at what point to
make assault the speaker will go scot-free. The man who besieges an
audience only with his throat attempts to take a castle with one gun, but
he who comes at them with head, eyes, hand, heart, feet, unlimbers against
it a whole park of artillery. Then Sebastopol is sure to be taken.

Myself.--I notice, Dominie, that your handwriting is not as good as your
health. Your letter in reply to my invitation to be here was so indistinct
that I could not tell whether it was an acceptance or a declinature.

Scattergood.--Well, I have not taken much care of my autograph. I know that
the attempt has been made to reduce handwriting to a science. Many persons
have been busy in gathering the signatures of celebrated men and women. A
Scotchman, by the name of Watson, has paid seventy-five thousand dollars
for rare autographs. Rev. Dr. Sprague, of Albany, has a collection
marvelous for interest.

After we read an interesting book we want to see the author's face and his
autograph. But there is almost always a surprise or disappointment felt
when for the first time we come upon the handwriting of persons of whom we
have heard or read much. We often find that the bold, dashing nature
sometimes wields a trembling pen, and that some man eminent for weakness
has a defiant penmanship that looks as if he wrote with a splinter of
thunderbolt.

I admit that there are instances in which the character of the man decides
the style of his penmanship. Lord Byron's autograph was as reckless as its
author. George Washington's signature was a reflection of his dignity. The
handwriting of Samuel Rogers was as smooth as his own nature. Robespierre's
fierce-looking autograph seems to have been written with the dagger of a
French revolution.

On the contrary, one's handwriting is often the antipodes of his character.
An unreasonable schoolmaster has often, by false instruction, cramped or
ruined the pupil's chirography for ever. If people only knew how a brutal
pedagogue in the academy used to pull my ears while learning to write, I
should not be so often censured for my own miserable scribble. I defy any
boy to learn successfully to make "hooks and trammels" in his copy-book, or
ever after learn to trace a graceful calligraphy, if he had "old Talyor"
bawling over him. I hope never to meet that man this side of heaven, lest
my memory of the long-ago past be too much for the sense of ministerial
propriety.

There are great varieties o