A little reflection made me ashamed of this feeling
of impatience, and as I looked at the even, concise,
yet tremulous hand in which the manuscript
was written, I could not help thinking, according to
an opinion I have heard seriously maintained, that
something of a man's character may be conjectured
from his handwriting. That neat, but crowded and
constrained small hand, argued a man of a good
conscience, well regulated passions, and, to use his
own phrase, an upright walk in life; but it also indicated
narrowness of spirit, inveterate prejudice,
and hinted at some degree of intolerance, which,
though not natural to the disposition, had arisen out
of a limited education. The passages from Scripture
and the classics, rather profusely than happily
introduced, and written in a half-text character to
mark their importance, illustrated that peculiar sort
of pedantry which always considers the argument
as gained, if secured by a quotation. Then the
flourished capital letters, which ornamented the
commencement of each paragraph, and the name
of his family and of his ancestors, whenever these
occurred in the page, do they not express forcibly
the pride and sense of importance with which the
author undertook and accomplished his task? I
persuaded myself, the whole was so complete a portrait
of the man, that it would not have been a more
undutiful act to have defaced his picture, or even
to have disturbed his bones in his coffin, than to
destroy his manuscript.
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