PREFACE

Gustavus Selenus

To the Clever Enquirer into Things Recondite.

 

I herewith put before you, kind reader, my System of Cryptography, complete, so far as I have been able to make it so, and, as I hope, perfect in all its parts.  Quite beyond my expectations is it that the matter has been brought to this point, for in the beginning I had no other thought than to make an elucidation of the Steganographia, which was published, under the cloak of magic, by Johannes Trithemius, Abbot, first of Spanheim, and afterwards of Würzburg.  This work, certainly a long and sufficiently involved composition, and one also which is wrapped from beginning to end in a perfect cloud of uncertainty, I still present to the reader in the Third Book, in an Elucidation which is short, clear, and unclouded by obscurities.  With regard to this subject, as being the most important part of Cryptography, or the first object of my enquiry, I shall make a few introductory remarks, requesting that you consider, what I shall say on this matter, is also for the most part said with reference to the whole art.  Now when I first turned my attention in this direction, this Elucidation cost me the most severe and persistent mental application through a number of years, as also no small expenditure of strength.  For I found myself in need of guidance in a veritable labyrinth of Daedalus, or of the Minotaur, that is, of imaginary spirits, and this fact, more than the enigmatic incantations, caused me inextricable trouble.  But all this I gladly went through, for the public behalf and the reader’s good.  For I saw that, by this work of mine, other men’s thoughts on this subject, -- thoughts, most ingenious, which this generation, which is fatally bent on producing all subjects, even the most abstruse, has presented to the public in writing, -- were also, either illustrated, or at least enriched by no slight accession.  And the reader also may now, without loss of time, which before he had to expend with practically no result, learn by himself, with only a slight amount of labor, the principle of writing hiddenly, or the method of investigating, learning, or interpreting documents so written by adversaries or enemies.  But beware of trying to find in the Steganographia of our Abbot, or of thinking that you must therein look for, more mystery, on the basis of the enigmatic signs, than is here set forth. For I promise, by the strength of

my feeble intellect, and other agencies whereby I have arrived at a thorough understanding of the inner secrets of this matter, that you will spend your labor and your oil in vain.  If you observe this caution, you will not only rightly enjoy the fruit of my toil, but you will also desist from suspecting things uncanny, that is, magical, of our Abbot.  For the rest, let no one impose upon you with the statement