Note the proportion of the lines. If the Life line alone be broad and shallow, and the other lines are good, the constitution cannot carry its share of the life's effort, and such a subject will be unsuccessful, sickly, despondent, and miserable. With this line study the Mount of Saturn carefully ; if it be large or gives in any way a large share of Saturnian quality to the subject, he will be melancholy, gloomy, and wretched. Such subjects commit suicide more frequently than any other. If the lower third of the Mount of Moon in a woman's hand shows female weakness the subject will be much more strongly impelled toward self-destruction. With such a line at once locate the type of your subject and hunt for health defects, either of his primary type or of the secondary or tertiary types, whose qualities will be supplementary; or health defects which may be shown on any other part of the hand. Chance lines will often point you to these defects. No subject with such markings should marry, for it will turn the home into a hospital.

Sometimes people are found who are strong enough to make them willing to spend a life in nursing and humoring whims, but these cases are few.

Parents are the safest reliance for such subjects. The Life line running like a ladder (183) has the same general effect as the broad and shallow line. The health will be very unstable and intermittent with this line, and not only is the subject delicate, but he has repeated illnesses, all of more than ordinary severity. When the Life line is composed of several fine lines close together (184), instead of a single deep line, it shows an intensely nervous state of health, great delicacy, and a liability to general debility. All of these lines reduce the vigor of every type, diminish their strength, and render them less likely to be pushing, active persons. Examine the Mounts to locate the health defects present, which will be exaggerated with these poor Life lines. The very thing that is causing your subject to be delicate, and which shows through the poor Life line, is some one of the health defects of the types. You need have no trouble in locating the source of the difficulty. A chained Life line (185) is one which shows great obstruction of the life Current, and the subject with this line will be delicate no. tea and suffer repeated annoying illnesses.

If the chaining run through the entire course of the line, this poor condition of health will be always present, but if it cover only a part of the line, the delicacy will only extend over the part of the life covered by the chain. The chained line is an aggravated addition of delicacy to the broad and shallow line. Conceive the Life Current bumping over the many rocks and shoals in the channel of a badly chained Life line, and you can figure something of the miserable health such a line indicates.

No. 184.

No. 185.

The character of the Life line as we have considered it above is a study of the line in general. The application of these general characteristics must be made in detail to the line from its source to termination. It is by such a method of procedure that we are able to locate from the line the periods of ill-health or delicacy and to read at what ages they occur. It is from the character of the line that we read constitutional tendencies to disease or debility, and it is to the signs and chance lines that we look for indications of acute attacks of fever or other diseases which come upon the subject suddenly and not as a result of constitutional deficiency. With nearly every Life line we find the first years chained, or poorly marked in some way (186). This shows the period of life covered by infantile diseases. If this beginning of the line is bad for a long distance, the child did not pass the danger point until late. If this bad beginning runs only a short distance, the period of childish delicacy was soon over. After this period, if the line become deep and well cut, and continue so to its end, the subject will have a strong constitution which asserts itself as soon as the delicacy of infancy is passed, and continues as long as the subject lives.

If, after the delicacy natural to the early years, the line be thin and continue so to the end, the subject has not a vigorous constitution to start with, and is never robust. If after the childish delicacy the line continue chained, broad, and shallow, or otherwise poorly marked, the subject will never be strong during life, but will always have a weak constitution. There are periods in almost every one's life when he is stronger than at others. Even a weak constitution will have times of revival. This will be shown by an uneven line in which the combinations of the character of the line may vary infinitely. We may find a line marked like 187. This line would be read : great delicacy in childhood up to twelve, at which time the health improved to a marked degree, though the subject was never robust; at thirty a period of great delicacy developed, lasting three years, after which time the subject seemed entirely to recover health and become robust and vigorous ; this condition continues until fifty, when the constitution becomes gradually weaker until the end of life. The combinations possible to be seen in Life lines are so many that an indefinite number of illustrations could be given, and yet not a fraction of the possibilities be shown.

By handling every variation of the line, however, according to the general rules governing the different characters of lines, and by following the method of reading as given in 187, you can correctly decipher every line. Back of all of these delicacies of constitution there are causes which produce them, and these causes are the health defects of the types, which in most cases are chronic ailments. Having discovered that your subject has a weak constitution, endeavor to discover what has made it weak. In this examination the type of the subject will aid, for it will tell to what he is predisposed. After you have located his type or combination of types, look at the primary Mount for grilles, cross-bars, crosses, or any marking which will enable you to locate a health defect of the type. If one be seen, go over the list and look at nails, color, Mercury line, and from some of these you will be able to locate which one of his type health defects has undermined the constitution. With this information you can tell him not only that he is constitutionally weak, but what is the cause. If you see no health defect of his primary Mount, look to the second, and tertiary, and all the other Mounts for health defects. It is written somewhere, if only looked for in the right place.