ails left to bite--that the day, in fact, is not far
distant, when nails, rather than teeth, will become extinct.

The Irish, French, Italians, Spanish, and Danes, being far more dramatic
and psychic than the English, have far nicer hands, and for one set of
filbert nails in London, we may count a dozen in Paris or Madrid.

Murderers' hands are often noticeable for their knotted knuckles and
club-shaped finger-tips; suicides--for the slenderness of the thumbs
and strong inclination of the index to the second finger; thieves--for
the pointedness of the finger-tips, and the length and suppleness of the
fingers. Dominating, coarse-minded people, and people who exert undue
influence over others, generally have broad, flat thumbs. The hands of
soldiers and sailors are usually broad, with short, thick, square-tipped
fingers; the hands of clergy are also more often broad and coarse than
slender and conical, which may be accounted for by the fact that so many
of them enter the Church with other than spiritual motives. The really
spiritual hand is the counterpart of the psychical, and rarely seen in
England. Doctors, doctors with a genuine love of their profession, in
other words, "born" doctors, have broad but slender palms, with long,
supple fingers and moderately square tips. This type of hand is typical,
also, of the hospital nurse.

It is, of course, a gross error to think that birth has everything to do
with the shape of the hand; for the latter is entirely dependent on
temperament; but it is also a mistake to say that as many
beautiful-shaped hands are to be found among the lower as among the
upper classes in England. It is a mistake, because the psychic and
dramatic temperaments (and the psychic and dramatic type of hand is
unquestionably the most beautiful) are rarely to be found in the middle
and lower classes in England--they are almost entirely confined to the
upper classes.

_Pyromancy_

Predicting the future by fire is one of the oldest methods of
fortune-telling, and has been practised from time immemorial. I have
often had my fortune told in the fire, but I cannot say it has ever
proved to be very correct; only once a prognostication came true,--a
sudden death occurred in a family very nearly connected with me, after a
very fanciful churchyard had been pointed out to me amid the glowing
embers.

_Hydromancy_

There are many ways of telling the fortune by means of water. One of the
most usual methods