No. 13 is a copy of a very famous signature: the original is on a great parchment called "Deed of License Assignment and Covenants respecting a Work called 'The Pickwick Papers,'" and which, after a preamble, contains the words: "Whereas the said Charles Dickens is the Author of a Book or Work intituled 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,' which has been recently printed and published in twenty parts or numbers," etc. It is probable that the fact of the seal being placed between Charles and Dickens prevented the flourish which almost invariably accompanied his signatures on business documents; the marked enlargement of this signature takes the place of the flourish, and shows an unconscious emphasis of the ego. It would be almost unreasonable for us to expect that so impressionable a man, who was also feeling his power and fame, could abstain from showing outward signs of his own consciousness of abnormal success. Yet, in the private letters of Dickens, the simple "C. D." is very frequent; a few examples of it are given in this article, and their present number in no way represents the numerical relation of these simple signatures to the more "showy" ones. It may at once be said that this point of difference is alike interesting to the student of gesture and to the student of Dickens's character. He was certainly a very able man of business, and the wording of his "business" letters fully bears out the idea conveyed by his "business" signature—so to speak—that Dickens was fully aware of his own powers, and that, quite fairly, he did not omit to impress the fact upon other people when he thought fit. Both the wording and the signature of many of his private letters are simple and unostentatious to a high degree. This curious fact, which is now illustrated by Charles Dickens's own hand-gesture, ought to be remembered when people talk about Dickens's "conceit" and "love of show." My explanation is, I think, both logical and true.
No. 14 closes this series for the year 1837. It shows a quaint and pretty signature on a wrapper.
No. 15 shows part of a very humorous and famous letter announcing the death of the raven which figures in "Barnaby Rudge." Notice the curious originality of form shown in the capital Y and R. The wording of this letter is also quaintly original, and the sensitive mind of this man again caused his nerve-muscular action—his gesture—to harmonize with his mood. Points of this kind, which the handwriting of Dickens illustrates so well, have a deeper meaning for the observant than for the casual reader of a magazine article; they indicate that these little human acts, which have been so long overlooked by intelligent men, do really give us valuable data for the study of mind by means of written-gesture.