Character from Handwriting
More or less consciously, every one is a reader of handwriting! If we have not devoted thought and study to the subject, we merely gather a vaguely favorable, or unfavorable, impression from the first letter written to us by a new acquaintance, and store it up with the other impressions we have already gleaned from their personality.
When, however, time and thought are given to the fascinating cult of Graphology, it will be found to reward its students, by letting a thousand little sidelights on to character—and if the most “proper study of mankind is man,” then assuredly is Graphology a most helpful adjunct to that end.
One must crawl before one can walk, and learn the alphabet before one can master a language, therefore an impulsive learner must not grow disgusted because his laborious reading of a handwriting is disjointed, and may be obviously unlike the writer. By the time he can read a character from a letter, without gathering a word of that letter’s sense—which is what every graphologist worthy the name can, and does do—he will have come to see how one sign outweighs or counterbalances another, and so learn to read a human character from a sheet of paper and the more or less erratic tracings of a pen.
As a home entertainment, any amount of fun is to be got out of it. One unfailing source of amusement is to notice how all are willing vaguely to accept the ownership of every failing save the one you ascribe to them.
The jealous girl is “perfectly horrid,” she knows. But she certainly “isn’t jealous.” The lazy man is “bad tempered, perhaps,” but “no one could call him indolent.”
Friends and relations will, however, be ready to assure you of the correctness of your delineation.
The first thing to notice when studying character from handwriting, is the direction of a hand. Is it even, upward, or tending to meander down the page? The even hand suggests honesty, conscientiousness, and a calm, well-balanced nature. The upward hand tells of will power and ambition, cheerfulness and energy. The hand that slopes downward tells of a timid and weak nature, depression and melancholy. It must always be remembered, however, that temporary ill-health, and even a temporary wave of depression, will frequently alter the direction of a hand.
Sometimes a beginner is puzzled by the varying direction—now upward, now downward—of a hand; generally this betokens a mind struggling at the time with adverse circumstances or ill-health.
Capital letters and terminals are both important. The more clearly formed and beautiful the letter, the more refined and artistic the nature.
The graphologist picks out certain letters as being especially important—M, A, L, and D in the capital letters. The small d and e in terminal letters are certainly the most important.