Handhold

“ The human hand is not only the symbol of the intelligent artificer, “the hand of the master,” the sign and epitome of the lord and ruler; it is the instrument of the will alike for good and evil deeds. The idea of it as the active participator in every act embodies itself in all vocabularies. The imperial mandate, the lordly manumission, the skilled manufacturer, the handy tool, the unhandy workman, the left-handed stroke, the handless drudge, with other equally familiar terms, all refer to the same ever-ready exponent of the will ”

“ By what half-development of human power has the left hand been neglected? When we arrive at the acme of civilization shall we not all be ambidextrous, and in our hand-to-hand contests against difficulties shall we not be doubly triumphant? It occurs to me, by the way, that when my teacher was training my unreclaimed spirit, her struggle against the powers of darkness, with the stout arm of discipline and the light of the manual alphabet, was in two senses a hand-to-hand conflict. ”

“ The count and his servant, imprisoned just as we are in adjoining cells, with a hole in the partition wall through which they can speak to one another, and the servant has discovered a knotted rope, a big sou and a staple just as I have discovered them. Well, monsieur, the count is to be beheaded, and his execution is fixed for the next day, but the faithful servant hands him through the hole in the wall the means for escape, the rope, the big sou containing a saw, and the staple. ”

“ The almost universally received opinion of these Strong men, the keepers of the house, is, that they signify the Hands and Feet, which include the Shoulders, the Arms, and Hands, the Thighs, the Legs, and the Feet.—These Hands and Arms are the keepers of the house, for when the scripture speaks of preserving, defence, and deliverance, the Hands and Arms are generally mentioned, besides, they keep the house by providing for it, getting maintenance for the whole body. ”

“ The gentleman then thrusts the thumb of his left-hand into the arm-hole of his waistcoat, taps three times carelessly with his fingers upon his chest. By this signal he means to say—
“How is your little heart?”
The lady plucks a leaf out of her bouquet, and flings it playfully over her left shoulder, meaning thereby to intimate that her vital organ is “as free as that.”
The gentleman, encouraged by the last signal, clasps his hands, and by placing both his thumbs together, protests that “Heaven has formed them for each other.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ But it is not difficult to conceive of some resolute combatant, endowed with the capacity of a leader, and conscious of his own skill in the use of his weapons in his dexterous left hand, banding together under his leadership a company selected on account of their manifesting the same exceptional dexterity. With this as the indispensable requisite, he was able to muster a body of seven hundred marksmen, all men of his own tribe, every one of whom was left-handed, and could sling stones at a hair’s-breadth and not miss. To the naturally left-handed man such dexterity is in no degree surprising. ”

“ I commence the ascent with my body-guard, who appear now to look upon me as a piece of brittle china, and are most anxious to prevent me using my limbs in my own way—they will not let me take a step without their assistance. ”

“ House after house they pass and shop after shop, each bearing above the portal a shield emblazened with the selfsame coat-of-arms—the heraldic device of the guild of the glovers. Their occupants, gayest of the gay, fast swell the throng, with masters and their families and apprentices—the young boys in the retinues stealing shy glances at the pretty daughters of their masters, the maidens covertly returning their admirers’ bashful looks. ”

“ The blood in his right wrist and the blood in his left wrist run with the right wrist wisdom of the many and the left wrist wisdom of the many. It is the many he knows, the gaunt strong hunger of the many. ”

“ If a man at his own pleasure may make choice of another man's coat of arms? If a German finds a Frenchman in the field bearing the same coat of arms with him, if he ought to appeal him to a combat? How they ought to be punished that assume the arms of others? ”

“ Consequently all who held land having, because of that land, to be responsible for followers in battle, found it necessary to use arms. The corollary is therefore evident, that all who held lands of the King were gentlemen or noble, and used arms; and as a consequence all who possessed arms were gentlemen, for they would not need or use arms, nor was their armour of a character upon which they could display arms, unless they were leaders. The leaders, we have seen, were the land-owning or upper class; therefore every one who had arms was a gentleman, and every gentleman had arms. ”

“ This idea of the left hand being preoccupied with the shield, and so leaving to the other the active functions of the sword and spear hand, is familiar to the classical student, and will fitly come under review at a later stage. Nor can such secondary influences be overlooked. Whatever may prove to be the primary source of right-handedness, it cannot be doubted that, when thoroughly developed and systematically recognised as determining the character of many combined operations, the tendency would inevitably be to foster the preferential use of the right hand even in indifferent actions. ”

“ For the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world. ”

“ It is pleasant to wear a glove when one shakes hands with the Public; therefore we still use our ancestors' names instead of our own,—but it is fair to state, that in this case there are a pair of gloves!—Which is the right glove, and which the left, the Public will never know. ”

“ The number of the exceptionally dexterous right-handed, with an invincible instinctive preference for the use of that hand, though large in comparison with the no less dexterous left-handed, are nevertheless a minority. Habit, social usage, and education in all its forms, in the school, the drawing-room, the workshop, in all the arts of peace, and in nearly every operation of war, have so persistently fostered the development of the favourite hand that it is scarcely possible to arrive at any reliable statistics in proof of the initial proclivities of the large majority of conformists. ”

“ The man howls and breaks his lantern with a kick. My hand is partly in the man’s hand, but by a great miracle of the ebbing life in my wrist, my hand, at the moment it leaves my arm, has seized the hand of the man! ”

“ Soldiers bear their swords and axes in the right hand, and their shields on the left arm. A prisoner is being flayed alive by an operator who holds the knife in the right hand. The king himself puts out the eyes of another captive, holding the spear in his right hand, while he retains in his left the end of a cord attached to his victim. Similar evidence [Pg 114] abounds throughout the elaborate series of sculptures in the British Museum and in the Louvre. Everywhere gods and men are represented as “discerning between their right hand and their left,” and giving the preference to the former. ”

“ Two causes have thus to be recognised as operating in the development of right-handedness, and begetting certain differences in its manifestation under varying social influences. There is a progressive scale, from the imperfect to the more perfectly developed, and then to the perfectly educated hand: [Pg 16] all steps in its adaptation to the higher purposes of the manipulator. The hand of the rude savage, of the sailor, the miner, or blacksmith, while well fitted for the work to which it is applied, is a very different instrument from that of the chaser, engraver, or cameo-cutter ”

“ All the women of her household are ranged about the bed, while her servants hide her under the bedclothes almost to the point of suffocation. If her pulse has to be felt a servant covers her hand and arm so carefully that only an inch or so of her wrist is visible. ”

“ If I put the ring upon the little finger of my left hand, then I can fly like a bird through the air wherever I wish to go. If I put it on the third finger of my left hand I am invisible, and I can see everything that passes around me, though no one can see me. If I put the ring upon the middle finger of my left hand, then neither fire nor water nor any sharp weapon can hurt me. If I put it on the forefinger of my left hand, then I can with its help produce whatever I wish. I can in a single moment build houses or anything I desire. ”

“ The evidence derived from this source leaves no room for doubt that the preferential choice is no mere habit; but that everywhere, among barbarous and civilised races alike, one specific hand has been assigned for all actions requiring either unusual force or special delicacy. ”

“ How that little useless hand would shrink from the touch of the gaunt, horny, clay-coloured, begrimed workman's hand, which hard, unremitting labour has changed into a kind of hoof. Some hands are coy, others paddle you indecently; the grip of some is hypocritical, and not what it pretends to be; there is the velvety, the unctuous, the priestly, the humbug's hand ”

“ When we hurried home, and took the general to task for making us face the solemn orderly, he only replied by asking if we had intended to stay forever, pointing to his open watch, and speaking of the terrors of solitary confinement!
It was the custom at guard mount every morning to select the cleanest, most soldierly-looking man for duty as orderly for the post-commander. ”

“ The hand as given in betrothal or marriage has been from early times the symbol of marriage as it also is of oaths. Other applications are to labourers engaged in manual occupations, the members of the crew of a ship, to a person who has some special skill, as in the phrase, “old parliamentary hand,” and to the pointers of a clock or watch and to the number of cards dealt to each player in a card game. ”

“ When the officer or enlisted man is not bearing arms of any kind in his hands he salutes with the right hand by bringing the hand smartly up to the visor of the cap above the right eye, fingers closed, hand, wrist and forearm straight, palm of the hand to the left and right forearm at an angle of forty-five degrees, and then dropping the arms to the side. ”

“ The King then spoke to the captain of the guard, saying, 'Shall not a man pass the day in a garden with his wife? Wherefore should they be put in prison? Behold, since thou hast done this thing, thy life is in this man's hand.' And he delivered the captain of the guard to the minister to deal with him as he listed. ”

“ When the king goes to war, I understand that every man capable of bearing arms must [150] follow his chief; for which purpose they are all trained from their youth to the use of arms. I saw nothing like a regular armed force, except a guard of about fifty men, who constantly did duty at the king’s residence. There were about twenty of them on guard daily, but the only sentry which they posted was at the powder magazine. ”

“ The ALL-WISE CREATOR then, in supplying you with the sense of taste, has been pleased to appoint a guard at the door of your earthly tabernacle—the body, to watch what would gain admission there, by examining minutely whether it be a friend or a foe, and by receiving' or rejecting it accordingly,—since without this guard you would be exposed continually to the incursion of the most mischievous and deadly intruders. ”

“ My servant told me that most of our men had now got gloves, and that it was surprising the care they took of them, as they were generally not so careful; but they knew that they would want them; so I am very glad that you have got extra ones, for they do not last long. ”

“ The men in overalls continue to move about among these human bodies. They do not stop feeling, manipulating, judging. They sink the ends of their fingers into the flesh of the shoulders and sides; they press the biceps with their thumb and middle finger, move joints, examine teeth and the inside of eyelids, pull hair, and tap chests as customs officers do casks. Then they make the men walk from left to right, and right to left. They make them bend, straighten themselves, kneel down, or expose the most secret parts of their person. ”

“ It is well to remember that one of the most effective returns which can be made from any guard is a point, and that a point can be made certainly from every hanging guard by merely straightening the arm from the guard, lunging, and coming in under your opponent’s weapon. ”

“ The handshake of some people makes you think of accident and sudden death. Contrast this ill-boding hand with the quick, skilful, quiet hand of a nurse whom I remember with affection because she took the best care of my teacher. ”

“ Never shall I forget the pathetic sight of a distinguished general—one who fought and won a battle in the American Civil War, that decided the fortunes of the North—buying a pair of kid gloves from a superior young person in a glove store. He waited a long time very patiently while she exchanged a light badinage with an idle youth, splendid in the tallest kind of a collar. ”

“ Tho' there is an infinite Number of Figures or Postures, and that every Posture may be in Guard, whether within, or without, Prime, Seconde, Tierce, or Quarte, they proceed from the Midling Guard, the Strait, the High, or the Low Guard, each of which may be attacked and defended within or without. ”