ii4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



number permit glimpses into their origin ; it is, for example, 

 probable that habitual or verbal associations have had a part in 

 suggesting the likeness of Sunday to a person buttoning his cuffs, 

 and of Friday (vendredi) to a man selling (qui vend) something 

 placed upon a van. The masculine or feminine character of the 

 dress attributed to the letters seems to be suggested by the pro- 

 nunciation (6, masculine ; ra, feminine, etc.). In like manner, the 

 personification of the word college may be explained as a youth 

 wearing a large white collar (col) turned back on his jacket as 

 children's collars are. So the word cat (chat) brings up the image 

 of a cat with a twist in its mouth, as if it were laughing, because, 

 perhaps, M. F - had an impediment in his speech in childhood 

 which caused him to make a face when he tried to pronounce the 

 letters ch. But, while M. F - regards these explanations as 

 very plausible, they are still only hypotheses to him ; for he has 

 no precise conviction, no sure recollection that such were indeed 

 the causes of his inductions in these cases. The special incidents 

 to which these speculations apply are relatively very few, and 

 his speculations as a whole are entirely enigmatical. 



Perhaps their origin will become a little less obscure if we 

 make account of the exaggeration which follows a process in 



M. F that is familiar to us all in a lower degree. When we 



hear somebody we do not know spoken of, or when the author in 

 a romance introduces a new character, we spontaneously form an 

 idea of his appearance and moral qualities which is not exclu- 

 sively based on what we are told of him, but in which our fancy 

 involuntarily participates to a considerable extent. Yet this idea 

 usually remains vague and indecisive till more ample information 

 comes to it, susceptible of being modified and enriched according 



to the course of events. With M. F this fanciful anticipation 



of the facts operates with exceptional promptness, while the im- 

 ages it engenders are distinguished by a rare persistence. A 

 proper name is enough to call up in him, without any known rea- 

 son, a complete and precisely defined figure, which thenceforth 

 continues so fast attached to the name that meeting with the per- 

 son himself does not dissociate it. Thus, M. F conceived the 



two Coquelins, before he had seen them, by virtue of their iden- 

 tity of name, in exactly the same form and with identical heads. 

 He was much surprised not to see me wearing the full black beard 

 he had immediately given me the first time I was spoken of to 

 him. I supposed the beard belonged to another person of his ac- 

 quaintance whose name had some similarity in sound with mine ; 

 but he did not think this was the case, and could not give any ex- 

 planation of the fact. He can not even tell whether it is the audi- 

 tive perception of the name, or its appearance when written, or 

 its articulation, or a mixture of all these that induces his personi- 



