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.