Mr. Lee, too, bases his disbelief on most inconclusive grounds. The witty author of “Democritus to the Reader” said that any one who sought what he did not want, or that would do him harm when found, wanted wisdom. To be exact, it was expressed less euphemistically, “He is a fool that seeks what he does not want.”
Mr. Lee insists that, because he has collated 25 copies of the plays, during which time he was not looking for a cipher, none exists. As well say that the stars of late discovery which are as yet unknown to any but the most skilled eye of the astronomer do not exist because Mr. Lee, with his unskilled eye, has not discovered them while looking for something else.
Mr. Sinnett, in the same issue of The Times, states the case fairly in the remark that there are two schools of thinkers on the subject—those who have studied the matter, and those who have not—and he illustrates the feelings of a surprisingly large class by the repetition of the remark of a friend, who, when asked if he had seriously considered certain points (of the Baconians), replied: “I would rather hang myself than consider anything so atrocious.” I have no doubt Mr. Lee would sympathize with, if not echo, this sentiment.
I wish politely, and with all due deference, to assert, with a positiveness as emphatic as that of Mr. Lee, that the cipher does exist in the typography of the Plays, and in the “Anatomy of Melancholy” and in the other works which I have deciphered. The difference between us is that I found what I was looking for (and much besides), while Mr. Lee did not find what he was not looking for.
Another aphorism, Number XXXVIII, would apply here:—
“The idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, so beset men’s minds that truth can hardly find entrance.”
And again, in Number XLVI:—
“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”
If Mr. Lee has a vision sufficiently accurate to discriminate in form, and will spend as much time as I have spent upon the typography of the old books, he will find the letters can be classified, and starting from the proper points and placing in “groups of five” the Bi-literal Cipher will read as I have written, and will not read anything else.
Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Wells Gallup.