Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon (1997)
Mason's & Dixon's Handwriting
Provided by Schwitterz (aka Keith McMullen)
From "The History of Mason & Dixon's Line," a lecture by John Latrobe to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, November 8, 1854. Courtesy of UC Santa Barbara Library, Special Collection:
"The history of Mason and Dixon's line has thus been brought to a close; and
before parting with those whose names have become so familiar, it would be
pleasant to add some information in regard to their individual character and
personal appearance. But the most careful search has furnished no data on
these points. Their letters are the merest business letters. Their journal
is the most naked of records. The only thing for fancy, even, to draw
inferences from, is their handwriting, and I confess to having studied all
their autographs, in the hope of voicing them. But they are almost as silent
as the stars, whose positions they were employed, in noting. Still, they are
not wholly dumb.
Mason's signature is a remarkably good one — written slowly
and carefully, and with great uniformity in its size, which is that of
common, full, running hand. The Christian name is abbreviated to Cha: with
a colon to indicate the abbreviation; and in writing the surname, a dot has
always been patiently made, from which to start the first hairstroke of the
M. The remaining letters are written in couples. In no signature, of many
hundred, has the entire surname been written without taking the pen twice
from the paper. It is the same, whether recording the arrival in
Philadelphia from England, or noting the desertion of a majority of the
assistants for fear of Indians. I infer, from these small hints, that Mason
was a cool, deliberate, painstaking man, never in a hurry; a man of quiet
courage, who crossed the Monongahela with fifteen men, because it was his
duty to do so, though he would have much preferred thrice the number at his
heels.
Dixon's signature tells a different story somewhat. He began by
making it as goodly, nearly, as Mason's, and of about the same size. But
this was evidently an effort. All he seems to have cared to do was to put so
mething on paper that would indicate his presence. At times, his x and two
c's placed back to back; again it is the roughest cross. Occasionally his
signature is very small; again, it is as large and sprawling as a
schoolboy's; from all which, I infer that he was a younger man, a more
active man, a man of an impatient spirit and a nervous temperament, just
such a man as worked best with a sober-sided colleague.
It is cheerfully admitted that all this is very idle speculation; and the
only excuse for its introduction is a desire to vary, in some small degree,
the dullness of a narrative, affording so few events of striking interest as
that we are engaged in."
--John Latrobe, 1854
