The Qualities of a Saturnian

The Saturnian is a prudent, wise, sober necessity, greatly needed among the 7 types, but not the one to be chosen if in any excessive degree of development.

The Saturnian is the (See also No. 39.) represser. He lays his hand on the shoulder of enthusiasm and bids it take a view of the dark side before leaping.

Other types are so endowed with health and ardor that there seems to be no cautious side to their natures. They become reckless and careless of results and the cost.

The Saturnian’s point of view is the gloomy one. Consequently, he brings that forward and causes the spontaneous types to pause and think.

He is the man who can show you “how the other half lives,” and thus makes you appreciate your own blessings.

Socially, he lacks the ability to enter into the spirit of the occasion. He is often called a “wet blanket”.

He is the balance-wheel, a necessary evil that the world needs.

The Saturnian type, to bring out its better side, should be only slightly developed.

It is a bad type if found in excessive degree. It is not the happiest type even when present only in normal quantity.

The typical Saturnian is the tallest of the 7 types.

His finger is the longest on the hand. He is gaunt, thin, and pale, his skin is yellow, rough, dry, and wrinkled, hanging in flabby folds, or else drawn tightly over the bones.

He is the purely bilious type, and yellow is his distinctive color. His hair is thick and dark, often black, straight and harsh.

He loses it when quite young, adding baldness to his otherwise unprepossessing appearance. His face is long, commonly called " hatchet-shaped " from its thinness, his cheek bones are high and prominent, with the saffron-hued skin drawn tightly over them. The cheeks are sunken, with skin flabby and wrinkled.

The eyebrows are thick and stiff", growing together over the nose and turning up at the outer ends. The eyes are deep set and extremely black, with a sad, subdued expression which changes only when flashes of anger, suspicion, or eagerness stir his mind. Being bilious, the whites of his eyes show yellow color. His ears are large, and stand out from his head, often seeming to be actually heavy.

His nose is long, straight, and thin, coming to a sharp point at the end. The nostrils do not dilate as he breathes, but are rigid and stiff. His mouth is large, the lips thin and pale, the lower jaw and lower lip quite prominent and firm. He has good teeth in his youth, but they are soft in texture and decay early. Neither are the gums healthy, having a pale, sickly, bloodless look.

If the Saturnian has a beard it is dark, stiff, and straight, growing thickly on the chin and lip, but very sparse on the cheeks. The chin is prominent and large, the neck lean and long, with muscles showing prominently like cords, and the blue veins standing out under the shrunken and flabby skin.

His Adam’s apple is plainly in evidence. His chest is thin, the lungs seem cramped, as if operating in narrow, contracted quarters, and his voice as it comes through the thin lips is harsh and unpleasant. The shoulders are high and have a decided stoop, and the arms are long and hang in a lifeless manner at his sides.

His step has no spring, and his gait is a shambling one, seeming to proclaim a person who is miserable, bilious, and gloomy. The whole appearance of the Saturnian impresses you with its lack of nourishment, lack of healthy blood supply, and its lean gawkiness; the dark, sad eyes, stiff, black hair, narrow chest, stooping shoulders, and shuffling gait all combine to bear this out.

He is a man to whom a bright side in life does not often appear, one whose life is lightened by no joy of exuberant spirits, filled with no animal vitality, no heat, warmth, and magnetism, but rather with yellow biliousness, mingled with white coldness.

The insufficient blood current, poisoned with bile, is weakly flowing through his body, pumped by a flabby heart, and reaches the outer skin with a diminished force, casting over his spirits the depressing effect of a bilious influence. This is the typical Saturnian.

It is small wonder that, when the dashing Apollonians or Venusians, handsome, attractive, and magnetic, filled with the joy of living, meet him and try to fill him with their enthusiasm, the Saturnian cannot feel their joy, or share their enthusiasm, but shakes his head mournfully, and thinks of how much sorrow there is in this world.

As the Saturnian is the represser, you will appreciate the wisdom of constructing him ugly, gloomy, and sad, in order that he might accomplish the purpose of his creation. If he were only wise and formed in the Apollonian mould of physical beauty, the love of gayety would run away with his wisdom. Mere wisdom, if he were beautiful, bright, strong, and healthy, could not hold in check the Apollonian enthusiasm.

But the Saturnian is physically built so that he cannot be carried away with enthusiastic, joyous, or frivolous amusements. No matter how much he may want to be, he cannot, with his ugliness, have Venusian power of attraction; he cannot be other than the Saturnian that he is.

He is cynical, lacks veneration, and is a born doubter.

Instead of seeking the society of others he avoids it, and his tendency is to withdraw himself from the social world.

He prefers the country to the city, is often a student, and chooses agricultural pursuits, chemistry, and other laboratory occupations, which do not require him to come in contact with people.

He is not a “mixer,” has not the faculty of attracting and holding friends, so does not succeed well in business where he has to depend upon genial ways or attractive manners.

His love of solitude makes farm life peculiarly attractive to him, and his penchant for earthy things makes him by nature a horticulturist, market gardener, florist, or a botanist.