146 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



trusted, it is to the effect that the line of demarcation follows the form 

 of composition rather than the author. Figs. 11, 11, 17 and 19 

 show variations that must be attributed to the form of composition; 

 the difference in the curves of Fig. 20 may reasonably be ascribed to 

 the same cause. Fig. 21 shows four five-thousand word-curves, repre- 

 senting two authors and two styles of writing. The curves representing 

 the same style not the same author follow each other. Fig. 22 con- 

 tains four words-curves of dramas (Shakespeare, Beaumont and 

 Fletcher, Marlowe and Jonson), and four word-curves from the prose 

 writings of Bacon, Dryden, Goldsmith and Mill. While the latter 

 show considerable variations among each other, they are all clearly 

 differentiated from each of the drama curves. 



Fig. 21. Two Curves each of Dramatic 



Fig. 22. Eight Word-curves from Eng- 



Prose and Descriptive Prose from Dif- lish Works; Dramas (Shakespeare, Beau- 



ferent Authors. Dramatic Prose, {A) 

 Goethe, (B) Schiller; Description, (C) Goethe, 

 (Z?);Schiller. 



mont and Fletcher, Marlowe, Jonson), Prose 

 Writings (Bacon, Dryden, Goldsmith, Mill). 



The theory of characteristic curves is exactly parallel to that of 

 constant sentence proportions. Both rest upon the same fallacy — that 

 personal peculiarities outweigh all other determining factors to such 

 an extent as to make it unnecessary to consider them. Elsewhere* I 

 have shown that the average sentence length, instead of being invari- 

 able for a given author, varies between wider extremes for different 

 styles employed by the same author than for different authors writing 

 in the same style. Goethe alone shows average sentence lengths vary- 

 ing from 5 to 38 words per sentence. Is it not likewise probable that 

 a more extended inquiry would reveal, in the case of versatile writers 

 like Goethe, Voltaire and others, not two only, but a whole series of 

 invariable word-curves, distributed something like the curves in Fig. 2 ? 



It was the theory of spectrum analysis which first suggested to Dr. 



* The Sherman principle in rhetoric and its restrictions. Popular Science 

 Monthly, October, 1903. On the variation and functional relation of certain 

 sentence constants in standard literature, University (of Nebraska) Studies, 

 July, 1903. 



