Woodville Republican. (Woodville, Miss.) 185?-current, 1889-12-07
WRITER'S CHIROGRAPHY.
A Glimpse at the Handwriting o.
Wen-Known Authors.
Some Write a Leglble Hand, but the Ma
Jority seribble, as did Hawthorne,
"Author-Liie"-Goo Anec-
dotes of Horace Greeley.

What do you think of my becoming
an author and relying for support upon
my pen?" says Nathaniel Hawthorne, in
letter written when he was student
in Bowdoin College. "Indeod, l think
the illegibility Of my handwriting very
author-lil1e." That illegibility he re-
tanned all his life, and after his death
several of his manuscripts remained
long unpublished because no one was
able to decipher their intricacies.
But there may be some question as to
his adjective of 'author-like. Many
writers have been even worse scribes
than Hawthorne himself, but, on the
other hand, there are many whose pen
manship is remarkable for neatness and
beauty. Among living authors, IIowells,
Holmes, Bret Harte, Andrew Lang, Will
liam Norris, Frederick Locker and
George Macdonald write hands that are
plain and legible, and often beautiful,
without any strongly distinctive char
Rctcristics.
Among the authors of the past, Gray,
Moore, Leigh Hunt, Walter Scott and
Buchanan Read possessed a pleasing
running hand which also failed 10 ex-
press any decided individuality. Long
fellows handwriting was a bold frank
back-hand. Bryant's was aggressive
and pleasing to the eye, but had no po-
etical characteristics; and Keats was
rather too clerical for the most dainty
of modern poets.
Thackeray's penmanship was mar
velously neat, but so small that it could
not always be read with comfort by any
but microscopic eyes. lie is reported
to have said that if all other methods OF
livelihood were to fail him he would un-
dertake to write the Lords Prayer on
his thumb nail. Charles Dickens writ
ing was much less beautiful, but almost
equal minute, and his habit of writing
with blue ink upon blue paper, with fire.
quent interlineations and cross-lines
made his copy burden alike to com
positor and proof-reader. Douglas Jer
rold was an offender of the same sort
He jotted down his jokes upon littlC
slips of blue paper in letters smaller thar
the type in which they were presently tC
be set. Captain Marryat's hand writing
was so fine that whenever the copyis
rested from his labors he was obliged tt
stick pin where he left off, in order t
find tho place again. Charlotte Bronte'
handwriting appeared to have been trac
ed with needle. Other experts in mi
croscopic penmanship are the Englisl
novelists r. d. BlacBmore and VIM
Black, who write tiny characters tina
are almost indecipherable at first sight
and the Americans George Cable anC
Julian Hawthorne. The latter forms hi
letters with care and precision, but the.
are almost infinitesimal in size.
Nothing is more noticeable than thu
difference between the. hands Of thos'
who seem satisfied with their words
who seem to find pleasure in the rapid
ity with which they express thei
thoughts, and the hands of those wh
are dissatisfied with their words and arr
disposed to torture language until it ex
presses something more or something
less. Mathomaticians, as a rule, writ
untidy, serambling hands, because thei
thought so constantly distances thei
powers Of expressions in words or sym
bols that thoy grow careless in their at
tempt to keep pace with it. Lawyers
on the other hand, usually write a pre-
else and orderly hand, because they ar
fond of verbiage and are accustomed +
employ more words than are necessar
to express their thought. Fluent writ
ers like Anthony Trollope or Prof. Tyn
dali write an easy running hand, bu
poets like Swinburne, Tennyson o
Browning seem to throw over the word
they write shadows of dissatisfactio
that they express something more Q
something less, or at all events some
thing different, as though words were
wrong to their soul and sort Of parod
on the true xpressiveness Of SOUND
CARLYLE reconstructs with pen and ga
what his mind and eyes have seen, an
in the patient, but grabbed and oddl,
emphasized handwriting much of b
tempe ament may be read ''E
centric and spitoiul little floll
ishes,' says one of his friends. 'dai
about his manuscript in various cd
ways, sometimes evidently intended I
cross to a I, but constantly receiling
an absurd fashion, as If attempting
; calligraphical summersaulk and destro
ing the entire word from which the
sprung. Some letters slope one @G
and some another, some are halt, nJ.lr
ed and crippled, and all are blind /
was himself highly amused at stoi