The Palmist: A Chapter in Chiromancy

The Palmist: A Chapter in Chiromancy

Palm Reading

This poem which appeared in the comic and satirical newspaper "Funny Folks" speaks on the subject of cheiromancy (spelled here as 'chiromancy'), and comically reveals the subjective and ultimately false nature of palm reading by telling the love story in which a young woman falls in love with a cheiromantist after he tells her that it is her fate to fall in love with someone who fits the exact description of himself. While this poem is light-hearted and funny, playing with the use of 'hand' in the sense of palm-reading as well as giving one's hand in marriage, the falsity of cheiromancy in "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime" is a much more serious manner. When we find out at the end of the story that Lady Windmere's cheiromantist, Mr. Podgers, was an imposter, we are struck by the fact that Lord Arthur essentially killed someone for absolutely no reason, and provided with the moral that we should be cautious in believing what cannot be known.

Unknown

19th Century Periodicals. Series I and II: Accessed through the New York Public Library

Funny Folks

September 16, 1893

The British Library

Poem, 5 stanzas, 40 lines

Poem