FROM 1825 TO 1870.
(Born 7th February, 1812; died 9th June, 1870.)
BY J. HOLT SCHOOLING.
"Everybody knows what Dickens's signature is like"—says the reader who bases acquaintance with it upon the familiar, gold-impressed facsimile on the well-known red covers of his works—"a free, dashing signature, with an extensive and well-graduated flourish underneath." (No. 1.)
Aye! But have you ever seen an original Dickens-letter? Have you ever handled, not one, but hundreds of his documents—letters, franked envelopes, cheques signed by Dickens, cheques indorsed by him, legal agreements bearing his signature, and the original MSS. of his works? Owing to the kindness of owners and guardians of Dickens-letters, etc. I have been able to supplement the materials in my own collection by numerous facsimiles taken direct from a priceless store of Dickens-MSS. Here are some of the specimens. We will glance over them, and in doing so will view them, not merely as signatures, but also as permanently-recorded tracings of Dickens's nerve muscular action—of his gesture. The expressive play of his facial muscles has gone, the varying inflections of voice have gone, but we still possess the self-registered and characteristic tracings of Charles Dickens's hand-gesture.
In No. 1 we have the signature of Dickens as he wrote it when aged forty-five to fifty; in No. 2 there is the boy's signature at the age of thirteen, written to a school-fellow. This youthful signature shows the existence in embryo form of the "flourish" so commonly associated with Dickens's signature. It is interesting to note that the receiver of this early letter has stated that its schoolboy writer had "more than usual flow of spirits, held his head more erect than lads ordinarily do," and that "there was a general smartness about him." We shall perhaps see that the direct emphasis of so many of Charles Dickens's signatures which is given by his "flourish" may be fitly associated with certain characteristics of the man himself. We may also note that high spirits and vigorous nervous energy are productive of redundant nerve-muscular activity in any direction—hand gesture included.
