In languages where nicer distinctions of sound were called for than the original twenty Phœnician signs carried, a few fresh letters were added, but in no case has any quite new form been invented. The added letters have always been a modification of one of the older forms--either a letter cut in half, or one modified by an additional stroke or dot. In this way the Romans made _G_ out of _C_, by adding a stroke to one of its horns. _V_ and _U_, _I_ and _J_ were originally slightly different ways of writing one letter, which have been taken advantage of to express a new sound when the necessity for a greater number of sound-signs arose; _W_, as its very name shows, is only a doubled form of _V_. At first sight it seems a simple thing enough to invent a letter, but let us remember that such a thing as an arbitrarily invented letter does not exist anywhere. To create one out of nothing is a feat of which human ingenuity does not seem capable. Every single letter in use anywhere (we can hardly dwell on this thought too long) has descended in regular steps from the pictured object in whose name the sound it represents originally dwelt. Shape and sound were wedded together in early days by the first beginners of writing, and all the labour bestowed on them since has only been in the way of modification and adaptation to changed circumstances. No wonder that, when people believed a whole alphabet to have been invented straight off, they also thought that it took a god to do it. Thoth, the Great-and-great, with his emblems of justice and his recording pencil; Oannes, the Sea-monster, to whom all the wonders of the under-world lay open; Swift Hermes, with his cap of invisibility and his magic staff; One-eyed Odin, while his dearly purchased draught of wisdom-water was inspiring him still. No one indeed--as we see plainly enough now--but a hero like one of these, was equal to the task of inventing an alphabet. [Sidenote: Cuneiform writing.]