"The hand is masculine, and has been familiar with many friends in its
time. It hath dealt with steel, and cordage, and saltpetre, and most of
all with gold. Signori, the true seat of a man's digestion lies in the
palm of his hand; if that is free to give and to receive, he will never
have a costive conscience, for of all damnable inconveniences that afflict
mortals, that of a conscience that will neither give up nor take is the
heaviest curse. Let a man have as much sagacity as shall make him a
cardinal, if it get entangled in the meshes of one of your unyielding
consciences, ye shall see him a mendicant brother to his dying day; let
him be born a prince with a close-ribbed opinion of this sort, and he had
better have been born a beggar, for his reign will be like a river from
which the current sets outward, without any return. No, my friends, a palm
like this of Maso's is a favorable sign, since it hinges on a pliant will,
that will open and shut like a well-formed eye, or the jacket of a
shell-fish, at its owner's pleasure. Thou hast drawn near to many a port
before this of Vevey, after the sun has fallen low, Signor Maso!"
"In that I have taken a seaman's chances, which depend more on the winds
than on his own wishes.
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