"It's great," she explained to me. "It means he's adaptable. He could go in different directions."

"I think that he's open," she continued. "If something strikes him, he's very direct--he gets to it. He doesn't follow the same path every day."

It sounded good to me. But I was a little concerned about Items 11 and 14. Kurtz had noted that Rudenstine's writing showed "shades of a shor-lived temper," and that he "could improve his listening skills somewhat."

* "I think the listening skills have to be worked on," Kurtz conceded. "He gets impatient. But it seems to me that he may be improving on his listening."

All in all, Kurtz's view was pretty positive. "It's a nice selection of traits, even at Harvard," she wrote. On the phone she was just as upbeat, assuring me that Rudenstine's handwriting showed that "he could be an interesting guy."

WHAT KURTZ had told me sounded pretty good, and it squared with my general impression of Rudenstine thus far. But it wasn't quite enough. I wanted more.

I decided to check with Marie Bernard, a European analyst whose main claim to fame is that she denounced a set of fake Hitler diaries as forgeries back in 1983.

Kurtz, whose 15-year-old company, A New Slant, caters mainly to corporate clients, apparently had a low opinion of Bernard.

"She's just an entertainer," Kurtz scoffed. But even an entertainer was worth a try. I faxed part of Rudenstine's letter to Bernard.

"In my hand I have the speedy, impatient three-pages writing of an extraordinary daring intellectual," Bernard wrote back. So far so good.

I got a little skeptical a few sentences down however, when she referred to "the legible, proud, upright standing 'I' of April, crowned by a huge accent-like-dot, which looks like a huge wild bird, flying over the i, not yet sure of landing directly on the vowel i." Bernard started out life as an actress, and her flair for the dramatic still showed.

Nonetheless, she pointed doubt some interesting details. A few highlights:

* "The legible, simplified 'Mathew' misses the second t, a symbol of our writer not caring very much about the evangelist or the gospel ascribed to him."

* "The size of the words determine the importance of the content. The larger the size, the more important this word is for the writer. 'Books," written with the utmost clarity and strength, carries off the prize. 'The Times' and 'Harvard' follow. The less important 'magazine' gets only a thread-like scrawl."

* "The huge i-dot comma over 'stine' gives us the assurance that his libido is full in enfolding his psychic and physical forces."