the
popular idea about the uniformity of Dickens's handwriting, and because
these mobile hand-gestures are a striking illustration of the mobility
and great sensibility to impressions which were prominent features in
Charles Dickens's nature.

[Illustration: NO. 10.--WRITTEN IN 1837.]

Common observation show us that a man whose mind is specially receptive
of impressions from persons and things around him, and whose sensibility
is very quick, can scarcely fail to show much variation in his own forms
of outward expression--such, for example, as facial "play,"
voice-inflections, hand-gestures, and so on. Notice the originality in
the position of the flourishes shown in No. 9, and compare the
ungraceful movement of it with the much more dignified and pleasing
flourishes in some of the later signatures. A whimsical originality of
mind comes out also in the curious "B" of "Boz" (No. 10).

[Illustration: NO. 11.--WRITTEN NOV. 3, 1837.]

[Illustration: NO. 12.--WRITTEN NOV. 3, 1837.]

[Illustration: AGE 25.
_From a Drawing by H. K. Browne._]

The next pair--Nos. 11 and 12--are interesting. No. 11 shows the
signature squeezed in at the bottom of a page; the flourish was
attempted, and accompanied by the words: "No room for the flouish," the
_r_ of _flourish_ being omitted. No. 12 was written on the envelope of
the same letter.

[Illustration: NO. l3.--WRITTEN NOV. 18, 1837.
_Taken from the Legal Agreement re "Pickwick."_]

[Illustration: AGE 29.
_From a Drawing by Alfred Count D'Orsay._]

No. 13 is a copy of a very famous signature: the original is on a great
parchment called "Deed of License Assignment and Covenants respecting a
Work called 'The Pickwick Papers,'" and which, after a preamble,
contains the words: "Whereas the said Charles Dickens is the Author of a
Book or Work intituled 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club,'
which has been recently printed and published in twenty parts or
numbers," etc. It is probable that the fact of the seal being placed
between _Charles_ and _Dickens_ prevented the flourish which almost
invariably accompanied his signatures on business documents; the marked
enlargement of this signature takes the place of the flourish, and shows
an unconscious emphasis of the _ego_. It would be almost unreasonable
for us to expect that so impressionable a man, who was also feeling his
power and fame, could abstain from showing outward signs of his own
consciousness of abnormal success. Y