River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-08-14
AN INTERESTING STUDY.
Is There a Reasonable Relation Betwee
CaIIiRranhx and Character

Is There a Reasonable Relation Between
CalIigrapby and Character.
Nobody contrasting the signatures of
Charles /. and Oliver Cromwell could
doubt which of the two men had the
stronger will. Charles III. wrote much
more pleasing hand when Prince of
Wales than after his accession to the
throne, but it is certainly true that
handwriting undergoes many transfer
nations and reflects in many unexpect-
ed ways the changes of mood of the
writer. Nobody need hesitate to recog-
nize the temper in which a letter is
written, and nothing is more absurd
than the incoherent haste with which
any one in passion expresses himself.
Nothing, too, is more pathetic than the
trembling characters formed by old
age or ill-health. There is a sigma
ture of the first Earl of Shaftes-
bury, the author of the ''Char-
acteristics," in the British Mu-
scum, which is eloquent of the
infirmities from which he was suffer
ing. 1t is far cry from William ILL.,
to George Washington, but one seems
to have a parallel in the calligraphy of
the two famous captains, which is, per-
haps, also to be drawn between their
characters as men of action. Men of
letters are VIGOROUSLY the worst writer's
of their time, and we look, perhaps in
vain, for indications of character in the
hurried scrawls which do duty for their
autographs. There are, of course, here
again, exceptions numerous enough to
rank as examples of the converse rule.
Addison, for instance, wrote beauti-
fully clear, il somewhat correct, hand.
Dean Swift wrote legible but stiff
hand, nearly upright, a sufficient indi-
cation of his independence of character
Richard b. Sheridan wrote an execrable
hand, while poor Shenstone might have
been a writing-master to judge by his
educated il characteristic superscrip-
ton. DIR. Johnson, again, wrote a
very grabbed hand, but no fault could
be found with it on the score of
ELIGIBILITY. for nearly every letter wa
well formed, and one can believe that
he had the horror of corrections" be-
fore his mind. Voltaire wrote small
but legible hand, which seems to indi-
cate that he must have been distin-
guished by method and precision of
character. There was certainly no in
dicat:on of genius in the handwriting of
Edmund Burke, which is rather effem-
mate looking; but nobody could doubt
the individuality of Francis Bacon.
Congreve wrote a clear, If somewhat
school-boyish hand, and Thomas Camp
bell, too, was fine and free writer.
There is a curious family likeness be-
tween the handwriting of Wordsworth,
Southey and Coleridge, which tempts
one to think that they copied one an
other: but if so, they certainly did not
succeed in producing very remarkable
hand. Lord Byron was a much more
untidy writer, and If we compare his
handwriting with Southey's, we can
see at a glance what gulf divided the
two poets. Robert Burns had an auto
graph worthy of royalty. Dryden wrote
a scholarly hand; but one can detect,
one fancies, a lack of decision in his
tremulous curve and thin down-strokes.
The Italian school must have been in
fashion when Maria Edgeworth was
taught to write, for her hand represents
primness personified, not unworthy of
her tales. In the same way, too, few
people would. we imagine, have been
led far astray by the handwriting OF
Oliver Goldsmith, which, with all its
beauties, is wholly lacking in decision,
and seems TO curiously reflect his re-
fined but hayward temperament But
it would be interesting to know what
these modern soothsayers would make
of some historical handwritings- 1t
would be safe to predict that they would
make a rare hash Of such characters
as Wellington or Napoleon. London
Standard.