Page:The practice of typography; correct composition; a treatise on spelling, abbreviations, the compounding and division of words, the proper use of figures and nummerals by De Vinne, Theodore Low, 1828-1914.djvu/160

 They are freely used for the side-headings of short articles or separate paragraphs, for running titles, and for the catch-lines of title-pages, not so much for the purpose of display as for the making of a change in the monotony of a text of all large capitals or all lower-case. They would be more useful if the characters were taller and wider.

Small capitals are often selected for the first word after a blank line and for the first word of a new chapter.

Long quotations of poetry introduced into the text are sometimes treated in a similar manner, but short quotations of poetry or prose seldom begin with small capitals. The medieval practice was to put a very large capital after the initial; then came letters in smaller capitals, and after these the regular text letter. This method is obsolete: the letters of the first word that follow an initial are now set in capitals of uniform size.

When the first word of a chapter has only one or two letters, the characteristics of the small-capital style are not readily discerned, and it then seems