any of the
grotesque inventions of modern fancy?' You immediately become aware
that your order is too indefinite to be acted on without some further
specification. As, however, it is immaterial to you in a matter of
mere experiment, you say at once 'Roman.' Does that settle it?--not at
all: the question of form and shape is as wide open as ever. The Upper
Case and Lower Case in a printing-office differ as much as the Upper
House and Lower House in parliament or convocation. Is it to be a
great 'A,' or a little 'a?' A great 'A,' I need not tell you, though
quite the same in sound and value, is no more like a little 'a,' than
a great 'B' is like a little 'b.'

As to writing also, as well as printing--set half-a-dozen critics
separately and apart to write a capital 'A,' and see how far the
letters which they will produce agree in form and shape--I do not say
with any in the printer's stock, for not one will do that, we may be
certain, but with each other. One scribe will probably make something
like an inverted cornucopia, or wiredrawn extinguisher; and one will
cross it with a dash, and another with a loop; while another will make
a letter wholly different--something that shall look like a pudding
leaning against a trencher set on edge--something that is only a great
'A' by courtesy, being in fact nothing but an overgrown little 'a;'
bearing the same proportion to a common 'a' as an alderman does to a
common man, and looking as if it had been invented by some municipal
scribe or official whose eye was familiar with the outline of
recumbent obesity.

But notwithstanding these and many other variations, you freely allow
that each of your friends has made a capital 'A.' You do not dream of
saying that one is right, and all the rest are wrong. The taste and
the skill of their penmanship may be various, and the judgment of good
and bad goes so far, but it knows better than to go further. Your
toleration on this point is unbounded. If you can but make it out, you
say, without the least emotion of resentment or contempt: 'Mr A.
always makes _his_ Bs in this way;' and 'Mrs C. always makes her Ds in
that way.' _Their_ Bs and Ds forsooth! Yes: 'every man his own
alphabet-maker.' Why not, if you do but understand him? Right or
wrong, the fact is that, come in what shape it may, you take what
stands for 'A' to _be_ 'A,' with all the rights and qualities annexed
to that letter. Except so far as taste is concerned, you do not think