Graphology

“ Each investigation as it progresses will be found to encroach upon the other. From the two will come the future science of handwriting. A résumé of the work that has already been done has perhaps its value at the present time.
First of all it may be profitable to consider the investigations that have sought to determine under scientific control whether or not the graphologists have made good their claims. It is to France that we owe, not only the most carefully wrought-out system of graphology, but also the most carefully thought-out control of that art. ”

“ As has frequently been the case in the history of research, the claims of a pseudo-science, at once provocative and suggestive, have stimulated inquiry. In this case, graphology, the art that would find in handwriting revelations of intelligence and character, has been the direct cause of a series of investigations. On the other hand, modern psychological theory with its increasing emphasis upon behavior, upon the motor aspects of life, could not long ignore the opportunity for study presented by this most complicated and subtle act of individual expression. ”

“ Here you see the pattern is a large square, and the letters are drawn very carefully in them. Did you know before there was as much figuring and measuring done in the making of the Alphabet as there is in building a house? Look at the letter E, for example, and all the circles and squares that have been measured and drawn to make it. You will find that every letter is made just as carefully. ”

“ The letter a, for instance, stamped in the matrix, sits directly opposite the aperture in the mould which meets the spout of the pump; and when a due proportion of a’s is cast, another matrix with b stamped in it takes its place; and so on throughout the alphabet. Slow work, you say, one at a time? Well, the world is peopled after that fashion; and it fills up fast enough. But just time this machine: it is making small, thin type. Count the type made in a minute. One hundred and seventy-five, you say. One hundred per minute will probably be the average of the ordinary sizes of printing type. ”

“ Of whatever substance the matrices were made, the first printers appear early to have mastered the art of justifying them, so that when cast in the mould they should not only stand, each letter true in itself, but all true to one another. Nothing amazes one more in examining these earliest printed works than the wonderful regularity of the type in body, height, and line ”

“ The number of letters per word were used as abscissas, the number of words per thousand containing a definite number of letters were taken for ordinates, and the resulting points connected by straight lines. Thus a graph or diagram was obtained which presents to the eye in a simple manner the relative frequencies of words of different lengths. Two such diagrams from the same author will agree more or less closely, depending upon the number of words in the groups upon which the averages are based. ”

“ Have a line ruled, in red ink, down each margin of every page, an inch off the edge (the margin should be wide enough to contain a number of 5 digits, easily: I manage with a 3/4 inch margin: but, unless you write very small you will find an inch more comfortable) .
Write a précis of each Letter, received or sent, in chronological order. Let the entry of a 'received' Letter reach from the left-hand edge to the right-hand marginal line; and the entry of a 'sent' Letter from the left-hand marginal line to the right-hand edge. ”

“ No one of the small refinements which are now being applied to composition has worked so radical an improvement as the newer ideas relative to spacing, and the perception that the spacing between words, the leading between lines, and the degree of blackness of the face of the letter, must have a balanced relation. This has operated to abolish the conventional em quadrat after the period, and to produce a page of type-matter which lends itself readily to securing tone and optical comfort. ”

“ Nothing will tend to give the beginner greater confidence than the habit of working out the same forms and processes upon various scales. Taking, for instance, such an initial letter as the P, fig. 1, Plate X.; it would be an improving lesson to copy it in pen-and-ink outline, exactly as it is shown, and then to copy it, say six times the size given on the plate, thickening the lines, of course, in proportion. ”

“ There are, however, an infinite variety of simple abstract forms and symbols, such as circles, crosses, squares, lozenges, triangles, and a number of Alphabets, such as Square and Round Capitals, [p197] Small Letters—upright and sloping—which—weeded of archaisms—we may use freely. And all these forms can be diversified by the tools with which they are made, and the manner in which the tools are used, and be glorified by the addition of bright colours and silver and gold. Very effective “designs” can be made with “chequers” and diaper patterns, and with the very letters themselves. ”

“ In the construction of the mould and adjustment of the matrices, every care is taken to insure exactness of body. The illustration on page 52 may be again referred to as an example of the necessity for minute accuracy. We there see that the feasibility of typography depends upon the geometrical exactness of its tools, and that types, are of no practical use, if they cannot be readily combined and interchanged. ”

“ Every dimension which an engineer is likely to require to know should, therefore, be plainly written. Nor is it sufficient to give a dimension once only, as on the plan, for example, and to omit it on the elevation or on the section. It should never be necessary to refer to another drawing to find a dimension. The lettering should be clearly executed, and the direction of the lettering should be the same as that of the figuring, an example of which has been given ”

“ The length of the register being known in advance and nothing but spaces being used in setting the line, the compositor was spared much that makes composition at once a hard labor and a fine art. The result was an irregular margin at the right such as we now see in typewritten letters.
With improvements in types and typography the squaring out of the page soon came into fashion. In many cases this can be done by the careful use of spaces so as to bring a certain number of words squarely out to the end of the line. There have been printers who have insisted that this should always be done. ”

“ If illustrations are intended to be printed separately on coated stock following the text, they should be termed Plates and any components should be lettered as in figures: “Plate 9b.” Keys to any symbols within an illustration should appear on the art and not in the legend.
A few points of style: (1) Do not use periods after such abbreviations as “mm, ft, yds, USNM, NNE, AM, BC.” (2) Use hyphens in spelled-out fractions: “two-thirds.” (3) Spell out numbers “one” through “nine” in expository text, but use numerals in all other cases if possible. ”

“ By making things mathematical they make them thin. Take the living lines out of that landscape, simplify it to a right angle, and you flatten it out to a mere diagram on paper. Diagrams have their own beauty ”

“ TYPOGRAPHY (writing by types) is the art of printing (cast-metal) movable types on paper, vellum, &c. It is quite distinct, not only from writing, but from xylography or wood-engraving, i.e., the art of cutting figures, letters, or words on blocks of wood and taking impressions from such blocks, by means of ink or any other fluid coloured substance, on paper or vellum. ”

“ It may seem strange at first sight to occupy the pages of a book on art with diagrams and elementary outlines, but it must be remembered that plans and diagrams are at the basis of a system of illustration which will one day become general. The reason, as already pointed out, for drawing 33 attention to the subject now, is that it is only lately that systems have been perfected for reproducing lines on the printed page almost as rapidly as setting up the type. ”

“ And to confess the truth, there are easier tasks than obtaining clean, clear, correct geometrical and perspective diagrams, whether in pencil or in ink. And on examination days, woe be to those who are not “well up” in these absolute essentials of certificated merit. To model drawing succeeds the “figure from the flat,” “ornament from the cast,” and lastly, the “figure from the round.” Let it be remembered that each of these studies must be thoroughly mastered in its outline before the pupil is permitted to attempt its shading. ”

“ The following measurements, in inches, of a leaf of folio, octavo, and 16mo, of foolscap, medium, and imperial paper, will show how impossible it would be, from the size of the book to determine the fold of the sheet, even of paper of what are called the regular sizes, particularly when the books have been cut down in binding:
Since the introduction of machine paper and large presses, paper is made of almost any and every size and shape, and it is no longer possible to distinguish, with accuracy, the different folds. ”

“ The formation of letters requires great attention and long practice. It is not a matter in which much assistance is to be derived from descriptions or written instructions of any kind; practice alone from good models will give the requisite skill. The difficulty of forming the letters correctly and of uniform dimensions may, however, be considerably lessened by using guide lines drawn in pencil, to be afterwards erased. Such lines are called construction lines, and the mode of employing them is shown in Plate 4. ”

“ In this connection, the letters representing numbers were termed ‘unknowns.’ But equations soon suggested a new idea, that, namely, of a function of one or more general symbols, these symbols being letters representing any numbers. In this employment the algebraic letters are called the ‘arguments’ of the function, or sometimes they are called the ‘variables.’ Then, for instance, if an angle is represented by an algebraical letter, as standing for its numerical measure in terms of a given unit. ”

“ Do we furnish art classes with drawing copies, or physiological diagrams, roughly and hurriedly outlined by mere beginners or untalented novices? Never! Do we not the rather take infinite pains to secure the brightest, the truest, and the best maps, diagrams, and illustrations which shall have been produced by our finest experts or specialists in their respective departments? ”

“ For that reason the reader must expect to see in what follows only a diagrammatic drawing, in which the respective outlines of intelligence and instinct are sharper than they should be, and in which the shading-off which comes from the indecision of each and from their reciprocal encroachment on one another is neglected. In a matter so obscure, we cannot strive too hard for clearness. It will always be easy afterwards to soften the outlines and to correct what is too geometrical in the drawing—in short, to replace the rigidity of a diagram by the suppleness of life. ”

“ Being a practical man as well as a theorist, we may suppose he would attempt to experiment on the little wood block in his hand, and by sawing off first the lines, and then some of the letters in the lines, attempt to arrange his little types into a few short words. A momentous experiment, and fraught with the greatest revolution the world has ever known!
No question has aroused more interest, or excited keener discussion in the history of printing, than that of the use of movable wooden types as a first stage in the passage from Xylography to Typography. ”

“ We have been observing all our lives; we have made careful observations of many details of form and color, perhaps, and close investigation of structure, but we have not analyzed them into terms of drawing. We have not been looking for the planes of surface, or the relative proportions of parts, or for distance or foreground. Now, however, with the desire to be able to sketch readily, we will observe the object or landscape for that special purpose. One sketch will represent only what has been observed by looking in one direction without turning the head. ”

“ The attempt to fashion the Great Extreme as a circle must be pronounced a failure.
But when we start from the two lines as bases, the formation of all the diagrams by a repetition of the process indicated above is easy. The addition to each of the trigrams of each of the two fundamental lines produces 16 figures of four lines; dealt with in the same way, these produce 32 figures of five lines; and a similar operation with these produces the 64 hexagrams, each of which forms the subject of an essay in the text of the Yî. ”

“ But ordinary co-ordinate paper, on a small scale, is the best form in which to first arrange the chart. It can be purchased in sheets at a small price, and is invaluable for both student and instructor. In fact, no lesson is more stimulating to a class than to give them the data of a subject and ask them to put it into graphic form. For the first time they begin to realize that statistics are not dry ”

“ Two pages being exposed to view were treated as one page, much as double columns are now treated. As book illuminators required room for their handiwork the margins may have thus originated. The principal reason why we should observe such margins is that the arrangement has the sanction of long usage and the approval of the best bookmakers since books were written.
The job printer, it is reasonable to suppose, is more interested in proportion as it refers to display typography. He asks: What relation has type, in the shape of its face, to the page of which it is a part? ”

“ To illustrate an important dissection of the graph we will consider those graphs which read the same by columns as by lines; these are called self-conjugate. Such a graph may be obviously dissected into a square, containing say θ2 nodes, and into two graphs, one lateral and one subjacent, the latter being the conjugate of the former. The former graph is limited to contain not more than θ parts, but is subject to no other condition. ”