e beatific moment these
huddles of letters took meaning; in instance after instance they
represented, not a word, but words--a linguistic household. Let them be
what they might--a harem, the domestic establishment of a Mormon, the
dwelling-place of verbal polygamists,--he could at last see order in their
relationships. To their morals he was indifferent, absorbed as he was in
his joy of understanding.

In English likewise are thousands of these verbal marriages. We may not be
aware of them; from our very familiarity with words we may overlook the
fact that in instances uncounted their oneness has been welded by a
linguistic minister or justice of the peace. But to read a single page or
harken for thirty seconds to oral discourse with our minds intent on such
states of wedlock is to convince ourselves that they abound. Consider this
list of everyday words: somebody, already, disease, vineyard, unskilled,
outlet, nevertheless, holiday, insane, resell, schoolboy, helpmate,
uphold, withstand, rainfall, deadlock, typewrite, football, motorman,
thoroughfare, snowflake, buttercup, landlord, overturn. Every term except
one yokes a verbal husband with his wife, and the one exception
(_nevertheless_) joins a uxorious man with two wives.

These marriages are of a simple kind. But the nuptial interlinkings
between families of words may be many and complicated. Thus there is a
family of _graph_ (or write) words: graphic, lithograph, cerograph,
cinematograph, stylograph, telegraph, multigraph, seismograph, dictograph,
monograph, holograph, logograph, digraph, autograph, paragraph,
stenographer, photographer, biographer, lexicographer, bibliography,
typography, pyrography, orthography, chirography, calligraphy,
cosmography, geography. There is also a family of _phone_ (or sound)
words: telephone, dictaphone, megaphone, audiphone, phonology, symphony,
antiphony, euphonious, cacophonous, phonetic spelling. It chances that
both families are of Greek extraction. Related to the _graphs_--their
cousins in fact--are the _grams_: telegram, radiogram, cryptogram,
anagram, monogram, diagram, logogram, program, epigram, kilogram,
ungrammatical. Now a representative of the _graphs_ married into the
_phone_ family, and we have graphophone. A representative of the
_phones_ married into the _graph_ family, and we have
phonograph. A representative of the _grams_ married into the
_phone_ family, and we have gramophone. A representative of the
_phone