"The Useful Hand," says d'Arpentigny, "is of medium size, but large rather than small, often with Knotty Fingers, the nailed Phalanges of which arc square, that is to say, their four sides extend parallel up to and including the Tips (you must not take any notice of the curve, which nearly a1ways finishes of the points of the fingers); a large Thumb, with the base thereof (the Mount of Venus) well developed, the Palm of medium dimension, and rather firm."

Perseverance, foresight and the spirit of order and conventionality, with a love of truth and Fair play, characterize the individualities revealed to us by Useful Hands.

"The possessors of such hands have a deep preference for similitude and homo geneityy. They know wherein things which differ are similar, and the points in which things that seem similar In reality differ; which faculty constitutes the spirit in which the various. of hierarchy range themselves in clearly defined lines, and in which, according to them, lie the principles of political power and wisdom. They intentionally confound discipline with civilization, i. e., they are narrow-minded respecters of the letter of the law, for they range all rules as duties, subjecting thoughts to thought, men to man, and only tolerating such impulses of the mind, the soul, and the heart as reason (considered from its narrowest aspect) accepts and permits.

"One taw of all others is dear to them, that of continuity, and it is according to that rule, by tradition and transmitted law, that their development takes place. Such intelligences, otherwise vigorous, have no wings; they can expand but they cannot rise,

"The earth is preeminently their abode; they can see nothing beyond the social life of man; they know no more of the world of ideas than what the naked eye can know of heaven. Beyond this, they are always ready to deny all that they cannot feel or understand, and to look upon the limits of their understanding as the limits of nature. Even in literature, what of ideality these Useful Hands can comprehend stops short at a very narrow limit. They keep away from ideahsm just as they do from boldness of thought or novelty of form.

"Their tastes are in the direction of moral, political, social, and philosophical sciences; didactic, analytic and dramatic poetry; grammar, form, language, logic, mathematics, love of literary exactitude, meter, rhythm, symmetry and arrangement, strictly defined and conventional art. Their views of things are just rather than wide; they have great commercial talent; they have positive but moderate ideas, with the instinct of duty and of the respect due to authority, of the cultivation of practical truth and of good behavior, with a strong paternal instinct; in fact, generally speaking, having more brains than heart, they prefer what they discover to what they imagine.

"In social relations, they require security and exactitude; in life, moderation. Circumspect and far-seeing, they like what is clearly known, and suspect the unknown. Born for the cultivation of commonplace ideas, they pay less attention to the actually real than to the apparently real; they recommend themselves by their good sense, rather than by their genius; by their cultivated talents. rather than by the faculties of imagination. Such subjects will accept none but the man who is welt taught, disciplined, molded and trimmed upon a certain pattern. Where the man of learning shows himself in all his glory, they go to seek their models and their examples.

"Townsmen rather than citizens, men of the Square-Handed type prefer certain privileges to absolute liberty. Authority is the base of all their instincts, the authority of rank, of birth, of law and of custom; they like to feel and to impose the yoke."

Useful Hands love order for itself, admitting freely to their lives everything resulting therefrom.

The above, very brilliant description, mostly adapted from d'Arpentigny himself, culling here and there his best paragraphs, explains sufficiently why the Useful Hands are very generally provided with knots, or, at least, with distinct Second Knots, which complete and "round up," so to speak, their more decided idiosyncrasies.