...or some variant of it, had actually been put into practice? 
"I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile- some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question."
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ter11.txt_Ascii.txt+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
"I often think there should exist a special typographical sign for a smile- some sort of concave mark, a supine round bracket, which I would now like to trace in reply to your question."
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...ter11.txt_Ascii.txt+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us