VALÉRY Paul (1871-1945) [AF 1925, 38e f]. MANUSCRIT autograph signed "Paul Valéry"; 2 pages in-4. On writing and graphology. "The prodigious invention of writing has resulted in the division of speech. The word was separated from the voice, and the thought little by little let itself be distinguished from the word. But I believe well that there was a time in which the qualities of the written speech were rather related to the flexibility of the hand which traced it and to its possession of itself " Such the orator of Antiquity, who mastered a gestural rhetoric, Valéry speaks about the transition from calligraphy to printing and finally to scribbling, witnessing the "instinctive movements of the living person who writes", and he postulates from now on two possible readings of a document: "Valéry knows enough to regret his ignorance in this field: "It is always useful to be able to read in a text not only what the writer wanted to say, but also what he said without wanting it. [] what involuntary confessions will appear to the critic of the future through the analysis of characters and lines!"