himself hands which were very beautiful [miie Appendix A., p. 4l7], he continually contrasted the hands of the people by whom he was surrounded with his own, and it gradually occurred to him that the fingers of the arithmeticians and ironworkers were knotty, ' whilst those of the artists were smooth [miie TI 11o]. Having made this observation, he com- menced to develop it, examining as many hands as he came across, with the invariable result that he found the hands of manual labourers to be prominent-jointed, whilst those of artists were smooth. He studied and observed for thirty years before he considered that he had sufficiently established his system to render it capable of reliable practice. He did not try to account for his science as I have done in the Introductory Arguments to this volume, and to "A Manual of Chez}'osophy;" all he said was, "Here are facts; here are indications which are |311/an2zb{y connected with certain characteristics; these things speak for themselves." There is a great tendency in the present day to dress up old dogmata in new forms and cry "Eccol a new science l" a constantly recurring state of things that reminds one of the grim, gigantic helmet in Dryden's "Battle Q/ the Books," in the farthest corner of which was found a tiny hear' Y a' walnut; but in this science I PREFACE. 9 do not think there are to be found-as there are in the newer cheiromancy,-traces of a long-disused cultus, "an old idea," as Longfellow says in "Hyper1bn," "folded in a new garment, which looks you in the face and pretends not to know you, though you have been familiar friends from child- hood." In vain has Desbarrolles endeavoured to surround this branch of the science with a proto- plasm of gnostic mysticism by devoting several pages [275-282] of his book to a process of what he calls "enriching the system of M. d'Arpen- tigny by means of the Kabbala." When, how- ever, he tabulates the cheirognomical indications of the seven cardinal sins, he becomes interesting, and when in his larger and more recent volume, " "Suak et F131 (Paris: 1879), he gives a few pages on how to put the science rapidly into practice [p. 901, he becomes most valuable, and I can warmly recommend a perusal of those pages to all who are interested in the subject-matter of this volume. It will be noticed, as M. Desbarrolles has remarked [vzkle p. 420], that our author, being of Bacon's opinion that "it is good to vary and intermingle speech of the present occasion with arguments, tales with reasons, asking of questions with telling of opinions, and jest with earnest," betrays a continual tendency to ily oH` at a tangent and talk delightfully and interestingly about some- thing else conceming which he has somewhat to say, with the natural result that he frequently loses and frequently repeats himself I have endeavoured, by appending an extremely full index, to reduce as far as possible the in'itation resulting from this state of things, which the 7 ` IO PREFACE. philosophically-minded reader will naturallyevince, rather than to say with Omar Khayyam- " They who by genius and by power of brain The rank of man'a enlighteners attain, Not even they emerge from this dark night, But tell their dreams, and fall asleep again l" [Mapu]- a verse whose original terminates this work on P- 439- Again, in alluding to living and dead celebrities as illustrations of certain types of hands, he has often thought it suiiicient merely to mention a name, or a place, or an event, assuming that it is already familiar to his readers. All of us, how- ever, not being on a par with M. d'Arpentigny in the matter of erudition or of scholarship, I have deemed it expedient to verify all, and in some cases to correct, his allusions, and to give for the benefit of my readers references to works where they may, if they choose, pursue the suggestions of our author. The result of this has been an enormous mass of notes, carefully selected from a much larger quantity which I have collected during the past five years with a view to their ultimate utilisation in this form. It may strike the reader at the first glance that I have some- what overdone this matter, but a few moments' perusal of these pages will, I think, convince him [or her] that in amplifying my completion of the labours of M. d'Arpentigny I have added interest as well as biographical and bibliographical value to his work. ~ " There be some," said Don Quijote to Sancho, "who weary themselves in knowing and verifying things which, after knowing and verifying, are not PREFACE. I I worth a farthing to the mind orthe memory." I trust I have avoided such a reproach as this, and I hope that I am not like Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, who, when he had painted a cock, found it " necessary to write underneath it, This as a cock." I had rather be considered [to follow up Don " Quijote], some sage enchanter, from which kind of people nothing is hid on which they wish to write." To such gibes I would answer as the Knight of the Rueful Visage did to Sancho, when " the latter said to him, I say of a verity that your worship is the devil himself, for there is nothing you do not know;"-" 'Tis necessary to know everything," answered Don Quijote, " in the office which I profess." Seriously, I have been obliged in my notes to follow the style of M.

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