Such high art of spelling as is thus hinted at is an art that has still to gather confidence and brave the light of publicity.  A few, indeed, practise it secretly for love—­in letters and on spare bits of paper.  But, for the most part, people do not know that there is so much as an art of spelling possible; the tyranny of orthography lies so heavily on the land.  Your common editors and their printers are a mere orthodox spelling police, and at the least they rigorously blot out all the delightful frolics of your artist in spelling before his writings reach the public eye.  But commonly, as I have proved again and again, the slightest lapse into rococo spelling is sufficient to secure the rejection of a manuscript without further ado.

And to end,—­a word about Phonographers.  It may be that my title has led the reader to anticipate some mention of these before.  They are a kind of religious sect, a heresy from the orthodox spelling.  They bind one another by their mysteries and a five-shilling subscription in a “soseiti to introduis an impruvd method of spelinj.”  They come across the artistic vision, they and their Soseiti, with an altogether indefinable offence.  Perhaps the essence of it is the indescribable meanness of their motive.  For this phonography really amounts to a study of the cheapest way of spelling words.  These phonographers are sweaters of the Queen’s English, living meanly on the selvage of honest mental commerce by clipping the coin of thought.  But enough of them.  They are mentioned here only to be disavowed.  They would substitute one narrow orthodoxy for another, and I would unfold the banner of freedom.  Spell, my brethren, as you will!  Awake, arise, O language living in chains; let Butter’s spelling be our Bastille!  So with a prophetic vision of liberated words pouring out of the dungeons of a spelling-book, this plea for freedom concludes.  What trivial arguments there are for a uniform spelling I must leave the reader to discover.  This is no place to carp against the liberation I foresee, with the glow of the dawn in my eyes.

INCIDENTAL THOUGHTS ON A BALD HEAD

I was asked to go, quite suddenly, and found myself there before I had time to think of what it might be.  I understood her to say it was a meeting of some “Sunday society,” some society that tried to turn the Sabbath from a day of woe to a day of rejoicing.  “St. George’s Hall, Langham Place,” a cab, and there we were.  I thought they would be picturesque Pagans.  But the entertainment was the oddest it has ever been my lot to see, a kind of mystery.  The place was dark, except for a big circle of light on a screen, and a dismal man with a long stick was talking about the effects of alcohol on your muscles.  He talked and talked, and people went to sleep all about us.  Euphemia’s face looked so very pretty in the dim light that I tried to talk to her and hold her hand, but she only said “Ssh!” And then they began showing pictures on the screen—­the most shocking things!—­stomachs, and all that kind of thing.  They went on like that for an hour, and then there was a lot of thumping with umbrellas, and they turned the lights up and we went home.  Curious way of spending Sunday afternoon, is it not?