There is character in handwriting, no doubt about it, even
in so little of it as a mere signature. To that I owe the following discerning assessment, from a Californian correspondent whom I do not know: Excuse a personal remark : Your minute chirography denotes a timorous, inturned nature. If not crippled, I advise swimming in cold water that you tremble to enter, heartier feeding, nobler loving and the development of a zest for life. There are many doors upon fair prospects you have not opened.
This is all, or nearly all, so right, especially the heartier feeding and nobler loving part. An intumed nature ought to promote the one, but a timorous nature conspires a little against the fulfilment of the other. The same applies to the doors ; they are multitudinous, but I shall never open them. Yet I do habitually swim in cold water—very cold.
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