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As far as they are used in the common writing, they amount to 2,425. The number of characters in the Chinese dictionary is 40,000, of which, however, only 10,000 are required for the general purposes of literature. They are disposed under 214 signs, which serve as keys, and which correspond to our alphabetic order.
Hieroglyphic figures, and even characters in regular lines, are seen sculptured on their sides; though I doubt whether they bear any analogy to alphabetic writing. On measuring the breadth of the Orinoco between the islands called Isla de Uruana and Isla de la Manteca, we found it, during the high waters, 2674 toises, which make nearly four nautical miles.
In any case, it is significant that the book which began with the magnificent picture of Wisdom as a fair woman, and hung beside it the ugly likeness of Folly, should end with this charming portrait. It is an acrostic, and the fetters of alphabetic sequence are not favourable to progress or continuity of thought.
But the Semitic mind has not been without influence on human progress. It early recorded its thoughts, its wants, and achievements in the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt; the Phoenicians, foremost in their day in commerce and the arts, introduced from Egypt alphabetic letters, of which all the world has since made use.
I have still quite a quantity of these type. They were used in Washington as well as the type for numerals in the winter of 1837-38. "In the earlier period of the invention it was a matter which experience alone could determine whether the numerical system, by means of a numbered dictionary, or the alphabetic mode, by spelling of the words, was the better.
"She's been doing that every night this week," said Miss Mary angrily, "as if she didn't have enough to do!" "What is it?" asked Susan. Miss Lydia threw down her pen, and stretched her cramped fingers. "Why, Mrs. Lawrence's sister is going to be married," she explained, "and the family wants an alphabetic list of friends to send the announcements to.
So the fire was to burn slowly, instead of fiercely, but still upon the skin of the patient. In spite of this pain, less intense, but still sharp and keen, Rodin, stretched upon his back, began to write, holding the paper above his head. On the first sheet he traced some alphabetic signs, part of a cipher known to himself alone.
In common with the Babylonians they used the same alphabetic system, though their languages were unlike, namely, the cuneiform or arrow-head or wedge-shaped characters, as seen in the celebrated inscriptions of Darius on the side of a high rock thirty feet from the ground.
One, Chilperic, a subtle grammarian and the inventor of new alphabetic symbols, is yet the most implacable of his race, the murderer of his wife, the heartless slayer of hundreds, to whom human life is as that of cattle skilled in the administration of poison, a picturesque cut-throat.
There are, however, two scrapings evidently alphabetic, and probably Nabathaan, which are offered to the specialists in epigraphy: six appear in Wellsted's illustration, especially that with a long line above it, near the left and lower corner of the cut. M. Lacaze and I copied the most striking features in our carnets; he taking the right or southern side and leaving the other block to me.
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