A POLITE ART.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143781, 3 May 1912, Page 3

A POLITE ART.

Tho art of reading character by handwriting, as expounded by a writer in tho Girl’s Realm, becomes a very ladylike science jndeed. Only that sinner called “the frivolous practitioner' 1 is in a hurry to discover a subject’s faults. This nolite graphologist discovers in every handwriting far more good points than bad. “It is refreshing to find that only one person in twenty, or thereabouts, has a vice such as overwhelming selfishness, absolute untrustworthiness, or violent passion. In tho eyes of tho recipient of a .delineation of character I often find the good qualities seem to eclipse the bad altogether, and this infrequently gives rise to tho remark, ‘Oh, I think you havo made me out better than I am.’ ” One explanation of this is that handwriting instinctively conceals the larger fault as long as possible, though it admits quite clearly the smaller failings. “It is only when people havo tho most accentuated wickedness that the handwriting is dominated by it.” And before that stage is reached it is wisest, to give your client tho benefit of tho doubt. Truthfulness and honour, for instance, are apparent in a writing in which tho linos are at an equal distance apart and tho letters all dearly decipherable. But you would ho wrong to call your friend a knave although his letters are mere suggestions and his lines wander anywhere about the place; because, when a man’s handwriting is more or lees illegible, _ “the practised eye will often detect him to bo only a skilled diplomatist.” Then there is the question of pons and paper. With one sot of writing materials a man may unwillingly write himself down a poor weak creature. With another ho may rise to as many robust bad qualities ns a politician ascribes to an opponent, liki tho whole, when you see bad qualities it is safest to read them as the opposite virtues. A noted Parisian graphologist, expert in criminal handwritings, was consulted as to the characteristics of a whole group of specimens, 'lifter giving with zest his delineation, distributing amongst them the seven deadly sins and processions of minor offences, he was rather hurt to loam that the persons concerned in this case were all notable Parisians of irreproachable character. How much more diplomatic was the Girl’s Realm essayist when she was shown tho handwriting i)t a man stated to have made his mark jn tho world, and ivas asked to discover pny prevailing fault. She merely judged fhat tho man was “passionately devoted to tlie opposite sex.” A remark entirely justified when it was revealed a S tho handwriting of a notorious felon, “who had been twice convicted of bigamy, three times divorced, and six times married !”