Not only do the various slants and zones interrelate, the inflation and deflation of the letters within play a prime role.

For example, this is Palmer's copybook a: but this writer has deflated it to: without adding anything: a conventional, unimaginative businessman;

while I believe the writer of this initial o: suffers from social timidity. Deflation may progress to the point where the two strokes meet each other. We then speak of concealing strokes: Inflation, on the other hand, is an opportunity the hand of the imaginative (or sometimes merely fanciful) writer never will miss: widening his circles, "grasping and accepting" a new era, so to speak, comparable to the pretensions of his intellectual horizon and the broadness of his imagination. The handwritten P covers much more territory than Palmer's, and the same holds true of the b. (both letters are from the hand of a professional journalist and author; the inflation is therefore in the upper zone.)

Most inflated letters may be interpreted according to the zone in which they stand. In the upper zone, the inflated letter indicates intellectual imagination, in the middle zone, it bespeaks the writer's self-confidence. The height of the two t's being approximately the same, the writer (female) has inflated and widened her o; she also has widened the connecting link between the t and the o; and she has split the t. She is receptive and aware of her values, with a pet idea hidden within the purposely split t. In the lower zone are the circular gestures that betray our unconscious drives and urges. As is always the case with pressure, they speak for our instinctual, sexual anxieties and hopes; without pressure, for our (unconscious) preoccupation with a person's deep, instinctual, yet somewhat socialized, needs for security, financial and otherwise. The former is exemplified by the signature; the latter by the f.

Pulver described these highly inflated lower loops as "money bags," originating in a "money complex." The crass disproportion between this hand's upper (intellectual) zone and the inflated lower zone loop seems to confirm Pulver’s view.

Sometimes, inflated letters give a hint as to their meaning because they are "deformed" and the deformation "points" in certain directions.

The most frequent case in the lower zone is the unconscious mother fixation. It is, of course, no accident that three out of the four samples of mother fixation are taken from left-slanted handwritings; left slant and mother fixation goes together. Returning to the complete circular stroke, it may be recalled that one meaning of the circle is that of defense. Neurotic writers sometimes use the circle to "protect" themselves against the "outside forces" that cause their neurotic f ears and anxieties, and in such cases they draw a circle or circles around their name. Experience shows that these "magic circles" not only protect their deep neurotic fearfulness, but may also contain anti-social impulses, which lurk within the hidden recesses. Increasing Right Slant at the end of words: Writer's interest in a thing grows the more he studies it; inability to hide his true intentions; optimism overpowers his original reserve; hot¬ headedness; when excited, writer loses self-control; quick temper. Diminishing Right Slant at the end of words:

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