March 11, 1887.1 



SCIEJSrCJB. 



241 



It will be seen that the total number of letters 

 in the first group is 4,507, and in the second 4,508, 

 or an average of 4.507 and 4.508 letters to each 

 word in the respective groups. If this average, 



ist. One of the curves shows an excess of nine- 

 letter words, which does not appear in the other. 

 They agree in showing a greater number of 

 six-letter words than a smooth curve would de- 

 mand. This excess may persist, and prove to 

 be a real characteristic of Dickens's composition. 

 Fig. 5 exhibits these two groups of five thousand 

 words combined in one of ten thousand, giving a 

 curve of greater smoothness, and approximating 

 still more closelv to the normal curve of the writer. 



Fig. 5. — CUKTE FOR TEN THOUSAND WORDS FROM ' OLIVER TWIST.' 



or 'mean word-length,' he alone considered, the 

 two groups must be regarded as sensibly identi- 

 cal ; but an inspection of the diagram shows that 

 they are in reality quite different. 



When the number of words in a group is in- 

 creased to fire thousand, the accidental irregu- 

 larities begin to disappear, the curve becomes 

 smoother, approximating more nearly to the nor- 

 mal curve which, it is assumed, is characteristic 

 of the writer. Fig. 4 exhibits two groups, each of 

 five thousand words, from ' Oliver Twist,' and it 

 will be seen that considerable differences still ex- 



In fig. 6, two groups of five thousand words 

 each, from ' Vanity fair,' are shown ; and in 

 fig. 7, two groups of ten thousand each, from 

 ' Oliver Twist ' and ' Vanity fair,' are placed side 

 by side for comparison, the former being repre- 

 sented by the continuous line, and the latter by 

 the broken line. Although these curves differ, 

 and while it is believed that the difference will 

 persist with an increased number of words, it is 

 certainly surprising, that in the analysis of ten 

 thousand words from Dickens, and the same 

 number from Thackeray, so close an agreement 



