The hand is generally long, with a sloping line of head, and a developed Mount of Luna, particularly toward its base. The line of head is also very much connected with the line of life, and so increases the excessively sensitive nature of the subject. In such a case the individual would not naturally be morbid or even show the inclination for suicide, but the nature is so sensitive and so imaginative that any trouble, grief, or scandal is intensified a thousandfold, and to kill or injure self gives the peculiar satisfaction of self-martyrdom to such a type, as exemplified by Plate XXV.
The same indications being found in connection with a well-developed Mount of Saturn will give the thoroughly sensitive, morbid nature; an individual who will determinedly come to the conclusion that life under any circumstances is not worth living—so the slightest provocation by trouble or disappointment causes him to quietly and resignedly fly to that last resource which he has cherished and thought of for so long.
The excessively drooping line of head (Plate XXV.) on a pointed or conic hand denotes the same result, but only through the sudden impulse that is characteristic of the nature. To such a person a shock or trouble is all-sufficient to impart the impulse to the excitable disposition, and before there is time to think, the deed is done.
The opposite of this excitability is shown in the case of the subject’s committing suicide when the line of head is not abnormally sloping. Such a person, however, will have the line closely connected with the line of life, a depressed Mount of Jupiter, and a very fully developed Saturn. Such a subject will feel the disappointments of life unusually keenly; he will as well have a melancholy and gloomy turn of mind; he will, however, be logical in weighing every side of the question for life and death, and if he arrives at the p. 148 conclusion that the game is up and the battle over as far as he is concerned, he will, in a most reasonable and sensible manner, according to his standpoint, proceed to put an end to all misfortunes. What such a person will suffer before he arrives at this conclusion it is scarcely possible to estimate. We are all so wrapped up in our own interests and affairs that we hardly see or notice the pale, worn face that has suffered so patiently, the hollow eyes of wakeful nights, the wasted cheeks of hunger, that appear for a moment by our side, and are gone forever.