Bizarre

<h2><SPAN name="THE_WRITING_ON_THE_SCREEN" id="THE_WRITING_ON_THE_SCREEN">THE WRITING ON THE SCREEN</SPAN></h2> <p>Being interested in human nature in all its manifestations, I have lately made a study of handwriting as it is shown in the moving pictures. I undertook this research because I had been given to understand that chirography, when scientifically analyzed, revealed every nuance of human character; and because the personages in moving-pictures, being intensely dramatic, could not fail to have striking individualities as penmen.</p> <p>Let me give some of the interesting examples which I found. Here, for instance, is a confidential communication from a great financier to one of his associates:</p> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_068.png" width-obs="600" alt="Handwritten text" /></div> <p>Observe in what a firm, steady hand this is written. It shows that the great financier can be cool even in a crisis. No wonder he is successful.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</SPAN></span> He always looks ahead; he never crosses a T until he comes to it. Clear-visioned he is; his I's have their specks on straight. Such a man will go far without being missed.</p> <p>The next specimen is a letter written by the dashing young hero to the heroine. It reads:</p> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_069a.png" width-obs="600" alt="Handwritten text" /></div> <p>Stanch and dependable. His passion is intense, yet he is too loyal to betray it. Note the uncompromising uprightness of his L's. You just can't help trusting him, because, as he says, he hasn't any money.</p> <p>Here is a letter penned by a wayward wife. Fraught with tense emotion, it is indeed a moving human document. She writes:</p> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_069b.png" width-obs="600" alt="Handwritten text" /></div> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</SPAN></span></p> <p>What a wealth of sorrow this handwriting displays! Poor, unfortunate woman, tearful and yet volatile! Her M's are bowed with grief, and yet they have an arch look. Out of touching deference to her first love she makes a desperate effort to be neat; she is not willing that her husband's last memento of her should be a sloppy one. Even when about to commit a sin, she still retains that refinement of nature which he has always reverenced, that indescribable feminine delicacy which was wont to reveal itself in such little acts as shrinking visibly at the touch of unclean overshoes.</p> <p>There are innumerable other examples which might be cited, handwritings of every conceivable kind; but the endless variety of them would merely tend to bewilder. Therefore I shall give only two more and without extended comment; for, indeed, their characteristics jut out quite protuberantly.</p> <p>The little six-year-old child raises her face wistfully from her piece of angel food and scrawls:</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</SPAN></span></p> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_071a.png" width-obs="600" alt="Handwritten text" /></div> <p>Truly a revelation of the artistic nature. In contrast to this, let us examine what Jimmie the Dope, escaped convict, scribbles to his confederate:</p> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_071b.png" width-obs="600" alt="Handwritten text" /></div> <p>This particular specimen has a tragic interest for us. It demonstrates the failure of our modern institutions. Here is a man forced by society into a felon's trade who was capable of earning an honest living as an instructor in penmanship.</p> <p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</SPAN></span></p> <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />