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.
History recommends itself as the
most profitable of all studies.
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 This method is obsolete: the letters of the first word that follow an initial are now set in capitals of uniform size.
| DOMINE labia mea aperies. ℟ Et os meum annunciabit laud- | Domine labia mea aperies. ℟ Et os meum annunciabit laud- |
| Medival. | Modern. |
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
