look in your "century dictionary," or if you are blind, ask your teacher to do it for you, and learn how many idioms are made on the idea of hand, and how many words are formed from the latin root manus—enough words to name all the essential affairs of life. "hand," with quotations and compounds, occupies twenty-four columns, eight pages of this dictionary. the hand is defined as "the organ of apprehension." how perfectly the definition fits my case in both senses of the word "apprehend"! with my hand i seize and hold all that i find in the three worlds—physical, intellectual, and spiritual.
think how man has regarded the world in terms of the hand. all life is divided between what lies on one hand and on the other. the products of skill are manufactures. the conduct of affairs is management. history seems to be the record—alas for our chronicles of war!—of the manœuvres of armies. but the history of peace, too, the narrative of labour in the field, the forest, and the vineyard, is written in the victorious sign manual—the sign of the hand that has conquered the wilderness. the labourer himself is called a hand. in manacle and manumission we read the story of human slavery and freedom.
the minor idioms are myriad; but i will not recall too many, lest you cry, "hands off!" i cannot desist, however, from this word-game until i have set down a few. whatever is not one's own by first possession is second-hand. that is what i am told my knowledge is. but my well-meaning friends come to my defence, and, not content with endowing me with natural first-hand knowledge which is rightfully mine, ascribe to me a preternatural sixth sense and credit to miracles and heaven-sent compensations all that i have won and discovered with my good right hand. and with my left hand too; for with that i read, and it is as true and honourable as the other. 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.
no essay would be complete without quotations from shakspere. in the field which, in the presumption of my youth, i thought was my own he has reaped before me. in almost every play there are passages where the hand plays a part. lady macbeth's heart-broken soliloquy over her little hand, from which all the perfumes of arabia will not wash the stain, is the most pitiful moment in the tragedy. mark antony[37] rewards scarus, the bravest of his soldiers, by asking cleopatra to give him her hand: "commend unto his lips thy favouring hand." in a different mood he is enraged because thyreus, whom he despises, has presumed to kiss the hand of the queen, "my playfellow, the kingly seal of high hearts." when cleopatra is threatened with the humiliation of gracing cæsar's triumph, she snatches a dagger, exclaiming, "i will trust my resolution and my good hands." with the same swift instinct, cassius trusts to his hands when he stabs cæsar: "speak, hands, for me!" "let me kiss your hand," says the blind gloster to lear. "let me wipe it first," replies the broken old king; "it smells of mortality." how charged is this single touch with sad meaning! how it opens our eyes to the fearful purging lear has undergone, to learn that royalty is no defence against ingratitude and cruelty! gloster's exclamation about his son, "did i but live to see thee in my touch, i'd say i had eyes again," is as true to a pulse within me as the grief he feels. the ghost in "hamlet" recites the wrongs from which springs the tragedy:
thus was i, sleeping, by a brother's hand.
at once of life, of crown, of queen dispatch'd.
how that passage in "othello" stops your breath—that passage full of bitter double intention in which othello's suspicion tips with evil what he says about desdemona's hand; and she in innocence answers only the innocent meaning of his words: "for 'twas that hand that gave away my heart."
not all shakspere's great passages about the hand are tragic. remember the light play of words in "romeo and juliet" where the dialogue, flying nimbly back and forth, weaves a pretty sonnet about the hand. and who knows the hand, if not the lover?
the touch of the hand is in every chapter of the bible. why, you could almost rewrite exodus as the story of the hand. everything is done by the hand of the lord and of moses. the oppression of the hebrews is translated thus: "the hand of pharaoh was heavy upon the hebrews." their departure out of the land is told in these vivid words: "the lord brought the children of israel out of the house of bondage with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm." at the stretching out of the hand of moses the waters of the red sea part and stand all on a heap. when the lord lifts his hand in anger, thousands perish in the wilderness. every act, every decree in the history of israel, as indeed in the history of the human race, is sanctioned by the hand. is it not used in the great moments of swearing, blessing, cursing, smiting, agreeing, marrying, building, destroying? its sacredness is in the law that no sacrifice is valid unless the sacrificer lay his hand upon the head of the victim. the congregation lay their hands on the heads of those who are sentenced to death. how terrible the dumb condemnation of their hands must be to the condemned! when moses builds the altar on mount sinai, he is commanded to use no tool, but rear it with his own hands. earth, sea, sky, man, and all lower animals are holy unto the lord because he has formed them with his hand. when the psalmist considers the heavens and the earth, he exclaims: "what is man, o lord, that thou art mindful of him? for thou hast made him to have dominion over the works of thy hands." the supplicating gesture of the hand always accompanies the spoken prayer, and with clean hands goes the pure heart.
christ comforted and blessed and healed and wrought many miracles with his hands. he touched the eyes of the blind, and they were opened. when jairus sought him, overwhelmed with grief, jesus went and laid his hands on the ruler's daughter, and she awoke from the sleep of death to her father's love. you also remember how he healed the crooked woman. he said to her, "woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity," and he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified god.
look where we will, we find the hand in time and history, working, building, inventing, bringing civilization out of barbarism. the hand symbolizes power and the excellence of work. the mechanic's hand, that minister of elemental forces, the hand that hews, saws, cuts, builds, is useful in the world equally with the delicate hand that paints a wild flower or moulds a grecian urn, or the hand of a statesman that writes a law. the eye cannot say to the hand, "i have no need of thee." blessed be the hand! thrice blessed be the hands that work!