The difference between commencing the composition of words by the real elements of speech, represented by single letters, each charged with its own appropriate meaning, and conveying that meaning into every compound into which it should enter, from commencing the composition by assuming long words already formed in some existing language, as Anthropos (Greek word for man), Acanthos (Greek word for spine), Keron (Greek word for fin or wing), etc., as the first element of the new compounds, is infinite in its results upon the facility, copiousness, and expressiveness of the terminology evolved. It is like the difference of man working by the aid of the unlimited resources of tools and machinery and the knowledge of chemistry, on the one hand, and man working with his unaided bare hands, and in ignorance of the nature of the substances he employs, on the other hand. The scientific world has not hitherto known how to construct the lingual tools and instruments which are indispensable to its own rapidly augmenting and complicated operations; to analyze and apply the lingual materials at its command; and to simplify and unify the nomenclatures of all the sciences, in order to quicken a thousandfold the operation of all the mental faculties, in the perception and exact vocal indication of all the infinitely numerous close discriminations and broad generalizing analogies with which nature abounds.
It is hardly necessary to say that the particular meanings assigned above to the single sounds in the analysis of the German word Finger-hut, are not assumed in any sense to be the real meanings of the vocal elements involved. The whole case is supposititious, and assumed merely to illustrate the unused possibilities of Language in the construction of significant words, and especially in the construction of scientific technicalities. To found a real Language of this kind, it would be necessary, first, to work up patiently to the true meanings of the Elementary Sounds of Human Speech, and then to the analogy of those meanings with the elements of universal being (the categories of the understanding, etc.), and finally of these again with the elements of each of the special Sciences.
Could such a discovery be actually accomplished; should it prove to be the simple fact of nature that every sound of the human voice is Nature's chosen vehicle for the communication of an equally elementary idea; and that the Combinations of the Elementary Sounds into Words do inherently and necessarily, so soon as these primitive meanings and the law of their combination are known, produce words infinite in number and perfect in structure, naturally expressive of every precise idea of which the human mind is capable, it becomes perfectly conceivable how a Natural Universal Language would be evolved by discovery alone. The creation of the Language would belong to Nature as truly and absolutely—in a sense, more truly and absolutely—than our existing instinctual Languages. It would be in fact the normal Language of Humanity, from which, for the want of such a discovery, mankind has been unnaturally debarred. The fact would prove to be that we have ever been banished from our true vernacular, and have been, all our lives, speaking foreign or strange tongues, from which we have only to recur or come home. May we not, therefore, found in Science the rational expectation, that in due time, from a Lingual Paradise Lost in the remote Past, we may recur to a Lingual Paradise Regained, in literal fulfilment of the promise of prophecy, that all the nations of the earth shall be of one speech?
A SUMMER'S NIGHT.
[Translated literally from the original Polish of Count S. Krasinski, by Prof. Podbielski; prepared for The Continental by Martha Walker Cook.]
'O'er this sad world Death folds his gloomy pall,
Bright buds hatch worms, flowers die, and woe shrouds all.'
Malizewski.
'Oh, look on me, my fellow countrymen,
From the same Fatherland! On me, so young,
Passing o'er the last road, gazing for the last time
On Helios—to see him rise no more for ever!
In his cold cradle Death rolls all asleep; Me living he conducts to his black shores;
Me wretched! unbetrothed! upon whose ears
No bridal chant has ever hymned its joys,
Stern Acheron alone calls to his side,
And Death must be my icy Bridegroom now!'
Sophocles: Antigone.
CHAPTER I.
I behold her as they lead her forth, with myrtle wreath upon her brow, and floating drapery of snow. She moves slowly, as if in fear, and the church rises like a vast cemetery before her eyes. Charmed with her modest loveliness, men smile on her as she glides forward, while children, changed into little angels, strew fresh flowers before her. The bishop and attendant priests look bright in gay dalmatics; and throngs of people crowd round, praising, envying, and wishing bliss. She alone is silent, with long lashes shading her downcast eyes, as she leans on the arms of her maidens.
Weariness is in every movement of her slight form, her nerves seem unstrung, and the rays of soul gleam vague and troubled through the expanded pupils of her blue eyes; it were indeed hard to divine whether plaint or prayer would breathe through the half-open lips. As she passes on before the shrines and chapels she lifts her hand, as if intending to make the sign of the cross, but she seems without energy to complete the symbols, and they fall broken and half formed in the air. Inclining her head before the Mother of God, she bends as if about to kneel, but, her strength evidently failing her, she moves tremblingly on toward the sanctuary, and the Great Altar in its gloomy depths looms before her like a sepulchre.