But far more important, far more restraining than the attitude either of printer or publisher is that of the public itself. It is not simply indifferent: it is largely hostile. To many men a strange spelling is offensive; by the ill-informed it is regarded as portending ruin to the language. Necessarily no writer desires to limit his possible audience by running counter to its feelings in a matter which has no direct bearing upon the subject of which he treats. In my own case the public—most unwisely, as it naturally strikes me—is none too anxious under any circumstances to read what I write. Why, therefore, should I convert what is in my eyes a culpable lack of interest into absolute indifference or active hostility by rousing the prejudices of readers in consequence of insisting upon a point which has only a remote concern with the actual topic that may be under consideration?
These are reasons which I could fairly and honestly give. But, after all, the main one is something entirely different, something altogether independent of the feelings of others. With advancing years knowledge may or may not come; but altruism distinctly lingers. As we get along in life most of us lose the inclination to be constantly engaged in fighting strenuously for the progress of even the most praiseworthy causes. The desire wanes of benefiting your fellow-man, while encountering in so doing not merely his indifference, but his active hostility; of urging him to show himself rational while his proclivities are violently asinine. Even the far keener enjoyment of rendering him miserable by making evident to his reluctant but slowly dawning intelligence how much of an ignoramus, not to say idiot, he has shown himself in his acts and utterances—even this most poignant of pleasures loses its relish if indulgence in it can be secured only at the cost of much personal trouble. This is just as true of spelling reform as of any other movement. In fact, indifference to the propagation of the truth about it may be regarded as a species of that very altruism of which I have just disclaimed the practice. If a man seriously believes that it is essential to the purity and perfection of the English language that honor should be spelled with a u and horror without it; that honorable should be spelled with a u and honorary without it; that meter should have its final syllable in re and diameter and hexameter in er; that deign should terminate in eign and its allied compound form disdain in ain; that convey should end in ey and inveigh in eigh; that precede should end in ede and proceed in eed; that fancy should begin with f and phantom with ph; that deceit should be written without p and receipt with it; if, in fine, spelling in different ways words which have the same origin brings him pleasure, why not leave him in the undisturbed enjoyment of this mild form of imbecility? He will not be made happier by being made wiser.
It is natural, therefore, that the position of the man who has got along in years should tend to be rather that of a looker-on than of a participant in the strife. He feels more and more disposed to content himself with approving and applauding the work of the younger and better soldiers. My own attitude is, indeed, very much the same as that once described to me as his by my dear and honored friend, the late Professor Child of Harvard. He sometimes did and sometimes did not employ in his correspondence the reformed spellings which were recommended by the English and American philological societies. It may be added, in passing, that these changes, with the weight of the greatest scholars of both countries behind them, were in general treated with almost absolute indifference; or, if considered at all, met usually with the same unintelligent opposition as have the lists put forth by the Simplified Spelling Board. “If I am writing,” said Professor Child, “to one of these educated ignoramuses who think there is something sacred about the present orthography, I always take care to use the altered forms; but when writing to a man who really knows something about the subject, I am apt not to take the extra trouble required to conform to the recommendations made by the two philological societies.”[1]
In not following my faith by my practice, I am perfectly willing to concede that my course is not merely inconsistent, but unmanly. I shall not quarrel with any one who calls it pusillanimous, and even mean. Intimations to that effect have been made to me more than once in private letters. These reproaches I recognize as deserved, and I therefore receive them with meekness. But one of the reasons given above for my action, or rather inaction—the hostility of readers to new spellings—points directly to the one mighty obstacle which stands in the way of reforming our orthography. It is, in truth, all-potent. Singularly enough, however, it is so far from receiving consideration that it hardly ever receives much more than mere mention.
The regard for our present orthography is not based at all upon knowledge, or upon reason. It owes its existence and its strength almost entirely to sentiment. We give it other names, indeed. We describe the motives which animate us in big phrases. We talk of our devotion to the language of our fathers, while displaying the amplest possible ignorance of what that language was. We please ourselves with the notion that in denouncing any change we are nobly maintaining the historic continuity of the speech. As a matter of fact, we are governed by the cheap but all-powerful sentiment of association. We like the present orthography because we are used to it. When once the point of intimate familiarity with the form of a word has been reached, it makes thenceforward no difference to us how wide is the divergence between the pronunciation and the spelling which is ostensibly designed to represent the pronunciation. As little difference does it make if the form with which we have become familiar not merely fails to indicate the origin of the word, but on the contrary suggests and even imposes upon the mind a belief in an utterly false derivation. Such considerations do not affect us in the slightest. We simply like the spelling to which we are accustomed; we dislike the spelling to which we are not accustomed. No one who familiarizes himself with the articles in newspapers and magazines written by the defenders of the present orthography can entertain the slightest doubt on this point. The arguments advanced amount to nothing more than this, that any new spelling employed is distasteful to the writer because it breaks up old associations.
Because hostility to change springs not from knowledge, not from reason, but almost entirely from sentiment, it must not be inferred that the obstacle it presents to reform is a slight one. On the contrary, it is peculiarly formidable. So far from being a feeble barrier to overcome, it is of the very strongest, if not the very strongest. The fact that in numerous instances it is based upon foundations demonstrably irrational does not in the least impair its influence. In any matter of controversy we can fight with assurance of success against beliefs which the holder has honestly, even if mistakenly, adopted, because he deems them to be in accordance with reason. Appeal can then be made to his intelligence. But not so in the case of a belief based primarily upon sentiment. This is constantly exemplified in controversies about politics or religion. But nowhere is the fact more conspicuous than in the matter of English orthography. To spell differently from what we have been trained to spell irritates many of us almost beyond the point of endurance. We can manage to put up with variations from the present orthography prevailing in past centuries when we come to learn enough about the subject to be aware that such variations existed. The writers of those times had not reached that exalted plane of perfect propriety on which it is our good fortune to live and move. But no contemporary must venture to free himself from the cast-iron shackles in which we have inclosed the form of our words without subjecting his action to our indignant protest.
It is vain to deny the strength of the feeling of association. Even to those who have ascended out of the atmosphere of serene ignorance in which it flourishes most luxuriantly, a new spelling is always apt to come with something of a sense of shock. No matter how fully we recognize the impropriety and even absurdity of the old form, none the less does the sentiment of association cling to it and affect our attitude toward it. As this treatise sets out to deal somewhat with my own impressions, I may be pardoned the employment of a personal exemplification of the point under discussion. German is, for practical purposes, mainly a phonetic tongue. In modern times anomalies which once existed have been largely swept away. It is merely a question of a few years when they will all go; for, Germany being a nation of scholars, scholars have there some influence. In studying the language as a boy I learned some spellings now rarely used. For instance, thun and todt appeared then in the forms here given. Now I see the one without the h, the other without the d. I recognize the propriety of the action taken in dropping the unpronounced letters. But, while my judgment is perfectly convinced of its correctness, for the life of me I cannot get over a certain sense of strangeness when I come across the words in their new form—at least, it was some time before I could.
How much, indeed, we are all affected by this influence of association one illustration will make convincingly clear. In the sixteenth century there existed an occasional tendency to spell hot with an initial w. It was an effort to represent the pronunciation of the word which had begun to prevail in certain quarters. It did not drive out the present form, but it existed alongside of it. It was a spelling to which Spenser was particularly addicted. There are many instances of the use of it in the Faerie Queene, of which the following may serve as examples:
To pluck it out with pincers firie whot.
—Book I, canto x, st. 26.