The Weak Line of Life

The thin Life line indicates a lack of robust, muscular vitality and great endurance.

Those who have such a marking should never go beyond their strength.

For a Jupiterian and a Martian, this thin line will reduce the tendencies to excess.

• They will not have the strong impelling force of great vitality to urge them, consequently such subjects do not stand in danger from apoplexy and blood disorders resulting from dissipation, but they suffer from nervous disorders.

The Apollonian will run on a lower schedule of speed, and the Venusian will not be impelled toward as great physical gratifications.

As strong vitality urges and feeds the desire of all types, so the thin Life line, indicating lack of robustness, minimizes and reduces the operation of every type, and makes each milder. These subjects are often lazy, and thin Life lines must be noted even with elastic consistency, for sometimes a lack of energy is accounted for by a lack of physical vigor.

A broad and shallow line (182) shows an utter lack of vitality. There is in this case no power to resist disease, no robustness, no strong constitution, no physical vigor, no muscular power. We find these subjects an easy prey to all kinds of disorders. Their system is in a flabby, weak condition, and furnishes a fertile soil in which bacteria germinate. These subjects have no endurance, no stamina, no confidence in themselves.

They have weak constitutions, and lack energy and push. This is because they are not physically strong, and must not be taken as an indication of inherent laziness. They are conscious of a labored effort whenever they undertake physical exertion, and from this kind of a Life line we get the chronic complainers and those who never feel well. These subjects are very dependent; they lean on friends and relatives, and soon fall into the way of being looked after.

They do not often achieve great success, for they have not the strength to breast the tide of competition and the " hustle " of the age. They lack aggression and strength, and consequently must be taken care of or they go under. Such Life lines are an indication of great nervousness, and these subjects are carried purely by their nervous force.

Often when necessity forces them to make strong efforts they will work when they feel that they can hardly put one foot in front of the other. Only positions where the work is purely routine, easy, and does not require much responsibility are suited to subjects with such Life lines.

When they are forced into vocations requiring greater physical exertion and the shouldering of responsibilities they do not hold out a great while. Such a Life line on a flabby hand indicates the extreme of laziness. Even an elastic consistency cannot overcome the lack of vital strength and energy of a broad and shallow Life line.

Spatulate tips will be only mentally active with this line; the skill these splendid tips give to a subject in all kinds of sports and games, or in the battle of life, will be only a shadow if accompanied by such a line, for all the type qualities will be lessened in their force and achievement. The Jupiterian will have no strength for excess, the Martian will be too weak to fight.

Venusians will lack physical sexual power, no matter how much the thought of sexual relations may attract them. Children are seldom born to or from such subjects. There are many variations in this line; some are very broad and very shallow, and show that the Current has no deep channel through which to flow. Other lines will only approach such a condition. Estimate the intensity of any line by its degree of breadth and shallowness.

Note both hands. If the Life line be good in the left hand and broad and shallow in the right, the weak constitution is growing on the subject. If the marking be reversed, the weak constitution is growing stronger.

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.

• 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.

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. Sometimes a chance line will point from the delicacy on the Life line to the cause producing it, and generally it will be found on one of the Mounts. The individual signs, or as we have called some of them, “defects,” in the line will locate specific points when illnesses occurred or will occur.

These defects are cross-bars cutting the line, islands, dots, breaks, and splits. All lines which cut across the Life line interrupt or cut the Current, and at the time the cutting occurs they produce a defective operation which in the case of the Life line is one of health. In some cases, especially with very nervous persons, the Life line is continually cut by little lines which are fine and do not cut the Life line in two (188).

These lines show innumerable worries, the result of an intensely nervous condition, and the subject is prone to numerous small illnesses which have kept him in a continual state of depression or of ill-health. If these cross-bars be fine, the illnesses have not been serious but annoying, and there have been as many as there are bars cutting the Life line. If these bars be deep and cut the Life line, there have been severe illnesses.

If they be red the illness has been by fever. It is by the depth of these cross-lines that you must estimate their seriousness, and generally they will end somewhere on a Mount or line which will give you the clew to the nature of the trouble. The age at which these illnesses occur can be read from the Life line.

If a crossbar cut the Life line and end in a grille on Saturn (189), the illness will be a health defect of Saturn; which one you can determine from nails and color. If the cross-bar go to a dot, island, or a break in the Heart line under Apollo (190), the illness is heart disease; the outcome can be read from the Heart line or the termination of the Life line. Nails and color will aid to confirm the diagnosis.

If the cross-bar run to a wavy line of Mercury (191). the illness is jaundice or severe bilious fever; age in all cases to be read from the point at which the cross-bar cuts the Life line. If the crossbar run to a grille on Upper Mars (192), with the Martian type strong, the trouble will be either blood disorder or throat and bronchial trouble. Nails will confirm the latter, or islands on the line of Mercury. If the cross-bar go to a grille or cross on the Upper Moon (193), bowel trouble or intestinal inflammation is the difficulty.

If the cross-bar run to the middle of the Mount of Moon (194), especially if grilled, gout or rheumatism is the difficulty. This is completely confirmed if a line with an island runs to Saturn (195). This double indication is reliable even though no grille or cross is found on the Mount of Moon.

If the cross-bar goes to a grille, cross-bar, or cross on Lower Moon (196), the trouble is with kidneys or bladder, or from female disease. White color and soft or flabby hands, transparent in appearance, will confirm the former; a star in the Mercury line, especially if at the point where it crosses the line of Head, will confirm the latter (197).

If the Life line be good with the above markings, the type defects are natural to the subject, as shown by the grille or other defects on the Mounts. However, the strong Life line shows a vigorous constitution and ability to resist and throw off disease, consequently the chronic trouble only manifests itself in a severe illness, not by a prolonged period of delicacy. If the Life line be thin, chained, or broad and shallow, these crossbars will be found more frequently, for the constitution is not robust and cannot shake off the type health defects as in the case of the deep line. With all cross-bars note the Life line after it is cut, and it will tell whether recovery is complete or not.

If, after a cross-bar cutting a thin Life line and running to an island, dot, cross, or break on the Head line, the Life line has an island and becomes broad and shallow afterward (198), the subject, naturally not robust, has a severe attack of brain trouble which leaves him delicate, and from which he never regains his normal strength. The head is also left delicate as a result of this illness, shown by the island on the Head line. Sometimes the cross-bars cutting the Life line begin on Influence lines on the Mount of Venus (199).

In these cases worry concerning the influence has caused the illness shown by the cross-bar. This is especially true if the Influence line be deep and strong. If the cross-bar run to a narrow quadrangle (200), it will be a sign of asthma ; the narrowing of the quadrangle as a health indication shows a tendency to suffocation, and this has been found to relate to attacks of asthma. Always see the narrow quadrangle before using this reading, as that is the thing which locates the disease ; a line running into a normal quadrangle would not give such an indication.

If a cross-bar run to a ladder-like line of Mercury (201), it shows that the illness comes from stomach trouble, as that is the weakness shown by such a Mercury line. If the cross-bar run to an islanded line of Mercury (202), it shows that throat and lung trouble is the difficulty, that being the indication of such a Mercury line.

Islands on the Life line (203) show that the Current is split in two during their continuance, and consequently operates with a diminished force. They are always indications of periods of delicacy. The point where the island begins will mark the commencement of this period of delicacy, and the end of the island will tell when it is over, provided the line is good afterward. If the island be a very small one (204), it will indicate a single illness, and you must proceed by examining Mounts, Head, Heart, Mercury, chance lines, and all other health indications to find out the nature of the illness.

If the line contain a series of islands (205), it operates like a chained line, indicating a continuous succession of illnesses and delicacy, and you must locate the cause of trouble from other parts of the hand. If in this case the first island be small and they grow larger as they continue, the trouble is increasing. If the reverse marking appears, the trouble is diminishing.

As most islands appear larger than mere dots, they generally indicate a chronic state of ill-health during their presence rather than acute attacks. Primarily the island indicates delicacy, and gives warning to look out for trouble. Your first duty is to discover what is causing the delicacy. In very many hands islands in the Life line will be seen, and the rest of the hand filled with cross-lines. This will indicate great nervousness, and that will likely be the cause of the islands.

It will certainly be one cause. On seeing an island, at once begin a search of the entire hand for health defects, and somewhere the cause of the island will be found. Sometimes you will find an island in the Life line and the Head line cut by numerous bars (206); if no other health defects be seen and the cutting bars are fine, this will show that severe headaches cause the delicacy ; or if the bars be deep, brain disturbance of a more serious character is indicated. If islands appear on the Head line (207) with an island on the Life line, the head is the cause of the delicacy. If dots appear on the Head line with an island on the Life line (208), brain fevers will be the cause of the delicacy, especially if the dots be red or purple in color.

If dots be seen on the Heart line with an island on the Life line (209), heart disease will be the cause of the delicacy.

Dots on the Heart line will indicate acute attacks, and if many are present these attacks come frequently, producing the continued delicate health shown by the island in the Life line. Nails and color will confirm these indications. If islands appear in the Heart line (210), general heart weakness will cause the delicacy shown by the island in the Life line. Nails and color will confirm this. This will not indicate the acute attacks shown by the dots in the Heart line, but general structural deficiency. If a wavy line of Mercury be seen with an island in the Life line, biliousness will be intense, and will cause the delicacy (211).

If the line of Mercury be ladder-like (212), and an island is seen on the Life line, dyspepsia, indigestion, and all forms of stomach trouble will cause the delicacy.

Grilles, crosses, cross-bars, and all defective markings on the Mounts will locate the cause of the delicacy as a type defect peculiar to the Mount on which the defect appears. If a dot be seen before the island on the Life line (213), an acute attack will be followed by a period of delicacy ; the nature of the acute trouble to be located from the rest of the hand. Sometimes you will encounter a double set of indications.

An island will be seen in the Life line early in life, and some trouble may be shown in the Head line. Later in the Life line another island may appear, and on the Heart line islands may be seen, or a wavy Mercury line, or defect on a Mount (214). This should be read as two periods of delicacy in the life, one early, and as the defect in the Head line also shows no. 211. early in that line, this will be the cause of the first island in the Life line. The second island shows a second period of delicacy, and the trouble in the Heart line will explain it. The number of islands seen in the Life line will indicate the number of periods of delicacy in the life of the subject, but each one may be caused by a different disease, and these can be found by following the method employed in 214.

An island in the Life line, with an islanded line running to it from Saturn, and a second line from middle third of Moon, will locate gout or rheumatism as the cause of the delicacy (215). An island in the Life line with a grille on Saturn and line connecting it with the island, with dots or islands in the Head line under Saturn, fluted and brittle nails, will locate paralysis as the trouble (216). An island in the Life line, with a line connecting it with a red or purple dot on Jupiter, color of hand and lines red, and thin Head line, will show an apoplectic tendency to be the cause of the trouble.

This is more certain if a grille or cross be seen on Upper Mars (217). An island in Life line, grille on Saturn with line connecting, and wavy Mercury line will show extreme biliousness and indigestion as the trouble. Yellow color will confirm this, and bars frequently cutting the Head line or small islands appearing in it will show bilious headaches (218). In all of these cases the island in the Life line enables one to distinguish that the trouble is a defect of health, and not one affecting the finances or affairs of life.

Disease we read from the Life line, financial affairs from the Saturn and Apollo lines. Poor health may affect these matters, but they are not read from the Life line. It is very common to see an island in the Life line of women at ages 42-46.

This will indicate the age at which their change of life occurs, and the duration of the island will tell you how long it lasts. Whenever an island is seen in this location (219), it should always be read in the hands of women as change of life.

The line after this island will tell you how seriously this change affects the subject. If the island be followed by a deep line, the effect is only a delicacy during the period of the change; if the line become thin, broad and shallow, or chained, the subject never recovers her full strength and vigor afterwards. If with this island there appears a grille on Lower Moon (220), female weakness will be an added impediment to a successful change.

If you read this hand before the change has occurred, it is your duty to advise that the subject take medical treatment in order, as far as possible, to remove this difficulty before the change of life comes on. If, in this indication, a line connects the island and the grille, the indication is more certain, and if a star be seen on the Mercury line at or near the juncture with the line of Head, it is absolutely correct (221).

This change of life is shown not only by the island, but by other defective conditions of the Life line at this age. If the line has been deep and strong, and at this age becomes thin (222), it indicates the time and the trouble, but shows that it is less serious.

If the line at this age become broad and shallow (223), it shows that the change greatly weakens the constitution, how seriously the remainder of the line will tell. If it remain broad and shallow or chained to the end of the line the original strength is never regained.

Complications often ensue during this period of life = islands or breaks are often seen in the Head line, indicating that during this time mental strength is weak. Sometimes female disturbances occur, and frequently bowel inflammations. These will be marked in their proper places on the Mounts. Sometimes the heart’s action will be obstructed, and this will be shown by islands, breaks, or dots in the Heart line at the proper age.

With the idea in mind that an island in the Life line is a period of delicate health, you will always be warned, and begin the search for its cause. Do not be in a hurry; look the entire hand over, consider everything. This cannot be done hastily. Bring to bear every point relating to health and apply it to the island. Proceed with care, and you will be able to locate the cause and effect of every one.

Dots on the Life line (224) are rare.

They are indications of acute illness or of accident. They vary in size from mere pin points, hardly noticeable, to large holes which destroy the line. They are found of all colors, and their importance must be graded by size and color. White dots are the most harmless, and their meaning must be searched for in the hand according to the method of locating disease heretofore explained.

Red dots indicate a febrile tendency, and the deeper the color the more accurate is this reading. When of a deep crimson and purplish hue, they portend grave fevers, such as typhoid, typhus, and the like. In all cases they are useful in locating a point of special incident in the life of a subject, and will precede islands, chains, and other defects, thus showing that the illness recorded was of such severity that the constitution did not again become strong.

A dot on Life line followed by an island and a chained line, with a line running to a bar, a dot, a small island, a cross, or a star on the Head line (225), will show that an attack of brain fever undermined the constitution, and complete recovery did not follow. A dot on Life line connected by a line to Upper Mars and an islanded line of Mercury (226) will show that the illness was bronchitis or other throat trouble.

A dot on Life line connected by a line to Upper Moon, which has a grille, and a line running to Mount of Jupiter (227), shows the illness to be inflammation of the bowels. A dot on Life line connected by a line with an island, dot, or a cross under Apollo (228) shows the illness to be heart disease. A dot on Life line connected by a line with a dot, a bar, or a cross on a wavy line of Mercury (229) shows the illness to be bilious fever. The dot on the Mercury line indicates the acute attack; chronic biliousness is shown by the wavy line. A dot on Life line, with cross-bars, a grille, a cross, or a poorly formed star on the Middle of Moon, shows the illness to be gout (230).

This is emphasized by a line running from a dot on Saturn. A dot on Life line connected by a line with a grille, cross-bars, a cross, or poorly formed star on Lower Moon (231) shows the attack to be kidney or bladder trouble of an acute nature. If on the Life line a dot be seen which is pronouncedly yellow in color, it will indicate without further confirmations an attack of bilious fever.

When a dot is seen on the Life line connected by a line with a cross on Saturn (232), it will indicate an accident, as Saturnians are predisposed to accident. Breaks in the Life line are often seen (233), and vary in their seriousness according to the kind of a line which is present, how wide the breaks are, and how repaired. When the Current, travelling along the Life line, encounters a break, it must get past it into the line again, and it is the ease with which this can be accomplished which makes a break more or less serious.

A break occurring in a deep, strong line is less serious than one which appears in a broad and shallow or chained line. In the deep line the Current is flowing with volume and force at the time it reaches the break, and consequently it has the benefit of its own momentum to carry it past the break and into the line again.

I have seen breaks in deep and strong Life lines where the line has subsequently cut its way through the intervening space, forming a good line. With shallow or chained lines, the Current is moving sluggishly when the break occurs, and there is not the momentum to assist in lessening the damage. All breaks indicate a check or impediment to the health, consequently to the life of the subject, and these impediments come either from illness or accident.

The matter of accidents is hard to diagnose, but I follow the rule that in a hand which is healthy in every other way, a break in the Life line should be read as an accident. Sickness in such a hand would be shown in some other way than by a break. In a number of hands in which fine Life lines were noted and perfect health otherwise shown, breaks were verified as accidents. There is no question as to their indicating jars to the health whenever seen.

Numerous instances are encountered where the cause of the break is easily located by health defects seen on the Mounts, by chance lines, or individual signs. Small breaks which are at once repaired (234) need not be considered as more serious than islands or dots, but wide breaks unrepaired (235) must be considered as a menace to the life. All tendency of the ends of the line to turn back after a break (236) is gravely serious. The wider the separation of the ends and the more the ends hook, the more hopeless is the possibility of recovery.

With every break, note how wide it is, how the ends oppose each other, what repair possibilities are present, and from this point of view estimate the danger.

If the line is filled with a series of small breaks (237), the effect will be like a chained line, the health will be intermittent, the vitality impaired, and the constitution unrobust. If after each break the line becomes thinner (23S), the vitality is diminishing, and the subject less able to resist disease after each attack. He will gradually grow weaker until his vitality is dissipated. This line is both an indicator of constitutional weakness and of special attacks of disease.

Each break will mark the time of some illness. With such a line as 238, you will not find different acute disorders occurring with each break, but the subject has a chronic trouble which recurs at frequent intervals. The nature of this disorder can be located from the Mounts and by other health indications. The line may start thin, and after each break grow deeper (239). In this case after the first few years of life the breaks will not come so close together, and it will show that the subject is gradually overcoming his difficulties.

To diagnose what has occasioned each break in the Life line, the method of procedure is the same as applies to other defects in the line. The Mounts will show defects, chance lines will point to special marks of disease, and in every way the manner of locating the cause of breaks is the same as in the case of islands, dots, and other defects.

The character of the line after the break must be noted to determine the extent of damage which has been done. If after a break an island is formed (240), the disease which caused the break creates a period of delicacy, the duration of which is shown by the extent of the island.

The same reading will apply if a chained line forms after a break (241). With such a marking as this there will be poor chance of complete recovery. When breaks occur at about fifty years of age (242), with the line growing very thin just before the break, and seeming continually to grow thinner until the break occurs, it shows the gradual waning of vital force until it runs out; that a period of great weakness comes on when there is not enough strength left to resist disease, and an illness recorded by the break occurs.

If the line continues after this break it will begin very thin and gradually grow stronger, showing that the health returns by degrees. The breaks in a Life line may be repaired by overlapping ends of the line, sister lines, squares, and in other ways. These repair signs, in whatever form, will be recognized by their tendency to turn the Current back into the line again, and their repair of the line is complete in proportion as they succeed in doing this.