An i without a dot, as in Figure 19, may simply indicate speed (which would have to be checked with the rest of the writing). Otherwise, the dotless i shows forgetfulness, carelessness, neglect. This is also true of the t bar without the bar. A note about genius: There is no hard-and-fast rule for recognizing genius through a person's handwriting. However, certain signs often do appear in the script of great-minded men: high upper-zone extension (without loops), and/or very small, or even microscopic, middle zones. (There is no particular guideline to the lower zones.) Generally speaking, since the middle zone is the social area, the larger it is, the less the powers of concentration. Thus, the great mind tends to show in his handwriting a willingness to give up the social world for more intense powers of concentration. Since the average size of a zone is 3 millimeters, anything under this size we call small and the smaller in size it gets, the stronger the concentration, usually at the expense of sociability. Figure 20, a specimen of the handwriting of a research scientist, shows this concentration plainly.

Other traits commonly found in the handwriting of the genius are tremendous speed and sloppiness, indicating that the person's thinking is so far ahead of his writing that he has no time for meticulous penmanship. Figure 21, which was written by another man engaged in scientific work, displays both qualities.

Although a genius may position many of his t bars and i dots well to the right of the stem, he will place others with great precision, for, however rapidly he may be thinking, much of his work requires exactitude as well as speed.

A form that frequently turns up in the writing of someone with a high IQ is a g made in the shape of a figure 8, showing speed plus a certain grace. Figure 22 shows the handwriting sample of such a writer: May we digress to the subject of legibility? The fact of legibility in handwriting and its degree are not so easy to establish. We read whole words at a time, some of us whole phrases. Consequently, one or even several illegible letters in a word will not prevent us from correctly guessing what the word is from the context. As experienced readers, we really do not mind a not wholly legible hand. As graphologists, we must be less lenient. To establish the legibility of handwriting, we must try to read it word by word. Only when handwriting proves to be legible in a word-by-word examination can it be pronounced legible. To interpret a hand graphologically, on the basis of its legibility, we must ask ourselves why a person may choose to write, yet at the same time write illegibly. Lip service is the phrase that comes first to our mind. To let the gesture stand for the act is the intent of one who writes but does so illegibly. Or he may consider himself so superior that reading his missive is the recipient's duty; conceit and arrogance, therefore, may also lead to illegible handwriting. Or we may write the message though we would prefer to keep its contents to ourselves. In this case, it may be affectation of mysteriousness, or neurotic anxiety, or psychotic suspiciousness, or perhaps even a persecution complex that blurs our hand. It was distrust that created cipher or code writing. Paranoia or persecution mania, to be sure, does not make handwriting wholly illegible. On the contrary, paranoiacs often write meticulously legibly, as though trying their best not to arouse any suspicion. But there simultaneously appear certain isolated illegible characters or words; they look like corrections, but the result is always almost complete illegibility. Paranoiacs seem to be feverishly bent on improving themselves and apprehensive over what might be misinterpreted and criticized by others, but it probably is part of their mental disorder not to succeed but rather to make things still worse. A person with an illegible or neglected hand cannot be called either sincere or co-operative. For if he has nothing to hide, or really wants to be understood by his neighbor, why should he write illegibly? We must assume that he does not care whether or not we can read his letter. This is not the way of a considerate person. Indeed, inconsiderateness, carelessness, (in clothing, too), insincerity, and even bad manners may be observed in people with barely legible hands. Very probably, they would also be unpunctual, disorderly, and indolent. There was a time when well-educated people, and especially intellectuals, thought it beneath them to write a legible handwriting. Freud has, I think, interpreted the illegible hand of doctors, for instance, as part of their professional pride and secretiveness; they do not want the layman to understand their notes obviously reserved for other doctors or pharmacists. However, it is quite conceivable that some scientists or thinkers, very much detached from the world, forget that others may also wish to read their writings: (Einstein obviously is not one of these; his handwriting is legible). People with little training in penmanship do not write illegibly or carelessly. Their writing may look rather helpless, untrained, but it is often remarkably legible. A person's illegible signature does not admit of any complimentary interpretation. For how much trust can be placed in a document if the signature that is to prove the signer's determination to carry out his promises cannot be deciphered? In a sense, an illegible signature annuls the document it pretends to put in force. (Only an anonymous ¬letter or a ransom note goes well with an illegible signature.) A special kind of illegible signature, the paraph, is used by people who think they are above the necessity of identifying themselves by means of their signature. The best-known case is Napoleon and the man with Napoleonic aspirations. If a man thinks of himself as one whom everybody must know and blindly obey, why should he bother to write his signature legibly? Indeed, a paraph will suffice. If examination of the handwriting sample reveals that here and there, one letter stands for another very plainly, for example, an l for a b or an h for a k, we know from experience that the sample originated with a liar, a swindler, or a cheat. ("Adolf" in Adolf Hitler's signature) Indistinct figures are made by careless people and people whose attitude in financial matters is not clear. But figures that can be misread, for example, a 5 for an 8, or a 1 for a 7, and so on, are associated with fraudulent intentions on the part of the writer. Legibility, on the other hand, is characteristic of sincere individuals and of people who have a good capacity for purposeful work. Legible handwriting may also be associated with orators, teachers, and pedants; the style value will tell us whether the hand is that of a great teacher or merely a pedant's. There are some peculiarities regarding the pace of writing, which we must know in order to draw correct conclusions. For instance, Saudek found that tall letters, such as f, are always more quickly written than minimum (small) letters, such as i; therefore, a small script is always more reluctantly formed than a sizable one. The rounded letters are produced "without pause," angular formations never without "stopping for a fraction of a second before the transition from one direction to the other." The angle writer, therefore, is always a hedger. The same holds true of handwriting with many broken lines, or with many changes in direction, particularly left-tending strokes (in a writing movement, which, as ours, is mainly right tending). "No one is capable of making a dot when writing at a high rate of speed, but will instead produce . . . a comma or accent." Similarly, a spontaneous writer will not place the dots exactly over the i's. On the other hand, only ¬spontaneity can produce a straight line, a slowly executed straight line being necessarily broken. Moreover, spontaneity will always slant its writing to the right; upright or left¬ slanted writing is never formed spontaneously.

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