Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/386

372 "Various theories have been suggested: the association of the emotions with the words which arouse them, the form of the characters, the sound of the pronunciation of the characters or words, the nature of the mechanical production of the sounds.

"I believe that the fairest conclusion of the matter is, that color and shade depend chiefly upon form, but that sound and sense may have some influence. That there is some relation, some analogy which warrants the statement that this word is light and that is dark, I can doubt but little more than that it is appropriate to say that one sound is high, another low.

"Can it be that this association of form and color is an arbitrary product of the imagination? I would believe it myself but for three facts: The phenomena were observed at an age apparently too early for the origination of any such strange and elaborate idea; too early for the development of any theory universally applicable to all words and letters; too early for the dreams of the imagination to remain as the realities of later life. Second, I do not know nor remember of ever having laid down any principles of criticism. Third, I am not conscious of employing any such principles. To do this would require great use of the memory. I have no reason for believing that it is so employed. Indeed, rather than burdening the memory with special facts or general principles, word-color even relieves it of a part of its proper work. It has more than once assisted in the study and use of ancient language vocabularies. For example, only by means of this have I been able to distinguish between ferus, fierce, and ferrum, iron. When wishing to refer to the place of the former use of a word, its shade is of great service in finding its position on the page. Sometimes by its assistance words are seen to be correctly or incorrectly spelled. How many are there of you who do not write in two ways a word of doubtful spelling, and then choose one for no other reason than that it 'looks right'? Such an act is, perhaps, an unconscious testimony to word-color."

Associations of color with musical tones are not uncommon. Certain musicians claim to play the piano by color. One of my correspondents is positive that there exist definite relations between color and sound. In his view "every person has a keynote, and each key-note corresponds to a color which the person naturally prefers to any other." He claims to be able to indicate a "person's favorite color by knowing this key-note. A fine piece of music may thus be worked into a painting by using the colors corresponding to the musical notes." Conversely I should suppose the colors of the rainbow might be rendered into a musical symphony of perfect harmony.

Not less curious is the occasional association of color with taste. A student tells me that when she was a young girl she