Reading the Hands

There is utmost necessity for conscientious study and abiding patience for reading a hand. As there are no two natures alike, so there are no two hands alike.

To be able to read the hand is to be able to read the book of nature – there is no study more arduous, there is nothing more fascinating or one that will repay the time and labour spent upon it with more interest.

If one wishes to do justice to this subject one should not treat it as a cakewalk, as other writers normally tend to do. One should not assume that it is an easy task to be done by taking some set rules as a guide, to be able to ‘read the hand’ without any exercise of the student’s mentality. On the contrary, we shall show that every line, without exception, is modified by the particular type to which it belongs as, for instance, a sloping line of head on a square hand has a completely different meaning from the same sloping line on a conic, or philosophic type and so on. The student must bear in mind the enormous difficulties that lie in the way of making a clear explanation of every point in connection with such an intricate study.