Note (return) — LIST OF HOMOPHONES

The awkwardness of these English homophones is much increased by the absence of inflection, and I suppose it was the richness of their inflections which made the Greeks so indifferent (apparently) to syllabic recurrences that displease us: moreover, the likeness in sound between their similar syllables was much obscured by a verbal accent which respected the inflection and disregarded the stem, whereas our accent is generally faithful to the root.10 This sensitiveness to the sound of syllables is of the essence of our best English, and where the effect is most magical in our great poets it is impossible to analyse.