is too much to claim for
writing, it may at any rate be affirmed to stand midway between the
other two, and to be as much superior to the one as it is inferior to
the other.

The intention of the written word, that which presides at its first
formation, the end whereunto it is a mean, is by aid of symbols agreed
on beforehand, to represent to the eye with as much accuracy as possible
the spoken word.

{Sidenote: _Imperfection of Writing_}

It never fulfils this intention completely, and by degrees more and more
imperfectly. Short as man's spoken word often falls of his thought, his
written word falls often as short of his spoken. Several causes
contribute to this. In the first place, the marks of imperfection and
infirmity cleave to writing, as to every other invention of man. All
alphabets have been left incomplete. They have superfluous letters,
letters, that is, which they do not want, because other letters already
represent the sound which they represent; they have dubious letters,
letters, that is, which say nothing certain about the sounds they stand
for, because more than one sound is represented by them--our 'c' for
instance, which sometimes has the sound of 's', as in '_c_ity',
sometimes of 'k', as in '_c_at'; they are deficient in letters, that is,
the language has elementary sounds which have no corresponding letters
appropriated to them, and can only be represented by combinations of
letters. All alphabets, I believe, have some of these faults, not a few
of them have all, and more. This then is one reason of the imperfect
reproduction of the spoken word by the written. But another is, that the
human voice is so wonderfully fine and flexible an organ, is able to
mark such subtle and delicate distinctions of sound, so infinitely to
modify and vary these sounds, that were an alphabet complete as human
art could make it, did it possess eight and forty instead of four and
twenty letters, there would still remain a multitude of sounds which it
could only approximately give back{229}.

{Sidenote: _Alphabets Inadequate_}

But there is a further cause for the divergence which comes gradually to
find place between men's spoken and their written words. What men do
often, they will seek to do with the least possible trouble. There is
nothing which they do oftener than repeat words; they will seek here
then to save themselves pains; they will contract two or more syllables
into one; ('toto opere' will become 'topp