Part 12
The instantaneous association of colour with sound characterises a small percentage of adults, and it appears to be rather common, though in an ill-developed degree, among children. I can here appeal not only to my own collection of facts, but to those of others, for the subject has latterly excited some interest in Germany. The first widely known case was that of the brothers Nussbaumer, published in 1873 by Professor Bruhl of Vienna, of which the English reader will find an account in the last volume of Lewis's _Problems of Life and Mind_ (p. 280). Since then many occasional notices of similar associations have appeared. A pamphlet containing numerous cases was published in Leipsic in 1881 by two Swiss investigators, Messrs. Bleuler and Lehmann.[9] One of the authors had the faculty very strongly, and the other had not; so they worked conjointly with advantage. They carefully tabulated the particulars of sixty-two cases. As my present object is to subordinate details to the general impression that I wish to convey of the peculiarities of different minds, I will simply remark--First, that the persistence of the colour association with sounds is fully as remarkable as that of the Number-Form with numbers. Secondly, that the vowel sounds chiefly evoke them. Thirdly, that the seers are invariably most minute in their description of the precise tint and hue of the colour. They are never satisfied, for instance, with saying "blue," but will take a great deal of trouble to express or to match the particular blue they mean. Fourthly, that no two people agree, or hardly ever do so, as to the colour they associate with the same sound. Lastly, that the tendency is very hereditary. The publications just mentioned absolve me from the necessity of giving many extracts from the numerous letters I have received, but I am particularly anxious to bring the brilliancy of these colour associations more vividly before the reader than is possible by mere description. I have therefore given the elaborately-coloured diagrams in Plate IV., which were copied by the artist directly from the original drawings, and which have been printed by the superimposed impressions of different colours from different lithographic stones. They have been, on the whole, very faithfully executed, and will serve as samples of the most striking cases. Usually the sense of colour is much too vague to enable the seer to reproduce the various tints so definitely as those in this Plate. But this is by no means universally the case.
Fig. 68 is an excellent example of the occasional association of colours with letters. It is by Miss Stones, the head teacher in a high school for girls, who, as I have already mentioned, obtained useful information for me, and has contributed several suggestive remarks of her own. She says:--
"The vowels of the English language always appear to me, when I think of them, as possessing certain colours, of which I enclose a diagram. Consonants, when thought of by themselves, are of a purplish black; but when I think of a whole word, the colour of the consonants tends towards the colour of the vowels. For example, in the word 'Tuesday,' when I think of each letter separately, the consonants are purplish-black, _u_ is a light dove colour, _e_ is a pale emerald green, and _a_ is yellow; but when I think of the whole word together, the first part is a light gray-green, and the latter part yellow. Each word is a distinct whole. I have always associated the same colours with the same letters, and no effort will change the colour of one letter, transferring it to another. Thus the word 'red' assumes a light-green tint, while the word 'yellow' is light-green at the beginning and red at the end. Occasionally, when uncertain how a word should be spelt, I have considered what colour it ought to be, and have decided in that way. I believe this has often been a great help to me in spelling, both in English and foreign languages. The colour of the letters is never smeared or blurred in any way. I cannot recall to mind anything that should have first caused me to associate colours with letters, nor can my mother remember any alphabet or reading-book coloured in the way I have described, which I might have used as a child. I do not associate any idea of colour with musical notes at all, nor with any of the other senses."
She adds:--
"Perhaps you may be interested in the following account from my sister of her visual peculiarities: 'When I think of Wednesday I see a kind of oval flat wash of yellow emerald green; for Tuesday, a gray sky colour; for Thursday, a brown-red irregular polygon; and a dull yellow smudge for Friday.'"
[Footnote 9: Zwangmässige Lichtempfindungen durch Schall und verwandte Erscheinungen, von E. Bleuler und K. Lehmann. Leipsig, Fues' Verlag (R. Reisland), 1881.]
The latter quotation is a sample of many that I have; I give it merely as another instance of hereditary tendency.
I will insert just one description of other coloured letters than those represented in the Plate. It is from Mrs. H., the married sister of a well-known man of science, who writes:--
"I do not know how it is with others, but to me the colours of vowels are so strongly marked that I hardly understand their appearing of a different colour, or, what is nearly as bad, colourless to any one. To me they are and always have been, as long as I have known them, of the following tints:--"
A, pure white, and like china in texture.
E, red, not transparent; vermilion, with china-white would represent it.
I, light bright yellow; gamboge.
O, black, but transparent; the colour of deep water seen through thick clear ice.
U, purple.
Y, a dingier colour than I.
"The shorter sounds of the vowels are less vivid and pure in colour. Consonants are almost or quite colourless to me, though there is some blackness about M.
"Some association with U in the words blue and purple may account for that colour, and possibly the E in red may have to do with that also; but I feel as if they were independent of suggestions of the kind.
"My first impulse is to say that the association lies solely in the sound of the vowels, in which connection I certainly feel it the most strongly; but then the thought of the distinct redness of such a [printed or written] word as '_great_' shows me that the relation must be visual as well as aural. The meaning of words is so unavoidably associated with the sight of them, that I think this association rather overrides the primitive impression of the colour of the vowels, and the word '_violet_' reminds me of its proper colour until I look at the word as a mere collection of letters.
"Of my two daughters, one sees the colours quite differently from this (A, blue; E, white; I, black; O, whity-brownish; U, opaque brown). The other is only heterodox on the A and O; A being with her black, and O white. My sister and I never agreed about these colours, and I doubt whether my two brothers feel the chromatic force of the vowels at all."
I give this instance partly on account of the hereditary interest. I could add cases from at least three different families in which the heredity is quite as strongly marked.
Fig. 69 fills the whole of the middle column of Plate IV., and contains specimens from a large series of coloured illustrations, accompanied by many pages of explanation from a correspondent, Dr. James Key of Montagu, Cape Colony. The pictures will tell their own tale sufficiently well. I need only string together a few brief extracts from his letters, as follows:--
"I confess my inability to understand visualised numerals; it is otherwise, however, with regard to colour associations with letters. Ever since childhood these have been distinct and unchanging in my consciousness; sometimes, although very seldom, I have mentioned them, to the amazement of my teachers and the scorn of my comrades. A is brown. I say it most dogmatically, and nothing will ever have the effect, I am convinced, of making it appear otherwise! I can imagine no explanation of this association. [He goes into much detail as to conceivable reasons connected with his childish life to show that none of these would do.] Shades of brown accompany to my mind the various degrees of openness in pronouncing A. I have never been destitute in all my conscious existence of a conviction that E is a clear, cold, light-gray blue. I remember daubing in colours, when quite a little child, the picture of a jockey, whose shirt received a large share of E, as I said to myself while daubing it with grey. [He thinks that the letter I may possibly be associated with black because it contains no open space, and O with white because it does.] The colour of R has been invariably of a copper colour, in which a swarthy blackness seems to intervene, visually corresponding to the trilled pronunciation of R. This same appearance exists also in J, X, and Z."
The upper row of Fig. 69 shows the various shades of brown, associated with different pronunciations of the letter A, as in "fame," "can," "charm," and "all" respectively. The second, third and fourth rows similarly refer to the various pronunciations of the other vowels. Then follow the letters of the alphabet, grouped according to the character of the appearance they suggest. After these come the numerals. Then I give three lines of words such as they appear to him. The first is my own name, the second is "London," and the third is "Visualisation." Proceeding conversely, Dr. Key collected scraps of various patterns of wall paper, and sent them together with the word that the colour of the several patterns suggested to him. Specimens of these are shown in the three bottom lines of the Fig. I have gone through the whole of them with care, together with his descriptions and reasons, and can quite understand his meaning, and how exceedingly complex and refined these associations are. The patterns are to him like words in poetry, which call up associations that any substituted word of a like dictionary meaning would fail to do. It would not, for example, be possible to print words by the use of counters coloured like those in Fig. 69, because the tint of each influences that of its neighbours. It must be understood that my remarks, though based on Dr. Key's diagrams and statements as on a text, do not depend, by any means, wholly upon them, but on numerous other letters from various quarters to the same effect. At the same time I should say that Dr. Key's elaborate drawings and ample explanations, to which I am totally unable to do justice in a moderate space, are the most full and striking of any I have received. His illustrations are on a large scale, and are ingeniously arranged so as to express his meaning.
Persons who have colour associations are unsparingly critical. To ordinary individuals one of these accounts seems just as wild and lunatic as another, but when the account of one seer is submitted to another seer, who is sure to see the colours in a different way, the latter is scandalised and almost angry at the heresy of the former. I submitted this very account of Dr. Key to a lady, the wife of an ex-governor of one of the most important British possessions, who has vivid colour associations of her own, and who, I had some reason to think, might have personal acquaintance with the locality where Dr. Key lives. She could not comprehend his account at all, his colours were so entirely different to those that she herself saw.
I have now completed as much as I propose to say about the quaint phenomena of Visualised Forms of numbers and of dates, and of coloured associations with letters. I shall not extend my remarks to such subjects as a musician hearing mental music, of which I have many cases, nor to fancies concerning the other senses, as none of these are so noteworthy. I am conscious that the reader may desire even more assurance of the trustworthiness of the accounts I have given than the space now at my disposal admits, or than I could otherwise afford without wearisome iteration of the same tale, by multiplying extracts from my large store of material. I feel, too, that it may seem ungracious to many obliging correspondents not to have made more evident use of what they have sent than my few and brief notices permit. Still their end and mine will have been gained, if these remarks and illustrations succeed in leaving a just impression of the vast variety of mental constitution that exists in the world, and how impossible it is for one man to lay his mind strictly alongside that of another, except in the rare instances of close hereditary resemblance.
VISIONARIES.
In the course of my inquiries into visual memory, I was greatly struck by the frequency of the replies in which my informants described themselves as subject to "visions." Those of whom I speak were sane and healthy, but were subject notwithstanding to visual presentations, for which they could not account, and which in a few cases reached the level of hallucinations. This unexpected prevalence of a visionary tendency among persons who form a part of ordinary society seems to me suggestive and well worthy of being put on record. The images described by different persons varied greatly in distinctness, some were so faint and evanescent as to appear unworthy of serious notice; others left a deep impression, and others again were so vivid as actually to deceive the judgment. All of these belong to the same category, and it is the assurance of their common origin that affords justification for directing scientific attention to what many may be inclined to contemptuously disregard as the silly vagaries of vacant minds.
The lowest order of phenomena that admit of being classed as visions are the "Number-Forms" to which I have just drawn attention. They are in each case absolutely unchangable, except through a gradual development in complexity. Their diversity is endless, and the Number-Forms of different persons are mutually unintelligible. These strange "visions," for such they must be called, are extremely vivid in some cases, but are almost incredible to the vast majority of mankind, who would set them down as fantastic nonsense; nevertheless, they are familiar parts of the mental furniture of the rest, in whose imaginations they have been unconsciously formed, and where they remain unmodified and unmodifiable by teaching. I have received many touching accounts of their childish experiences from persons who see the Number-Forms, and other curious visions of which I have spoken or shall speak. As is the case with the colour-blind, so with these seers. They imagined at first that everybody else had the same way of regarding things as themselves. Then they betrayed their peculiarities by some chance remark that called forth a stare of surprise, followed by ridicule and a sharp scolding for their silliness, so that the poor little things shrank back into themselves, and never ventured again to allude to their inner world. I will quote just one of many similar letters as a sample. I received it, together with much interesting information, immediately after a lecture I gave to the British Association at Swansea, in which I had occasion to speak of the Number-Forms. The writer says:--
"I had no idea for many years that every one did not imagine numbers in the same positions as those in which they appear to me. One unfortunate day I spoke of it, and was sharply rebuked for my absurdity. Being a very sensitive child I felt this acutely, but nothing ever shook my belief that, absurd or not, I always saw numbers in this particular way. I began to be ashamed of what I considered a peculiarity, and to imagine myself, from this and various other mental beliefs and states, as somewhat isolated and peculiar. At your lecture the other night, though I am now over twenty-nine, the memory of my childish misery at the dread of being peculiar came over me so strongly that I felt I must thank you for proving that, in this particular at any rate, my case is most common."
The next sort of vision that flashes unaccountably into existence is the instant association in some persons of colour with sound, which was spoken of in the last chapter, and on which I need not say more now.
A third curious and abiding fantasy of certain persons is invariably to connect visualised pictures with words, the same picture to the same word. These are perceived by many in a vague, fleeting, and variable way, but to a few they appear strangely vivid and permanent. I have collected many cases of this peculiarity, and am much indebted to the authoress, Mrs. Haweis, who sees these pictures, for her kindness in sketching some of them for me, and for permitting me to use her name in guarantee of their genuineness. She says:--
"Printed words have always had faces to me; they had definite expressions, and certain faces made me think of certain words. The words had _no_ connection with these except sometimes by accident. The instances I give are few and ridiculous. When I think of the word Beast, it has a face something like a gargoyle. The word Green has also a gargoyle face, with the addition of big teeth. The word Blue blinks and looks silly, and turns to the right. The word Attention has the eyes greatly turned to the left. It is difficult to draw them properly because, like Alice's 'Cheshire cat,' which at times became a grin without a cat, these faces have expression without features. The expression of course" [note the _naïve_ phrase "of course."--F.G.] "depends greatly on those of the letters, which have likewise their faces and figures. All the little a's turn their eyes to the left, this determines the eyes of Attention. Ant, however, looks a little down. Of course these faces are endless as words are, and it makes my head ache to retain them long enough to draw."
Some of the figures are very quaint. Thus the interrogation "what?" always excites the idea of a fat man cracking a long whip. They are not the capricious creations of the fancy of the moment, but are the regular concomitants of the words, and have been so as far back as the memory is able to recall.
When in perfect darkness, if the field of view be carefully watched, many persons will find a perpetual series of changes to be going on automatically and wastefully in it. I have much evidence of this. I will give my own experience the first, which is striking to me, because I am very unimpressionable in these matters. I visualise with effort; I am peculiarly inapt to see "after-images," "phosphenes," "light-dust," and other phenomena due to weak sight or sensitiveness; and, again, before I thought of carefully trying, I should have emphatically declared that my field of view in the dark was essentially of a uniform black, subject to an occasional light-purple cloudiness and other small variations. Now, however, after habituating myself to examine it with the same sort of strain that one tries to decipher a signpost in the dark, I have found out that this is by no means the case, but that a kaleidoscopic change of patterns and forms is continually going on, but they are too fugitive and elaborate for me to draw with any approach to truth. I am astonished at their variety, and cannot guess in the remotest degree the cause of them. They disappear out of sight and memory the instant I begin to think about anything, and it is curious to me that they should often be so certainly present and yet be habitually overlooked. If they were more vivid, the case would be very different, and it is most easily conceivable that some very slight physiological change, short of a really morbid character, would enhance their vividness. My own deficiencies, however, are well supplied by other drawings in my possession. These are by the Rev. George Henslow, whose visions are far more vivid than mine. His experiences are not unlike those of Goethe, who said, in an often-quoted passage, that whenever he bent his head and closed his eyes and thought of a rose, a sort of rosette made its appearance, which would not keep its shape steady for a moment, but unfolded from within, throwing out a succession of petals, mostly red but sometimes green, and that it continued to do so without change in brightness and without causing him any fatigue so long as he cared to watch it. Mr. Henslow, when he shuts his eyes and waits, is sure in a short time to see before him the clear image of some object or other, but usually not quite natural in its shape. It then begins to change from one form to another, in his case also for as long a time as he cares to watch it. Mr. Henslow has zealously made repeated experiments on himself, and has drawn what he sees. He has also tried how far he is able to mould the visions according to his will. In one case, after much effort, he contrived to bring the imagery back to its starting-point, and thereby to form what he terms a "visual cycle." The following account is extracted and condensed from his very interesting letter, and will explain the illustrations copied from his drawings that are given in Plate IV.