The first, the Line of Life, surrounds Love and Generation, as represented by the thumb, which is, as we have seen, sacred to Venus—the material world, or world of sense—but the Mount of Venus may either degenerate love to vice, or perfectionate it to tenderness. With high instincts the Mount of Venus is a good quality, since, without it, all the other passions are hard and selfish.
The second line—the Line of the Head—stretches across the natural world; it traverses the Plain and the Mount of Mars, which represent the struggle of Love and Reason in existence—the natural world, life as it presents itself to most persons. There is in the hand the Plain of Mars and the Mount of Mars; both mean a struggle: the Mount is the struggle of resistance; the Plain of Mars (which is between the Lines of Head and Heart) is the struggle of aggression.
The third line, that of the Heart, encloses the divine world, for it surrounds the mounts which represent Religion, Jupiter; Fate, Saturn; Art, the Sun; Science, Mercury; all of which are especially influenced by the astral light, or fluid, emanating from the planets.
According to the proportions—the relative proportions—which these three lines bear to one another, so the life is influenced by the three different worlds represented. Thus we have a hand in which material (sensual) pleasure dominates: the line of the material world enclosing a space greatly superior to that of the two others. It is needless to give further examples of these differences, for, after all, this matter is but a résumé of what has been said before about the power of correction which one line has over the others. Given a wide range to sensual pleasure in the hand, but a good and extensive Line of the Head, the former will be corrected by it, as reason dominates passion; or given the strong powers of sensuality, with a wide range to the divine world by the space occupied between the Line of Heart and the mounts, and again, religion, love of art and science, will correct and keep under extreme sensuality. In reading the hand, each line must be judged with reference to the others, and the hand must be considered in all its bearings, before an opinion on the tendencies it indicates can be arrived at with any degree of correctness.
To face Chapter XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
CONCERNING CHANCE LINES; THAT IS, LINES WHICH ARE SOMETIMES—BUT ONLY RARELY—SEEN ON ANY HAND
When two lines, starting from the Mount of Venus, join with a star on the Plain of Mars (see Plate 3, Fig. 1) it indicates two loves carried on at once and both having a disastrous issue.
A square with spots at all four corners placed on the Mount of the Sun (see Fig. 2) shows danger by fire with preservation.