![]() The line is always weak, filiform, and terminates with a scarcely noticeable pin-head. “The comparative research of thousands of handwriting samples shows that all weak-willed people cross their ‘t’s feebly. “I began by classifying my collection of autographs of strong-willed authors and weak-willed authors,” Michon wrote of his rigorous scientific method. In these books, Michon drilled into readers the importance of practicing graphology scientifically, which meant conducting painstakingly detailed research. A third text, Histoire de Napoléon ler d’après son écriture (The Story of Napoleon through the Lens of His Writing), was devoted to analyzing Napoleon’s handwriting. Michon published two further books elucidating his system, La méthode pratique de graphologie (Practical Methods of Graphology) and Système de graphologie (The System of Graphology). Michon evangelized for his cause: “Graphology has proved itself to be a new tool for the moral world… one that has appeared through divine intervention at the height of material advances brought about by the discovery of the steam engine and electricity.” ![]() He followed that with a lecture announcing his new science, traveling across Europe to explain and demonstrate graphology. Michon offered free handwriting analysis to the journal’s early subscribers. ![]() He founded a journal, La Graphologie: Journal de l’autographes (Graphology: Journal of Autographs), which, in its inaugural issue on November 18, 1871, used the term “graphology” for the first time. The idea of graphology as a formal enterprise and theory arose later in the nineteenth century, when a French clergyman, Abbé Jean-Hippolyte Michon, added empirical science into the mix. Poe claimed that William Cullen Bryant, whose writing Poe did not like, had handwriting that looked like “one of the most commonplace clerk’s hands which we ever encountered, and has no character about it beyond that of the day-book and ledger.” A now-obscure female author showed “a strong disposition to fly off at a tangent.” Edgar Allan Poe wrote a series for Graham’s magazine that analyzed the handwriting of famous literary figures. The idea that handwriting offers a window into the inner self first arose in the West during the Romantic era (late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century), when spontaneity, originality, and individuality were prized. In the courts, the validity of handwriting as evidence-authenticating the writer of a manuscript, for instance-has always been dubious, and many of the techniques used today are the same as those employed in Renaissance England. It was invented in the eighteenth century, gained traction in the 19th when psychology was born, and took off in the early twentieth century, along with notions of the individual self, which coincided with fears about the individual in an age of modernization and mass culture. Handwriting analysis-also known as graphology-has been deemed a pseudo-science by most. Jack Lew’s handwriting shows, while strange, that he is very secretive-not necessarily a bad thing.Īccording to other handwriting analysts, Trump’s signature can provide insights into the president’s character, but they disagree on what those insights are: either he “lacks empathy and craves power, prestige and admiration” ( Michelle Desbold in Politico) or he has “acute analytical and lightning speed quick thinking” ( Kathi McNight for CNN). In a tweet sent after the appointment of Jack Lew, the former Treasury Secretary, Trump wrote: “Lew’s handwriting shows, while strange, that he is very secretive-not necessarily a bad thing.” Donald Trump is a handwriting analyst-or so he claims.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |