‘never mind. it is a great invention, and some day men will call it writing. at present it is only pictures, and, as we have seen to-day, pictures are not always properly understood. but a time will come, o babe of tegumai, when we shall make letters all twenty-six of ‘em, and when we shall be able to read as well as to write, and then we shall always say exactly what we mean without any mistakes. let the neolithic ladies wash the mud out of the stranger’s hair.’