er'; 'vuestra merced', 'usted';
and 'topside the other way', 'topsy-turvey'{230}); they will slur over,
and thus after a while cease to pronounce, certain letters; for hard
letters they will substitute soft; for those which require a certain
effort to pronounce, they will substitute those which require little or
none. Under the operation of these causes a gulf between the written and
spoken word will not merely exist; but it will have the tendency to grow
ever wider and wider. This tendency indeed will be partially
counterworked by approximations which from time to time will by silent
consent be made of the written word to the spoken; here and there a
letter dropped in speech will be dropped also in writing, as the 's' in
so many French words, where its absence is marked by a circumflex; a new
shape, contracted or briefer, which a word has taken on the lips of men,
will find its representation in their writing; as 'chirurgeon' will not
merely be pronounced, but also spelt, 'surgeon', and 'synodsman'
'sidesman'. Still for all this, and despite of these partial
readjustments of the relations between the two, the anomalies will be
infinite; there will be a multitude of written letters which have ceased
to be sounded letters; a multitude of words will exist in one shape upon
our lips, and in quite another in our books.

It is inevitable that the question should arise--Shall these anomalies
be meddled with? shall it be attempted to remove them, and bring writing
and speech into harmony and consent--a harmony and consent which never
indeed in actual fact at any period of the language existed, but which
yet may be regarded as the object of written speech, as the idea which,
however imperfectly realized, has, in the reduction of spoken sounds to
written, floated before the minds of men? If the attempt is to be made,
it is clear that it can only be made in one way. The alternative is not
open, whether Mahomet shall go to the mountain, _or_ the mountain to
Mahomet. The spoken word is the mountain; it will not stir; it will
resist all interference. It feels its own superior rights, that it
existed the first, that it is, so to say, the elder brother; and it will
never be induced to change itself for the purpose of conforming and
complying with the written word. Men will not be persuaded to pronounce
'wou_l_d' and 'de_b_t', because they write 'would' and 'debt' severally
with an 'l' and with a 'b': but what if they could be induced t