.
The lips are protruded as if to say O; but not being sufficiently so for
the production of the pure Sound, the Sound actually given is mixed, or
made turbid or thick. The U-Sound denotes accordingly _Retiracy_,
_Obscurity_, _Shade_, _Turbidity_, _Mixedness_, or _Impurity_, as of
Colors in a dim light, or as of Materials in a slime or plasma, etc.

Metaphysically, O denotes PURE THEORY, the _Abstract_; and U (oo)
signifies the ACTUAL or PRACTICAL, the Tempic, the Concrete (the
Temporal or Profane), which is always mixed with contingency.

Other Vowel-Sounds, shades more or less distinct of some one of these
Leading Sounds, are interspersed by nature between these _diatonic_
Sounds, like the half tones and quarter tones in Music. Two of these
French _eu_ and _e muet_ modifications of _u_ (uh) have been mentioned.
_Eu_ is modulated at the lips, and _e muet_ at the middle mouth, but
both have the general character of _u_ (uh). The French U is a
modification of the U (oo), of the Scale just given, but made finer, and
approximating I (ee). The Italian O is a modification of _o_ (aw). These
four are the Leading Semi-tone Sounds; which along with _a_ carry the
Scale from Seven (7) diatonic up to twelve (12) chromatic. As they will
be passed over for the present with this mere mention, the points of the
Scale at which they intervene will not be now considered.

Discarding these minor shades of Sounds, the Leading Scale of
Vowel-Sounds is augmented from Seven (7) or Eight (8) to Twelve (12) or
Thirteen (13), by the addition of the following five (5) Diphthongs or
Double Vowels. In respect to the _quality_ of Sound, they are pronounced
just as the Vowels of which they are composed would be if separated and
succeeding each other. To make the Diphthong _long_, the two Sounds are
kept quite distinct. To make it _short_, they are closely blended; as,
AU (ah-oo), long; A[)U] (ahoo), short. With no diacretical mark they are
pronounced _ad libidum_, or neither very long nor short.

The following are the five (5) Diphthongs which complete the Vowel
Scale:

The IU is composed of the first Vowel I (ee) and the last U (oo). The
I-sound, so placed before another Vowel-Sound, tends readily to be
converted into or more properly to prefix to itself the weak
Consonant-Sound represented in English by Y (in German and Italian by
J); thus YIU for IU. The whole of the three Sounds so involved (a real
Triphthong) are represented by the English