Note A — THE BONDS OF SPEECH.

Here and elsewhere I use italic letters to spell a Greek word; doing so because it is quite possible that many intelligent and inquiring readers who may look to me, as to a fellow-student, for a little help, may be unacquainted with the Greek alphabet, and the force of its various characters. We are obliged to use this letter in Russian and Sanskrit; why not in Greek? As to that however there is one notable and often recurring difficulty in the use of an alien alphabet: the short e is one letter, epsilon, and the long e another, eta (pronounced aytah). The sound and value of the latter is that of the French or Italian e; that is the name sound of English a, without the slight e sound, with which we close it. This sound—the long e (or a)—I have endeavored to indicate by using for it a Roman letter. Strictness would demand other like indications of sound which must be passed by with this allusion.