The Lines of Heart

THE line of heart (see plate 27,3), running across the palm above the line of head, shows emotional steadfastness and intensity.

This line must be read in conjunction with the indications of hand as a whole and particularly in relation to the line of head.

The quality of the heartline is significant. As with all the other lines of the hand, its best formation is a clear, deep drawing, neither too broad nor too narrow, and of good color.

A line which is uniformly of this character, throughout its entire length, will show strong, consistent affections, loyalty, sympathy and balance.

If the heartline is thin, your subject will be self-centered and cold.

This lack of feeling is likely to be combined with a narrow-minded, conventional attitude.

The line must, however, be thin in relation to the other lines of the hand to make this interpretation a correct one.

A broad, shallow line of heart discloses affections easily given and as easily withdrawn – inconsistency, changeableness.

Fickleness of a different sort is indicated by a deeply chained line of heart.

With such, there may be great intensity but still no reliability. The person with a deep, chained line of heart meets this one-and-only love every other day, feels the world reborn and then dying through the course of each affair, and is immediately off to the next.

Lines cutting across the line of heart tell of worries and obstacles in the course of true love.

In its path across the hand, the line of heart may give off many small branches or splits. Splits rising from the heart line towards any one of the mounts show the attraction of the mount’s characteristics over the affections of the subject.

For example, a person with many little hairlines rising from the line of heart toward the mount of Apollo will be much attracted by someone whom the artistic sensibility and gaiety of the Apollonian pre-dominate.

Lines falling from the line of heart towards the line of head show conflict between judgment and the emotions, often also disappointments in love.

In studying the character of the line of heart, we must look at it in segments. The line frequently changes its nature a number of times during its course across the hand.

In such case, the emotional vagaries associated with a particular type of line apply only to the period of life spanned by that section of the line.

A naturally affectionate person may, because of uncongenial surroundings, become extremely self-contained and apparently cold, only to flower out into sympathetic warmth on receiving understanding.

As with the line of head, the origin of the heartline is of great significance.

The line of heart may start anywhere from the very edge of the palm to a position more than halfway across the hand.

If it begins far out at the edge (see plate 40), you have an emotional extremist, blindly enthusiastic in love, submerging every other ambition and desire in his intense emotionalism, losing all reason and balance.

The nature of the line will show whether a person is given to periodic emotional extravagances or combines constancy with intensity.

In either case, his emotional abandon is likely to bring he follows the dictates of his feelings without regard to the cautionings of his mind.

A line of heart beginning under the finger of Jupiter (see plate 41) still gives us the idealist in love, one who sentimentalizes both his grief, for affections and the object of them, but measure of control.

With this heartline, constancy likely to be an outstanding trait, for its bearer is almost as well satisfied with the shadow of romance as with the actuality and will console himself with an ideal if the reality fades.

A forked beginning on Jupiter increases the sentimentality.

When the line of heart originates betwen the first and second fingers (see plate 42), we have the realist in love who combines practicality with his affections.

Such a person is likely to be cautious in his choice of those he loves, but warmly devoted after he has come to a decision. He will coordinate ambition with love and will be strongly held by family ties.

A line of heart rising from the mount of Saturn (see plate 43) indicates the sensualist, a person whose love is more passionate than sentimental or affectionate.

This will be particularly true if the mount of Venus is well developed at its base and pink or red in color.

When the line of heart begins in a three-pronged fork, one branch under Jupiter, one under Saturn and the middle branch between it shows a balanced union of idealism, practicality and passion and usually indicates that the heart is the dominant factor in the personality.

With this forked origin on the heartline, a strong line of head and a well-developed thumb are needed to keep the individual from being submerged in his emotions.

the two fingers (see plate 44),

The line of heart varies in its termination as well as in its beginning. Should it cross the hand completely, from one side to the other (see plate 40), the strength of the emotions is increased, giving us a person who is buffeted and torn by his feelings.

Such a person will be jealous and possessive, especially if the plain of Mars shows excessive development.

A termination of the line of heart directed upwards towards any mounts shows unusually strong influence and attraction from persons having the attributes of those mounts.

A downward bend at the end of the line of heart gives the affections dominion over reason.

When the heart line actually cuts through the line of head (see plate 43), you may look for serious mental disturbance as a of the result of emotional instability.

Sometimes you find only one line in a hand instead of 2 separate lines, one governing the head and one the heart.

Even when this line is placed high in the hand, in the normal position for the line of it must be considered as the line of head, not of heart.

I have encountered this formation only rarely and always in the hands of men who had an unchangeable intensity of purpose, an overwhelming directed ambition.

Sir Basil Zaharoff, the munitions king and merchant of death, had this single combined head-and-heart line, and so had Andrew Mellon, the American financier.