by Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Available in 98 free installments
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¶ None of these things "just happened." They are the result of the law of cause and effect. The connection between external and internal traits is becoming clearer every day and reveals some very unexpected things.
One that has been discovered very recently is that the straight-faced are the straight-laced. Notice for yourself and you will find that every person who is really "straight-laced" is a person with a straight face?that is, a face with straighter up-and-down lines than the average.
Think back over those you have known who come under this heading and you will find no actually round-faced people amongst them.
No matter how sanctimonious, religious or correct a person may act when his position or the occasion demands it, if he has a round, "moon" face he is not really straight-laced at heart. Any one who knows him well enough to know his real nature will tell you so.
¶ The "born Puritan," the ascetic, and the naturally conventional person is, on the other hand, invariably an individual of more severe facial outlines.
This person may be in an unconventional position; your straight-faced, severe-lined person may be a gambler, a boot-legger, or follow any other line defying the conventions; but he is at heart a conservative after all. For instance, you will always find, when you know him, that he does things in a way that is very conventional to him. That is, he has decided standards, rules, habits and requirements, and he clings rigidly to them in the transaction of his business, regardless of how lax the business itself may be.
"A certain way of doing things" means as much to him, at heart, as it means little to the circular-faced people.
¶ "A place for everything and everything in its place" is a rule preached and practised by people of this type.
The Osseous person does not mislay his things. He knows so well where they are that he can "go straight to them in the dark." Such a man is careful of his tools and keeps his work-bench or desk "shipshape." A woman of this type is an excellent housekeeper. Her sewing basket, dresser drawers and pantry shelves are all systematically arranged in apple-pie order.
The typical New England housewife, who washes on Mondays, irons on Tuesdays and bakes on Saturdays for forty years, is a direct descendant of the Puritans, most of whom belong to this bony, pioneering type.
¶ Extremely Osseous people are inclined to be somewhat formal in their movements. They make fewer motions than any other type. They do not wave their hands or arms about when talking and are almost devoid of gesticulation of any kind. They sit upright instead of slumping down in their chairs, except when tall and lanky, and usually prefer "straight-backs" to rockers.
¶ The extremely raw-boned person has also a formal gait. His walk, like all his other movements, is inclined to be deliberate and somewhat mechanical.
¶ Nothing about the five types is more interesting than the walk which distinguishes each. The Alimentive undulates or rolls along; the Thoracic is an impulsive walker, and the Muscular is forceful in his walk. But the Osseous walks mechanically, deliberately, and refuses to hurry or speed up.
¶ The Osseous has more natural poise than any other type.
He is not impressionable, excitable or arousable. Things do not "stir him up" as they do other people. He is more self-contained, self-controlled and self-sufficient than any other. He is not easily carried off his feet and seldom yields to impulse. It is difficult to get him to do anything on the spur of the moment. He usually has his evenings, Sundays and vacations all planned in advance and won't change his schedule.
¶ Literally as well as figuratively the Osseous is not a man of "nerves." Every fiber of his being is less susceptible to outside stimuli than that of other types. In this he is the exact opposite of the Thoracic whose nerves, as we have pointed out, are so finely organized that he is hypersensitive.
¶ Osseous people do not change anything, from their hair dress to their minds, any oftener than necessary. When they do, it is for what they consider overpoweringly good reasons.
