Preface

is of itself sufficiently clear.  now there will be no reason to fear this:  that, namely, by the present Elucidation, I shall myself quite destroy this value belonging to the art, or render the practice of the art useless, for the reason that, if the principle of concealment here given should come to the knowledge of my enemy or of the one from whom I wish my secrets to remain hidden, the secret could, to such person, if he were thoroughly to read this present work of mine, no longer be anything but perfectly evident.  For, granting that such may sometimes be the result, I nevertheless answer:  This was not my aim, nor could it be, -- to record and bring to light all the Modes of hidden writing, without exception; but I was engaged with the general classes only, according to the method and plan of our author; not with the idea that students of this art should stop there, but that they might, after gaining a thorough insight and understanding of these, advance, and learn to vary these general Modes by wondrous other Modes, and from those to construct at will new ones known to themselves alone.  And not only is this not a difficult thing to do, but it might easily be the case that even Trithemius himself, if he were alive, would be unable in any way to gather, from such a new and, so to speak, conventional, or arbitrarily selected Mode of secret-writing, any sense at all;  and thus it would happen that the artist would be quite put to shame by his own pupil, in his own art.  But, on the other hand, I have not allowed this Elucidation to go forth in fragmentary form, like a limb which, though most elegantly clothed, is nevertheless rent from the body.  For I have at the same time produced the whole body, and have shown the links whereby Steganography is skillfully joined to the other links of CRYPTOMENYTICS & CRYPTOGRAPHY; and, taking advantage of the opening here offered, I have made my way into this citadel and inner sanctuary of the whole art of signifying a thing hiddenly to another, -- whether with good auspices, I leave, reader, to your judgment, on condition, however, that if your judgment prove unfavorable, I shall not be kept from defending my cause.  Certainly, if I do not meet with gratitude elsewhere, I shall nevertheless meet with it at your hands, because from the more elegant authors, whose works either have not been printed at all or, if they have been, either no longer exist in printed copies or are difficult to obtain, I have taken all the more subtle devices, which wondrously set off this art, and, introducing them throughout my work, have also enlarged their number by methods of my own.  Now, then, farewell, and look to have from my Library at an early day things, God helping, of better kind,

From the Hitsacker Museum, in the year of our restored Salvation, 1624, 27 February.