Word: toad
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...Toad drove his pencil onward. Grudgingly, he thought, This is rather interesting. His handwriting, spasmodic at first, began to settle after a time into rhythmic, regular strokes, growing stronger, like an oarsman on a long haul...
Words come differently this way, thought Toad. To write a word is to make a thought an object. A thought flying around like electrons in the atmosphere of the brain suddenly coalesces into an object on the page (or computer screen). But when written in longhand, the word is a differently and more personally styled object than when it is arrayed in linear file, each R like every other R. It is not an art form, God knows, in Toad script, not Japanese calligraphy. Printed (typed) words march in uniform, standardized, cloned shapes done by assembly line. But now, thought...
...Toad reflected. What he saw on the penciled page was himself, all right, not just the content of the words but the physical shape and flow of thought. Some writers do not like to see so much of themselves on the page and prefer to objectify the words through a writing machine. Toad for a moment accused himself of sentimentalizing handwriting, as if it were home-baked bread or hand-cranked ice cream. He accused himself of erecting a cathedral of enthusiasm around his handicap...
...length Toad could see his own changes of mood in the handwriting. He could read haste when he had hurried. He thought that handwriting would make a fine lie-detector test, or a foolproof drunkometer. Handwriting is civilization's casual encephalogram...
Writing in longhand does change one's style, Toad came to believe, a subtle change, of pace, of rhythm. Sentences in longhand seemed to take on some of the sinuosities of script. As he read his pages, Toad considered: The whole toad is captured here. L'ecriture, c'est l'homme (Handwriting is the man). Or: L'ecriture c'est le crapaud (Handwriting is the toad). What collectors pay for is the great writer's manuscript, the relic of his actual touch, like a saint's bone or lock of hair. What will we pay in future years...