Teheuti
I found this bit about gloves in a book on Masonic symbolism and thought it might be relevant to the mittens on the girl in this card. The Cups suit is generally not as Masonic as the Pentacles but seems to apply here. Additionally, the girl is wearing a smock or pinafore, which are both apron-like garments worn over a dress to protect it.
"In the continental rites of Masonry, as practised in France, in Germany, and in other countries of Europe, it is an invariable custom to present the newly-initiated candidate not only, as we do, with a white leather apron, but also with two pairs of white kid gloves, one a man's pair for himself, and the other a woman's, to be presented by him in turn to his wife or his betrothed, according to the custom of the German masons, or, according to the French, to the female whom he most esteems, "which, indeed, amounts, or should amount, to the same thing. . . . The investiture with the gloves is very closely connected with the investiture with the apron, and the consideration of the symbolism of the one naturally follows the consideration of the symbolism of the other. . . . The symbolism of the gloves, it will be admitted, is, in fact, but a modification of that of the apron. They both signify the same thing; both are allusive to a purification of life. "Who shall ascend," says the Psalmist, "into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." The apron may be said to refer to the "pure heart," the gloves to the "clean hands." Both are significant of purification - of that purification which was always symbolized bv the ablution which preceded the ancient initiations into the sacred Mysteries. . . . "Hands," says Wemyss, in his "Clavis Symbolica," are the symbols of human actions; pure hands are pure actions; unjust hands are deeds of injustice." There are numerous references in sacred and profance writers to this symbolism. The washing of the hands has the outward sign of an internal purification. Hence the Psalmist says, "I will wash my hands in innocence, and I will encompass thine altar, Jehovah." THE SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY, Albert G. Mackey, 1882, p. 136-138.
Any thoughts?
"In the continental rites of Masonry, as practised in France, in Germany, and in other countries of Europe, it is an invariable custom to present the newly-initiated candidate not only, as we do, with a white leather apron, but also with two pairs of white kid gloves, one a man's pair for himself, and the other a woman's, to be presented by him in turn to his wife or his betrothed, according to the custom of the German masons, or, according to the French, to the female whom he most esteems, "which, indeed, amounts, or should amount, to the same thing. . . . The investiture with the gloves is very closely connected with the investiture with the apron, and the consideration of the symbolism of the one naturally follows the consideration of the symbolism of the other. . . . The symbolism of the gloves, it will be admitted, is, in fact, but a modification of that of the apron. They both signify the same thing; both are allusive to a purification of life. "Who shall ascend," says the Psalmist, "into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." The apron may be said to refer to the "pure heart," the gloves to the "clean hands." Both are significant of purification - of that purification which was always symbolized bv the ablution which preceded the ancient initiations into the sacred Mysteries. . . . "Hands," says Wemyss, in his "Clavis Symbolica," are the symbols of human actions; pure hands are pure actions; unjust hands are deeds of injustice." There are numerous references in sacred and profance writers to this symbolism. The washing of the hands has the outward sign of an internal purification. Hence the Psalmist says, "I will wash my hands in innocence, and I will encompass thine altar, Jehovah." THE SYMBOLISM OF FREEMASONRY, Albert G. Mackey, 1882, p. 136-138.
Any thoughts?
