A Discourse on Anagrams as a Part of the Cabala

CHAPTER II.

That the Transposition of Letters can be either fitting and elegant, or malformed and shapeless. That meaning is often absent. What is ANAGRAM-MAKING*, what is* Processing. Foreign or "Barbaric" names, and their power.

To draw forth many things from a single name is a meticulous branch of Literature: to choose one name out of many, by which you may disguise and cover your own, is always pleasant, often useful, and sometimes necessary. A Name is also transformed into an ornament when it rises from the same elements original: "elementis," referring to the individual letters as the "atoms" of the word., resulting in either a unique meaning, a timely tribute original: "encomio," a speech or piece of writing that praises someone highly., or a most elegant expression.

In this varied turning of words, the arrangement of letters is either Fit or Unfit. A gaping clash of consonants original: "hiulcus Consonantium concursus," referring to an unpronounceable or "ugly" string of letters. makes an arrangement Unfit. You should love the "Fit" kind when it possesses the power of meaning; you should tolerate it even when it does not. But in whatever way it is done, the practice is accepted among the Figures of Speech by the Grammarians, and is called METAGRAMMATISM From the Greek 'meta' (change) and 'gramma' (letter)., or ANAGRAM-MAKING.

In Latin, it is called Trajectio original: "Trajectio," literally a "throwing across.", or the Transposition of Letters; or, to use a more unusual word, Processing original: "Tractatio," suggesting the manual handling or "working" of the letters like a raw material.; by this process, a word takes on another face—one that might be unknown, "barbaric," or foreign, as if it had been adopted from an entirely different language. The term Trajectio here, and similarly Translation original: "Translatio," used here in its literal sense of "transferring" or "carrying across" from one place to another., refers properly to the lo—