"I take thy hand, this hand,
As soft as dove's down, and as white as it;
Or Ethiopia's tooth, or the fann'd snow,
That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er."
--_Shakespeare._
Pretty hands--like sweet tempers and paragons of husbands--are largely
a matter of care and cultivation. Much more so, in fact, than most of
us are aware. While tapering fingers and perfect palms count for
considerable, the general beauty of the hand lies not in its correct
outline so much as in the whiteness and velvety softness of the skin
and the perfectly trimmed, well-kept nails. I have seen hands as plump
as rotund little butter rolls, with fingers like wee sausages, and I
have also gazed upon long, slender hands as perfect of form and
proportion as any hand ever put into a Gainsborough masterpiece. And
both have been called beautiful. Of course, we all know that the
Gainsborough model is perfection, but nevertheless we can content
ourselves with the knowledge that really ideal hands are as rare as a
few other nice things in this world, and that we can struggle along
very well with our good imitations providing we are able to keep them
clean and well groomed.
The poets have raved their wildest over the beauty of women's hands
from the time when Adam had his first desire to write jingles--if he
ever was so silly--to the present day of Kipling's entrancing verse.
Shakespeare in his many tributes to the unfortunate young Juliet spoke
of the "white wonder" of her hands, and there has probably never lived
a versifier who has not, at one time or another, gone into paroxysms of
poetry over "lovely fingers," and "dainty palms," and all that. And I
don't wonder, do you? for a woman's hand--when it is beautiful--is
certainly a most adorable thing. It should be soft and yielding and
caressing--with small, dainty joints, a satiny surface and carefully
manicured nails of shell-pink tint.
First of all, tight sleeves and very tight gloves must be condemned.
Next, relaxation and repose are to be cultivated. A beautiful hand that
fidgets continually is not to be admired for anything beyond its
ceaseless efforts to be doing. Ben Jonson once said: "A busy woman is a
fearful nuisance," and it's more than likely that he had in mind some
fussy dame whose nervous fingers were everlastingly picking at things
and continually on the wiggle.
The hand can easily be taught to move gracefully. The ordinary Delsarte
movements of swinging the wrist backward and forward, of raising the
hands high above the head, and the general exercises for the
cultivation of gesture and expression are all good and can bring about
the habit of spontaneous relaxation and activity. No gestures at all,
though, are better than awkward ones.
Large joints are very unsightly. It is said of the Countess of Soissons
that she never closed her hands for fear of hardening the joints.
Funny, isn't it, to what extremes those old-time ladies went? And yet
the Nordauites say we are degenerates!
Of Mme. Crequy it is recorded that "she was a woman most resolute," and
in proof of that assertion the chronicler says that if no lackey were
within call she opened the doors herself--without fear of blistering
her hands! It was the desire for dainty, delicate white hands that
first gave nice little boys the task of trotting after stately dames
and carrying my lady's prayerbook or fan. Fancy one of those
porcelain-like creatures of helplessness hanging onto the strap in a
State Street cable car! Perish the thought! And what a jolly time Mme.
Crequy would have had could she have indulged in a Christmas shopping
scrimmage. After a few tussels with the swing doors that bar our
entrance to the big stores, Mme. Crequy would have blistered her hands
to the queen's taste and the poultice stage. There's no chance of a
doubt about that.