Lavater told Goethe that on a certain occasion when he held the velvet bag in the church as collector of the offerings, he tried to observe only the hands; and he satisfied himself that in every individual, the shape of the hand and of the fingers, the action and sentiment in dropping the gift into the bag, were distinctly different and individually characteristic. What then shall we say of Van Dyck, who painted the hands of his men and women, not from individual nature, but from a model hand—his own very often?—and every one who considers for a moment will see in Van Dyck’s portraits, that, however well painted and elegant the hands, they in very few instances harmonise with the _personalité_;—that the position is often affected, and as if intended for display,—the display of what is in itself a positive fault, and from which some little knowledge of comparative physiology would have saved him. There are hands of various character; the hand to catch, and the hand to hold; the hand to clasp, and the hand to grasp. The hand that has worked or could work, and the hand that has never done anything but hold itself out to be kissed, like that of Joanna of Arragon in Raphael’s picture. Let any one look at the hands in Titian’s portrait of old Paul IV.: though exquisitely modelled, they have an expression which reminds us of claws; they belong to the face of that grasping old man, and could belong to no other. [Illustration] 107. Mozart and Chopin, though their genius was differently developed, were alike in some things: in nothing more than this, that the artistic element in both minds wholly dominated over the social and practical, and that their art was the element in which they moved and lived, through which they felt and thought. I doubt whether either of them could have said, “_D’abord je suis homme et puis je suis artiste_;” whereas this could have been said with truth by Mendelsohn and by Litzst. In Mendelsohn the enormous creative power was modified by the intellect and the conscience. Litzst has no creative power. Litzst has thus drawn the character of Chopin:—“Rien n’était plus pur et plus exalté en même temps que ses pensées; rien n’était plus tenace, plus exclusif, et plus minutieusement dévoué que ses affections. Mais cet être ne comprenait que ce qui était identique à lui-même:—le reste n’existait pour lui que comme une sorte de rêve fâcheux, auquel il essayait de se soustraire en vivant au milieu du monde. Toujours perdu dans ses rêveries, la réalité lui deplaisait. Enfant il ne pouvait toucher à un instrument tranchant sans se blesser; homme il ne pouvait se trouver en face d’un homme différent de lui, sans se heurter contre cette contradiction vivante.”