Good and Bad Writing
The Psychology of Handwriting. By Robert Saudek. (Allen and Unwin. 12s. Gd.) ANALYSING Mlle. Suzanne Lenglen's hand, in his latest book (Experiments with Handwriting), Mr. Saudek says that in her double r we can discern the " typical movement of the service," and " the surprising movement of the downstroke of the n in can shows the smash," while her y's are sympto- matic of her long forehand strokes. We have also Charles Dickens' handwriting, both when in normal health and on the day before his death, a clever analysis of Signor Musso- lini's writing and a reproduction of Lord Grey of Fallodon's famous draft telegram to our Ambassadors in Paris and Berlin, written on July 31st, 1914, and beginning, " I still trust that the situation is not irretrievable."
After reading these judgments carefully we confess that we are not completely convinced that Mr. Saudek has made out a good argument for the scientific character of grapho- logical psychology. A hundred factors enter into the art of writing, ninety-nine may be discerned and yet reveal only half a truth, worse than nothing. The writer, for instance, might have been playing a hard game of racquets just before the graphologist examined his writing : the result would probably be a diagnosis of delirium tremens. The same may happen in judging the clothes, speech, gestures, walk, or face of an individual. They all fly signals which the student of human nature may read, but attempts to reduce them to an exact code must fail, for the mind of man is too subtle and Protean to be reduced to a formula. There is no sieve fine enough to sort out the infinite diversity of the children of Adam.
What may be of real value in this book, however, although even here we must remain sceptical until the theory has been tested for a longer period, is the author's assertion that he has an exact scientific method at his disposal by which honesty and dishonesty can be recognized. There are ten signs of crookedness, according to Mr. Saudek, which we may sum- marize as follows : (1) a slow act of writing although the writer has attained graphic maturity, (2) the structure of the 'writing produces an unnatural impression on the reader, (3) instability and spinelessness, (4) touching-up of the letter formations, (5) letters written as other letters, i.e., v for u, &c., (8) blobbed or unduly punctuated writing, (7) words written with three, four or more strokes of the pen, (8) im- portant parts of letters omitted, (9) marked initial emphasis in the capitals (although this may indicate nothing but pomposity), and (10) the letters a, o, d, g, q are open at the base and written with a clock-wise movement. If in any writing the first condition is present—slowness and uncertainty —combined with any three of the remaining nine symptoms, then, according to Mr. Saudek, that writer is dishonest. He says that he has examined the writing of one hundred and forty-one persons convicted of fraud and has found his con- ditions fulfilled in every instance, and, moreover (and this is far more remarkable), that out of seventy-three writings submitted to him by English manufacturers he was able to diagnose dishonesty in fourteen cases and that the manu- facturers confirmed his accuracy in every case, for each of these writers had been guilty. of embezzlement. In some respects the author's earlier work (The Psychology of Handwriting) is the more interesting to the casual enquirer, for the specimen scripts therein illustrated include Sir Isaac Newton's (the most beautiful writing of all, in the author's opinion), Lady Hamilton's (the worst), Mr. Baldwin's, Mr. Robert Smillie's, Charles Darwin's, Carlyle's, Emerson's, Anatole France's, Mr. Bernard Shaw's, Lord Nelson's both before and after he lost his arm, Swift's, William Pitt's, Queen Victoria's, Lord Macaulay's, Lord Haldane's, the Empress Catherine's, Oscar Wilde's, Mr. Galsworthy's, Dr. Benes's, the late Lord Oxford's, Mr. Arthur Henderson's, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's, and President Masaryk's—a mixed bag of all times and ages and political complexions.
There is a lengthy analysis of Mr. Bernard Shaw's beautiful script ; and although we do not learn much from it that Mr. Shaw has not already taken care to tell us himself, or which is not evident from his public life, we cannot but be impressed by the author's exact and elaborate methods of research. Whether or not graphology can be placed among the sciences, Mr. Saudek has provided us with two manuals for its study which cover the field with completeness. They overlap a little, and are both rather long-winded, but they are lucid, and they both contain a great deal of learning and research.
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