Book Two

Chapter V.

On Inverted Writing,
in general and in particular.

The first Mode connected with the Order of letters is Inverted Writing itself. We must consider this Mode first, inasmuch as it is the simplest Mode, departing from the customary Position of letters, or way of writing, by Inversion alone. Now this Inversion may take place in one of three ways: simply, or accompanied by Inverted Position of letters, or clothed in a kind of finery or dress. The first method I shall call Simple Inversion; the second, Newly-Altered Inversion; the third, Artificially-Clothed Inversion.

Simple Inversion takes place when we depart from the customary way of writing. The Customary, or common, way of writing is to write the letters from the left hand to the right through every line; though formerly the letters were written in alternate lines from left to right and from right to left. On the origin of this common way of writing, Nauclerus, Vol. I. Gener. 54, has commented rather happily. This common way is departed from (1) by the Hebrews, who write from right to left; (2) by the Syrians, the Indians, the Ethiopians, and the Chinese, who write perpendicularly, either from the top to the bottom or from the bottom to the top; (3) by the ancient Goths, who, according to Zwinger’s view, which is, however, erroneous (see Herm. Hugo, De Prim. Scrib. Orig., c.8), wrote from the top to the bottom and then back again from the bottom to the top. Should anyone, then, care to amuse himself with this kind of secret-making,–a kind which is, however, not over-safe,–let him take as an example the following scheme. Beginning at the right, he must go from the bottom to the top, as though ascending a flight of stairs, and thence in reverse direction, to the bottom again, and so on through alternate lines. The process may be varied by writing on diagonal lines and beginning at the right.

Such schemes as these, of which Herman Hugo, De Prim. Scrib. Orig., c.8, gives in an appended table twenty-four Modes, are, as may be gathered from Bk.III.c.10, of no slight use in Steganographics.  

Newly-Altered Inversion takes place when we not only abide by the way of writing in accordance with which (for example) we write, after the Hebrew fashion, from right to left, but also construct the letters themselves by beginning at the right hand and going to the left, thus inverting the Form of the letters at the same time that we invert the writing.