Year: 1872

IV 10 hteut 81 w polp"So o''No "
mans particular occupation or call
ing should have some effect upon
his handwriting, but l cannot say
that l have myself been able to
trace such an effect in many cases.
Certainly have never been able to
discover that there is any sort Of
hand peculiar to soldiers, or clergy
men, or lawyers, though, for aught
| know, there may be This, how
over, has been noticed with respect
to mathcmaticians, that they gen
orally write q small, neat and pre-
else hand-which may arise from
two causes; either from the fact
that they have very much to do
with figures, Or that the habits of
order and precision in thought
which tho study of mathematics
engenders, communicates analago-
us character to their handwritings.
There is also sort Of family like
ness in the writing Of physicians.
Men of this profession generally
write what at least a writing-master
would call Il bad hand, i. e., a hand
which is not very legible and any
thing but tidy. Ono reason for
this may be, that many physicians
either are, or wish to appear to be,
always in a hurry. Tho next is
that when writing their prescrip-
tions, their endcavor is to render
them so that they shall be legible
only to the chemist and this en-
gcnders n particular kind of hand
writing, and ono which, of course,
it is not easy to decipher. Such,
at least, is tho best explanation l
can give of the matter.


| before remarked that clever
men were supposed to write bad
hands. Ofcourso, every ono knows
that this is not universally the case;
but as there seems to be u general
impression that such is the rule,
there must be some foundation for
the notion. 1t is not improbable
that the strong workings of an ac-
tive and powerful intellect may
have rather q tendency to Interfere
with the regularity and symmetry
of the hand and especially is this
the case with men of genius, be-
cause gcnius-particularly poetic
genius-is naturally erratic, and
the original products of creative
mind come by fits; so that the man
of genius has to write his thoughts
US they occur, and writc them
quickly, too, for fear of loosing
them, which natural ly tends to pro-
duce o loose and careless hand.


1 have, however, certainly known
men of genius whose handwriting
was the reverse OF this. Both Ar
nold's and Southey's writing was
small, precise, neat and exact; but
then, this was owing, perhaps, to
certain qualities in each of them
which counteracted tho erratic ten
denotes of genius. They were both
laborious men, and one, if not both,
was neat and methodical in his
habits. byron, who possessed all
the defects usually attributed to
men of genius. wrote hand essen
tally characteristic of the class OF
mind to which he belonged.


As a general rule, an upright
hand is oftcner found combined
with strength ofcharacter and firm
ness of purpose than the reverse.
When, however, the handwriting
leans towards the left side, we may
bo quito sure that this is not ma
tural TO the writer nevertheless, 1T
indicates a feature which exists in
his character. Persons who put
this sort Of constraint upon their
handwriting generally put a similar
one upon their character; at least |
can quote two instances where 1
have every reason to believe that
sucb was the case. The one was a
nobleman, well known in the Po-
litical and in the literary world,