SOLUTION OF A LITERARY PROBLEM. 99 



course, closer agreement of their diagrams, and this became so evident 

 in the earlier stages of the investigation that the conclusion was soon 

 reached that if a diagram be made representing a very large number 

 of words from a given author, it would not differ sensibly from any 

 other diagram representing an equally large number of words from 

 the same author. Such a diagram would then reflect the persistent 

 peculiarities of this author in the use of words of different lengths and 

 might be called the characteristic curve of his composition. Curves 

 similarly formed from anything that he had ever written could not 

 differ materially from this, although curves of other authors might 

 possibl}^ but would not probably, agree closely with his. 



Thus, if this principle were established, the method might be 

 useful as a means of identification of authorship, and it might be relied 

 upon with great conidence to show that a certain author did not 

 write a certain composition. 



In the earlier application of the method many interesting facts were 

 brought out, some of which are worth mentioning here, although a full 

 account of the preliminary work was published in 'Science' of March 11, 

 1887, It was soon discovered that among writers of English the three- 

 letter word occurred much more frequently than any other. Indeed in 

 the earlier investigation only one exception to this rule was found and 

 that was in the writings of John Stuart Mill, who uses two-letter 

 words more often than any other. This was surprising at first, espe- 

 cially in view of the large average word-length of Mill's composition, 

 which is considerably in excess of that of any other author thus far 

 examined, but it is easily explained by the very frequent appearance of 

 prepositional phrases, necessitating the use of such two-letter words 

 as in, on, to, of, etc., to an extent unapproached by other writers. Mill's 

 writings furnished an opportunity for comparing the curves represent- 

 ing two different periods of an author's life. A comparison of two 

 groups of 5,000 words each from his Tolitical Economy' and his 'Essay 

 on Liberty' showed the presence of the same peculiarities in word choos- 

 ing, and in every thousand of the ten examined the two-letter word 

 was in excess. JSTo other writer of English has been found to use two- 

 letter words oftener than any other, but it is not at all improbable that 

 there may be such. 



Through the interest of Mr. Edward Atkinson, it became possible 

 to give a partial answer to the question. Can an author purposely avoid 

 the peculiarities of style that belong to his normal composition? Mr. 

 Atkinson, having addressed a body of college alumni on a certain topic, 

 afterward gave what he meant to be the same address to a body of 

 workingmen, but in the latter instance he made a special effort to use 

 simple, short words and sentences of the simplest and plainest con- 

 struction. Although relating to the same topic the two addresses 'read' 



