Page:True fortune teller, or, Universal book of fate (2).pdf/24

This page has been validated.

24

yet not practising it, from the goodness of his nature and a love of virtue.

Fleshy Nails. A calm person and idler, low to sleep, eat, and drink; not delighting in buck aud a busy life.

Little Nails. Little round nails discover a person to be obstinate, seldom pleased, inclining to hate every one, as conceiving himself superior to others, though without any foundation for such conception

Pale or Lead-coloured Nails. A melancholy person, one who through choice leads a sedentary life, and would willingly give up all things for the sake of study.

Red and Spotted Nails. Choleric and martial, delighting in cruelty and war; his chief pleasure being in plundering of towns, where every ferocious particle in human nature is glutted to satiety.

When upon the nails you find any black spots, they always signify evil, as white ones are a token of good.

White Nails. When the nails are white and long, the person is subject to great sickness; he is well-mado and comely, but much inclined to women, who deceive him through false pretences and shortly bring him to ruin.

If upon the white there appear pale lead-coloured spots, a short life and addicted to melancholy.


TO THE READER.

The foregoing pages are published principally to show the superstitions which engrossed the mind of the population of Scotland during a past age, and which are happily disappearing before the progress of an enlightened civilization. It is hoped, therefore that the reader will not attach the slightest importance to the solutions of the dreams as rendered above, as dreams are generally the result of a disordered stomach, or an excited imagination.