It is the fable of Proteus over again. He will
take a thousand shapes wherewith he will seek to elude and delude one
who is determined to extort from him that true answer, which he is
capable of yielding, but will only yield on compulsion. The true
inquirer is deceived by none of these. He still holds him fast; binds
him in strong chains; until he takes his proper shape at the last; and
answers as a true seer, so far as answer is possible, whatever question
may be put to him. Nor, let me observe by the way, will that man's gain
be small who, having so learned to distrust the obvious and the
plausible, carries into other regions of study and of action the
lessons which he has thus learned; determines to seek the ground of
things, and to plant his foot upon that; believes that a lie may look
very fair, and yet be a lie after all; that the truth may show very
unattractive, very unlikely and paradoxical, and yet be the very truth
notwithstanding.
To return from a long, but not unnecessary digression. Convinced as I
am of the immense advantage of following up words to their sources, of
'deriving' them, that is, of tracing each little rill to the river from
whence it was first drawn, I can conceive no method of so effectually
defacing and barbarizing our English tongue, of practically emptying it
of all the hoarded wit, wisdom, imagination, and history which it
contains, of cutting the vital nerve which connects its present with
the past, as the introduction of the scheme of phonetic spelling, which
some have lately been zealously advocating among us.
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