Four-in-hand

“ She wears a profusion of rings, every finger, except the little finger of the right hand, being furnished with one. They exhibit great variety of design, and are valuable as exponents of [126] the fashion of that day. We engrave in Fig. 151 the hands of the lady, as uplifted in prayer, with four of the rings, the full size of the originals. ”

“ A right-hand glove could be put on a left hand if it could be turned round in four-dimensional space. ”

“ What is to prevent one single ring from doing all the work? Why go about with your left hand loaded,—a ring to every finger? nay, they overflow; the right hand must be forced into the service. And you have left out the most important ring of all, the one to stop your drivelling at this absurd rate. ”

“ Look where we will, we find the hand in time and history, working, building, inventing, bringing civilization out of barbarism. The hand symbolizes power and the excellence of work. The mechanic’s hand, that minister of elemental forces, the hand that hews, saws, cuts, builds, is useful in the world equally with the delicate hand that paints a wild flower or molds a Grecian urn, or the hand of a statesman that writes a law. ”

“ The higher hand may, if out of alignment, pass the figure when the lower hand approaches the ninth point in its dial, this causing the person to read the figures one, ten, hundred or thousand units too much. ”

“ The hand tool is frequently a lively and decorative symbol of a society at a given time—a symbol, which, according to the judges at London's Crystal Palace Exhibition in 1851, gives "indications of the peculiar condition and habits of the people whence they come, of their social and industrial wants and aims, as well as their natural or acquired advantages." [8] The hand tool, therefore, should be considered both as an object of appealing shape and a document illustrative of society and its progress.
Figure 15.—18th century: Cabinetmaker's dividers of English origin. ”

“ In all questions of technique it is possible to determine the exact best mode of procedure. But unless the hand be perfectly fitted thereto, the rule should be relaxed, for insisting on positions that are even slightly strained (though possibly, quite comfortable to a differently constructed hand) can only do harm.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE FINGERS OF THE RIGHT HAND—DIFFERENCES OF OPINION THEREON—SAUTILLÉ—THE LOOSE WRIST.
The functions of the right hand fingers are twofold. ”

“ The man worked his fingers and when the Philosopher thought he must have the ring in his hand, he caught hold of the man's wrist, jerked the hand from his pocket, and the ring rolled upon the platform. ”

“ Generally, except in precise pointing, there is a graduated curving, not too nice, from the bent little finger to the straighter forefinger. As the gesture is concerned with thought more delicate, the action of the hand is lighter and tends more to the tips of the fingers; as it is more rugged and strong, the hand is held heavier. ”

“ It is the hand that binds me to the world of men and women. The hand is my feeler with which I reach through isolation and darkness and seize every pleasure, every activity that my fingers encounter. With the dropping of a little word from another’s hand into mine, a slight flutter of the fingers, began the intelligence, the joy, the fullness of my life. Like Job, I feel as if a hand had made me, fashioned me together round about and molded my very soul. ”

“ But when it comes to flinging a stone or other object a long distance, I always use the left hand as coming the most natural. There are two things which I cannot possibly do with my right hand, and that is to drive a nail, or to carve, cut, or whittle. ”

“ Then we would go through all the gestures, exercising each movement of the arm and the throwing open the hand. All gestures except those of precision go in curves, the arm rising from the side, coming to the front, turning to the left or right. ”

“ After playing these exercises for an hour, including the Halir legato studies, pages 1 to 4, Tonleiterstudien, the wrist and forearm are supple for the daily work, while the left hand falls easily into line. In all technical work the left hand must be trained to anticipate the bow-arm. More depends upon the left hand than upon the bow-arm, hence the necessity of strong fingers and an ample technic. ”

“ Often a suspended action, with a fixed look of the face, will serve to arrest the attention of auditors and fix it upon an idea. One should cultivate first the look, then the supporting or completing action.
As to the movement of the arm and the form of the hand, one should be careful not to become stiff and precise by following exact rules. In general, it may be said that the beginning of the arm movement, being from the body, is in the upper arm; the finish of it is at the tips of the fingers, with the forefinger leading, or bringing the gesture to a point. ”

“ When you desire to perform the trick, you have this little appliance concealed in your right hand, the longer arm between the first and second fingers, and the shorter arm pointing towards the little finger. Picking up the card with the left hand, you transfer it to the right, taking hold of it in such manner that the fingers shall be behind and the thumb in front of the card. ”

“ Then bid the cent to move toward you, to the right or to the left, and by gently moving your body in whatever direction you name, the hair will draw the cent in the same direction. You may say, while your left hand is near the table, “Now, cent, move up my arm.” Advancing your arm gently, the cent will appear to move up to your elbow. It is your arm that moves, but it will appear to the spectators as if the cent moved; or you may help it up the outside of the sleeve by interposing your right hand under the hair, so as to draw up the cent, while appearing to beckon it. ”

“ All experience points to the conclusion that the primitive artificer habitually used one hand, whether the right or the left. Even when the naturally left-handed have acquired such facility in the use of the right hand, by persevering compliance with the usage of the majority in many customary practices of daily life, as to be practically ambidextrous, each hand is still employed by instinctive preference in certain definite acts ”

“ The greater bulk and strength of the right arm resulting from its greater use, and the greater aptitude of the right hand, are instances in point; and that the relative incapacity of the left hand, involved by cultivating the capacity of the right hand, would become still more marked were the right hand to undertake all manipulation, is obvious. ”

“ It is not necessarily the right foot, but it is always the same. The unpremeditated action of hand or foot is uniform, as the reader will find by clasping his hands with the fingers interlaced, or inviting another to do so. ”

“ Delicate, exact, and finely coordinated movements, such as those of writing and using surgical instruments, I perform always with my left hand while grosser movements involving the whole hand or arm, I am rather likely to perform with my right hand. ”

“ The secret lies in this: if you look carefully at Fig. 2, you will discover that the little finger of one hand and the thumb of the other are really holding the same loop; so you have only to retain your hold at these points, letting the rest go, to draw the string out of the button-hole with freedom.
But you may find it rather difficult at first to make the proper thumb and finger act quickly and in unison, apart from the twin brother of each; for thumbs, and also little fingers, are like twin children, and, unless well trained, one always wants to do what the other does. ”

“ Appliances with Mobile Joints.—In the course of work the direction of the wrist is changing at every instant, flexion, extension, pronation, and supination occurring, sometimes in order to move around the object, sometimes in order to maintain a suitable position when the movements of the shoulder and elbow vary the direction of the forearm.
The consequence of this is that the worker learns to turn the piece of work around with his sound hand. ”

“ Should the leaders work over to the right of the wheelers, grasp the two reins, which are between the second and middle fingers of the left hand, between the middle and index fingers of the right hand. ”

“ It is not claimed that the hand is a nicer instrument than the mind. As a matter of fact, in drilling the hole in the hair the mind and the hand work together—the mind directs the hand, we will say. The mind devises or invents a watch—every wheel, pinion, screw, and spring—and directs the hand how to make it, and how to set it up, and it ticks off the time. Why does the mind succeed so admirably when it employs the hand to execute its will, but so ill when it devises and attempts, itself, to execute? ”

“ Neither the voice nor the ear is adapted to the task. But the hand fashions and presents the telephone, and the conversation proceeds even in a whisper. It will be said that the mind devises the telescope, the microscope, and the telephone. True, but their construction would be impossible without the hand. And is it at all probable that the mind would have devised these admirable instruments if man had been made without hands? ”

“ In matters of less consequence they reckon with their fingers, by bending the little finger of the right hand close to the palm, and the other fingers in succession, proceeding to the left hand, concluding the calculation by clapping both the hands together ”

“ The special positions of hands and fingers will be designated by reference to the Types of Hand Positions. For brevity in the written description, "hand" may be used for "right hand," when that one alone is employed in any particular gesture. When more convenient to use the profile figure in which the right arm is exhibited for a gesture actually made by the left hand and arm it can be done, the fact, however, being noted. ”

“ The hand a set of machinery.
The hand is often said to be a wonderful instrument. I would rather say that it is a wonderful set of machinery. An instrument or tool is commonly fitted to do only one thing, as a chisel, a spade, a saw, etc. But how many and how different things can be done with the hand!
It does both coarse and fine work.
Let us look at some things that the hand can do. See the blacksmith wielding the heavy hammer; how strongly his hand grasps the handle! See how it is done. The fingers and thumb are bent by those large muscles that are up in the arm. ”

“ Any widely manifested difference in the sensitiveness of one of the hands, apart from its habitual use in all ordinary manipulation, and especially among uncultured races, would assuredly seem to indicate some congenital distinction leading to the preferential use of the right hand. ”

“ Referring to personal experience, I may note as common to myself with other thoroughly left-handed persons, that, with an instinctive preference for the left hand, which equally resisted remonstrance, proffered rewards, and coercion, I nevertheless learned to use the pen in the right hand, apparently with no greater effort than other boys who pass through the preliminary stages of the art of penmanship. ”

“ And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth bid the Man to put a ring on the Woman’s fourth finger, counting thumb. And the Man thrusts his hand into one pocket, and into another, forward and back many times into all his pockets. ”

“ He was left-handed, his hands being very large: he often made exhibition of the power of his left hand in grasping and crushing anything placed within it, in which exploit he surpassed all competitors. ”

“ Yes, one thing more—care must be taken to have this forefinger fastened to a sure, knowing, and fearless hand, worked by an arm which plays easily and loosely in a ball-socket set firmly near your backbone. ”

“ It is indeed always necessary to give full weight to the influences [Pg 165] of education, the whole tendency of which, from early childhood, operates in one direction. The extent to which this is systematically employed to develop the use of the one hand at the expense of the other, is illustrated by the conventional rules for the use of the knife and fork. ”

“ Older children delight to set themselves such tasks as, for instance, clasping the hands behind the back, so that one 77arm crosses the shoulder, or placing the open hand on a table and raising the ring finger without any of the others, or laying the fingers over one another, etc. ”

“ To the very end, however, the right hand remains especially 'the hand in which you hold your knife;' and that is exactly how our own children to this day decide the question which is which, when they begin to know their right hand from their left for practical purposes. ”

“ Now, there is one way in which the right hand and the left hand may practically be brought into likeness. If we take the right-hand glove and the left-hand glove, they will not fit any more than the right hand will coincide with the left hand. ”

“ I have met thousands of persons who claimed that the rope trick as well as the handcuff trick was accomplished by folding the hand together or by making the wrist larger than the hand, but I have never met the man or woman who could make the hand smaller than the wrist. ”

“ Sell.—With thumbs and fingers together, as if holding something, lift the hands up in front so the ends will bend from the wrists and point down; without moving the arms give the hands a shaking motion outward. VIII, 175.
Owe, To indicate something is due another.—Place the end of forefinger of right "G" hand in palm of the left held upward; in this position move both hands forward toward imaginary person. To indicate the debt is due to oneself, with hands in similar position draw them toward you. ”