You can easily tell what type of hand someone has, when you shake it - some people have soft skin, others have a rougher hand. This is your first impression of the other person's personality and it may give you invaluable information, which you can use in business meetings with them and elsewhere.
Usually, people with soft, smooth hands are quite calm and unperturbed. These types of people rarely lose their temper. A person with rough hands, however, becomes angered easily and is ready to explode at the slightest provocation.
Hand of the medium - out of all the possible shapes of the hand, the hand of the medium is the most beautiful and also the most rarely encountered. It has long, thin and delicate fingers, with long fingernails. It signifies a sensitive, intuitive personality.
The artistic hand - the hand of the artist has smooth fingers, whose fingernails are conically shaped. Painting, sculpture, monumental architecture, poetry of the imagination and senses, capturing that which is beautiful in a visual form, a romantic charm, desire for social independence, tendency toward enthusiasm, dependence on fantasy - all of these qualities belong to the hand of the artist.
A square hand - a symbol of consistency, practicality, precision and respect toward society and law. The square hand is of medium size, but large rather than small, often with crooked fingers, square fingernails, a large thumb, a well-developed Mount of Venus.
The necessary hand - it has fingers with nails which look like a flat spatula. The thumbs are large. The owner of this type of hand has no affinity for art and poetry, they are dominated by instincts, which lead to moral instability. They value only material benefits. These types of people are characterized by manual labor, as well as all types of physical exercise.
The philosophical hand - illustrates an analytical and delicate character. It is long, with bony fingers, large joints and fingernails. Persons with such hands are practical, have a taste for beauty, love public service activities and achievable goals.
The elementary hand - a sign of very weak intellect. It is large and cumbersome with short fingers, short nails and contains very few lines on the palm. These types of people have poor mental capabilities but have fierce strength; they hold no control over their passions or have any interest toward the spiritual realm.
The artistic-elementary hand - this is a slightly better version than the basic elementary hand. This is an improvement, found most often in men who have some sort of talent and come from the lower niches of society; because of their gifts, they rise up swiftly in the social hierarchy. Many great poets, famous musicians, renowned artists and sculptors fall in this category.
The hand of brutal murders - an Indian palmist once visited a prison and was astounded by the discovery that many of the murderers and criminals had the same type of hand. This type of hand has thick reddish palms, which are wider than the average palm. It has short, usually crooked fingers, often in the shape of a spatula; the thumb has a more swollen distal phalanx, while the middle phalanx is quite small.
The hand of born idiots - this is a worse variation of the elementary hand. It is thought that these types of people are mentally undeveloped, children throughout their entire lives. This hand is amorphous, it appears broken. The palm is thick and narrow; the small width is complemented by the position of the thumb, which is placed very high up, and extremely short and shapeless. The fingers are half their normal lengths, while the phalanges are twisted.
The mixed hand - it is the most difficult to describe. The mixed hand bears this name because it cannot be categorized into any of the previously mentioned types. The fingers also belong to a different type. This is the hand of ideas, of flexibility and volatility toward the goal. A person with such a hand is adaptable to people and conditions but frivolous when they must apply their talents.
The hand of a woman - every type of hand in women corresponds to those of men, but those that look like a spatula or square are not as boldly expressed in women. Some palmists believe that only the left hands of women and right hands of men must be observed.
More from Palmistry: Fingers and the Hand
The ring finger
The middle finger
The finger nodes
Fingers and rings
More from Palmistry: Lines of the Hand
The line of Mars
The line of Reasoning
The line of Fate
The line of the Heart
