Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-03-23
lLLeGlBLE WRITING.


1t is the perVersity or human nature
that people who ought to do one thing
do another. Men who write legible
hand (no one can accomplish more
than that now win use typewriter
and others who ought never to be
trusted with a pen, order them py the
gross and take the discount. Rud-
yard Kipllng writes neat, delicate
hand, and Conan Doyle's is as plain
as the proverbial pikestaff, but both
use machines. II would have saved II
deal of misery and helped TO perpetu-
ate useful art If other writer's of
eminence could have been prevailed
upon 10 type" Unfortunately the
typewriter was too beated an inven-
tion to affect many of the best bad
writer's Carlyle would not have
struggled with a keyboard, but 1t
would have prevented that miserable
compositor fleeing from Edinburgh to
London out Of his way II he had. Car
lylr's. however, was a copperplate to
others that could be mentioned. HUI
go's manuscripts, we are told, present
ed the appearance OF sort Of battle
field on paper, in which the killed
words were well stamped out and the
new recruits pushed forward in any
thing but good order. Napoleon was
unique in everything. even in his
handwriting. His letters from Ger
many to Josephine were at first taken
lhI Illu1S VI the seat bI WtiIs ana MS
signature was an indistingushable
herogiyphc, Byron and Dean Stan
ley wrote atrociOus fists" and II ls
said that Sydney Smiths was no bet
ter although he used to chat Jeffrey
badly. He used to say that he read
Jeffrey from left to right, and his wife
from right to left, but neither could
make out a syllable. Jules Janin
would rather rewrite than attempt to
read over again what he had written.
and Montaigne could never read what
he had written. The acute thinker
mended matters by employing secre-
tnry, whose writing was absolutely
undecipherable. Balzac was as big a
sinner, and Dickens's microscopic
characters, written on blue paper with
blue Ink, appalled, many seasoned
compositors. A terrible hand had
Henry Ward Beecher. His laugh =
once declared that she had three guild
Ing rules in copying it-if letter was
dotted 1t was not an 81" and II IL was
crossed II was not st" and a word
with a capital letter did not begin a
sentence. Jacob Bryan said of Arch
deacon Coxe's caligraphy that 1t could
neither be called hand nor fist. but
foot. and that a club one. His
hieroglyphics formed clumsy, tam
gled black skein that ran across the
paper In knots. which 1t was impossi-
BILE to unite into n meaning.
LORD Eidon used to tell of John Bell,
Il great chancery luminary of his time
that he had three different methods
or putting his wisdom on paper-one
Ineligible to himself only. another
which his clerk could read and he
could not, and the third which he nor
his clerk nor any one else could read
The funny letter of r. Il. Aldrich to
Professor Morse stands alongside of
Tom Hoods tacetlous reply to Lady
Georgini t,ullertons as protest against
learned illeglbility. Aldrich asserted
mat he could decipher nothing In the
professors missive but the date. which
he knew, and the signature. which he
guessed at
The story of the Duke Of wellington
writing to Bishop Bloomfield when he
had received letter from j. C. Loudon,
TO see the Waterloo beeches at
Stra thfeldsaye, is chestnut, but 1t
makes us laugh (althouph, perhaps we
ought noD to picture the CONSERVATION
of the bishop land through him the
shock to the whole Episcopal bench) on
receiving permission to view the dukes
Waterloo breeches. Also n classic Is the
tale OF Macready's admission ticket he
ing solemnly made up by the apothe-
cary into a cough mixture ITO be taken
three times n day" The name Of Hor-
ace Greeley has, In this connection, TO
" HleHlipiltu with a cnnStened respect.
lie, undoubtedly, was the great master
of eligibility. 1t was of him the COM
positor averred that II Belshazzer had
seen his handwriting on the wall he
would have had cause to be terrified A
common story attributed to Greeley be-
longs. however to one Brooks. some
time president of the New York Cen
trial Railroad, 1t is best, In all things, to
be Just. And Greeley can well spare il.
II was Brooks notice to quit that n
tenant used for two years as railway
pass. Greeley wrote to some pressmen:
with a weight OF years, | feel Obliged
TO decline any invitation that takes me
u days journey from home" and this
IL all they could make of it:
IF cells are blighted, dig them early
Any insinuGtion that brick ovens are
dangerous to hams gives me the
horrors
This is the way the moderns have
juggled with the pen, 50 can we wonder
that its time Of usefulness is we'll
mia ~