The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-11-25
TRICKS OF THE MEMORY
Some Of the Difficulties In Gramnssr ana
Spelling which Often Bsset Evea
the Most Thorough
Scholars.

One of the queernesses with which
writers have to contend is an occasional
puzzleheadedness over perfectly we'll
known point of photography or gram
mar. A word that one has probably
spelled correctly all ones life suddenly
swerves over into the doubtful orthog
nphy column. Is it ..ingulf," ..engulf,"
or ''engulph?" one queries, with pen
poised. Is it ''appal" or '.apall?" Pan
tasy" or ''phantasy? and SO on indetin-
itely. To be sure. there is the diction-
ary, but, asks the Boston Common
wealth, who wants to learn his A-B-Cs
over again or to look up the spelling Of
everyday words? 1t is curious fact
that, left to themselves, the fingers viii
generally spell word correctly. 1t Is
in the hesitation that certainty is lost.
There can be no doubt that the fingers Of
writer acquire sort of automatic edu-
cation. Even when doubt as to the
right spelling of a word has crossed the
mind the hand will usually bring the
letters into form if given its course. 1t
is as if it consciously reasoned: II have
always driven the pen so and SO, having
begun sol" But once hampered by the
spirit of investigation, the irresoluto
hand inelines toward the Unabridged
The matter is worse where parts Of
speech entangle themselves. Rules and
regulations fia.ten themselves out and
only a helpless fioundering among
pronouns, antecedents and correlatives
seems for the time possible. In one of
Wilkie Collins published letters he
writes: For the last week, while
was finishing the story, | galloped
along without feeling it, like the old
post horses Do you remember how
the fore legs of those post horses quiv-
cred and how their heads dropped when
they came to the journeys end? That's
me, my dear, that's me. Good God. Is
me- grammar? Ought it to be Il? Ny
poor father paid ninety pounds year
for my education, and l give you my
sacred word of honor am not sure
whether it is me- or 81" Probably
Wilkie Collins could have made pretty
straight guess on this point, but those
little alterations come upon us some
times when we should be slow to stake
anything upon our correctness, though
another person, laundering in the same
way, would be instantly arraigned be-
fore the bar of our correct and scandal
lied judgment, just as we serve
merited condemnation upon fellow
mortals who display the Identical
faults of which we are ourselves guilty.
Valuable speakers and voluminous
writers probably experience little Of
this trouble. The spouting geyser OF
words never fails them, and for this
they are to be congratulated; vet it is a
consolation to those of less oraterical
ability to know that great writers and
speakers learn to curb their flowing
speech rather than give vent to it.
Prof. Shedd states that in the last half
of Webster's public life he learned to
reject the vague words that come thick
and thronging when the mind is
aroused. He grew more select and
precise, and presently, as one said,
every word weighed pound" This
style of speaking or writing cannot be
driven through with the velocity en-
joyed when one is more careless of re-
suits. The word fifty chosen is the
word to be striven for, and, such is the
perversity Of inanimate things. it is pre-
cisely the word that sometimes fails To
come at call