root, the idea, the soul of the word, not the mere grammatical suffix,
the "limbs and outward flourishes;" but on the other hand, it may be
contended with equal truth that the American accentuation has the Latin
precedent in its favour. Neither advantage is conclusive; neither,
indeed, is, strictly speaking, relevant; for Englishmen do not make a
principle of accentuating the root rather than the prefix or suffix,
else we should say "inund-ation," "resonant," "admir-able;" and the
Americans do not make a principle of following the Latin emphasis, else
they would say "ora-tor" and "gratui-tous," and the recognised
pronunciation of "theatre" would be "theayter." It is argued that there
is a general tendency among educated Englishmen to throw the accent as
far back as possible; that, for instance, the educated speaker says
"in-teresting," the uneducated, "interest-ing." True; but until this
tendency can be proved to possess some inherent advantage, there is not
a shadow of reason why Americans should be reproached or ridiculed for
obeying their own tendency rather than ours. The English tendency is a
matter of comparatively recent fashion. "Con-template," said Samuel
Rogers, "is bad enough, but bal-cony makes me sick." Both forms have
maintained themselves up to the present; but will they for long? I think
one may already trace a reaction against the universal throwing backward
of the accent. I myself say "per-emptory" and "ex-emplary;" but it would
take very little encouragement to make me say "peremp-tory" and
"exemp-lary," which seem to me much more expressive words. There is
surely no doubt that, in accenting a prefix rather than the root of the
word, we lose a certain amount of force. "Con-template," for instance,
is not nearly so strong a word as "contemp-late." We say an
"il-lustrated" book or the "_Il-lustrated London News_" because we do
not require any particular force in the epithet; but when the sense
demands a word with colour and emotion in it, we say the "illus-trious"
statesman, the "illus-trious" poet, throwing into relief the essential