eals to the
physician all the mysteries of our organism. It exhales more than any
other part of our bodies the nervous fluid, or that unknown substance,
which for want of another term we style _will_. The eye can discover the
mood of our soul but the hand betrays at the same time the secrets of
the body and those of the soul. We can acquire the faculty of imposing
silence on our eyes, on our lips, on our brows, and on our forehead; but
the hand never dissembles and nothing in our features can be compared to
the richness of its expression. The heat and cold which it feels in such
delicate degrees often escape the notice of other senses in thoughtless
people; but a man knows how to distinguish them, however little time he
may have bestowed in studying the anatomy of sentiments and the affairs
of human life. Thus the hand has a thousand ways of becoming dry, moist,
hot, cold, soft, rough, unctuous. The hand palpitates, becomes supple,
grows hard and again is softened. In fine it presents a phenomenon which
is inexplicable so that one is tempted to call it the incarnation of
thought. It causes the despair of the sculptor and the painter when they
wish to express the changing labyrinth of its mysterious lineaments.
To stretch out your hand to a man is to save him, it serves as a
ratification of the sentiments we express. The sorcerers of every age
have tried to read our future destines in those lines which have nothing
fanciful in them, but absolutely correspond with the principles of each
one's life and character. When she charges a man with want of tact,
which is merely touch, a woman condemns him without hope. We use the
expressions, the "Hand of Justice," the "Hand of God;" and a _coup de
main_ means a bold undertaking.

To understand and recognize the hidden feelings by the atmospheric
variations of the hand, which a woman almost always yields without
distrust, is a study less unfruitful and surer than that of physiognomy.

In this way you will be able, if you acquire this science, to wield vast
power, and to find a clue which will guide you through the labyrinth of
the most impenetrable heart. This will render your living together free
from very many mistakes, and, at the same time, rich in the acquisition
of many a treasure.

Buffon and certain physiologists affirm that our members are more
completely exhausted by desire than by the most keen enjoyments.
And really, does not desire constitute of itself a sort of int