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- 11184
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.843Z
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- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 11134
- text
- and the fingers were long and thin; the knuckles softly rounded; the
nails hemispherical at the base; and the smooth palm furnishing few
characters for an Egyptian fortune-teller to read. It was not as the
sturdy farmer’s hand of Cincinnatus, who followed the plough and guided
the state; but it was as the perfumed hand of Petronius Arbiter, that
elegant young buck of a Roman, who once cut great Seneca dead in the
forum.
His hand alone, would have entitled my Bury blade to the suffrages of
that Eastern potentate, who complimented Lord Byron upon his feline
fingers, declaring that they furnished indubitable evidence of his
noble birth. And so it did: for Lord Byron was as all the rest of
us—the son of a _man._ And so are the dainty-handed, and wee-footed
half-cast paupers in Lima; who, if their hands and feet were entitled
to consideration, would constitute the oligarchy of all Peru.
Folly and foolishness! to think that a gentleman is known by his
finger-nails, like Nebuchadnezzar, when his grew long in the pasture:
or that the badge of nobility is to be found in the smallness of the
foot, when even a fish has no foot at all!
Dandies! amputate yourselves, if you will; but know, and be assured,
oh, democrats, that, like a pyramid, a great man stands on a broad
base. It is only the brittle porcelain pagoda, that tottles on a toe.
But though Harry’s hand was lady-like looking, and had once been white
as the queen’s cambric handkerchief, and free from a stain as the
reputation of Diana; yet, his late pulling and hauling of halyards and
clew-lines, and his occasional dabbling in tar-pots and slush-shoes,
had somewhat subtracted from its original daintiness.
Often he ruefully eyed it.
Oh! hand! thought Harry, ah, hand! what have you come to? Is it seemly,
that you should be polluted with pitch, when you once handed countesses
to their coaches? Is _this_ the hand I kissed to the divine Georgiana?
with which I pledged Lady Blessington, and ratified my bond to Lord
Lovely? _This_ the hand that Georgiana clasped to her bosom, when she
vowed she was mine?—Out of sight, recreant and apostate!—deep
down—disappear in this foul monkey-jacket pocket where I thrust you!
After many long conversations, it was at last pretty well decided, that
upon our arrival at New York, some means should be taken among my few
friends there, to get Harry a place in a mercantile house, where he
might flourish his pen, and gently exercise his delicate digits, by
traversing some soft foolscap; in the same way that slim, pallid ladies
are gently drawn through a park for an airing.
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