LAURA BRIDGEMAN. 19 



as much so as interjections do. There is, indeed, a close affinity between the 

 two. The words of this class are of a symphenomenal origin, and, for this rea- 

 son, are easily understood when first uttered ; almost as much so as the mere 

 cry of pain or joy is. These peculiar words always form a most enlivening and 

 spirited part of human speech ; I mean such as the English Flash. Every one 

 feels at once that there is an affinity between the sound ^as^ and the impres- 

 sion which sudden, vivid, and passing light produces upon our visual organ. 

 The high sound, we might almost say the brightness of the sound a, as it is pro- 

 nounced in this word ; the impression which the sound sA, at the end of the 

 word, produces in this case, reminding us of splash and dash ; the quickness 

 expressed by the sound of j^, associated, as it is in our minds, with the words 

 fleet, flicker, flight — all these contribute to make the word Flash one which 

 accurately paints with sounds (I cannot otherwise express it) the flashing light. 

 How close the affinity of impressions is, made by sound and light, and, indeed, 

 by many other causes, appears clearly from the fact that the same root has often 

 produced in one language a word designating a phenomenon of sound, and in a 

 cognate language a term for a phenomenon perceived by the eye. We have in 

 English to Titter, and in German Zittern, both derived from the same root. 

 Every etymologist well knows that T, Z, and .S frequently pass over into one 

 another. But the German word Zittern means to tremble, while the English 

 Tittering means to laugh in an under-tone, with a tremulous voice. There is a 

 close affinity between the two phenomena, which is indicated by the fact that 

 the expression just used of tremulous voice is intelligible and legitimate.* 



The Greek Lampas, the German Bliz, the Latin Clarus, seem to me to belong 

 to this class ; so the English Whirl, if it does not belong to those words which 

 originally have actually indicated a sound, as the German Schwirren, which is 

 of the same root, but means a sound similar to the word itself, seems almost to 

 prove. Most original words designating phenomena of light belong to this class. 



* This is not a confusion of ideas, as little as there was confusion in the mind of the blind man, 

 who was asked how he imagined, from all he had heard, red color, when he answered: "^'Like a 

 trumpet sound for the eye;" or as there is confusion in the poet's mind when he boldly transposes 

 words which belong to one sensuous sphere to another; Dante speaks of a silent sun — that is, of a 

 sun not shining. In this poetic temerity lies often Shakespeare's greatest beauty and Milton's high- 

 est sublimity. If this transposition were not intelligible, human speech would hardly be possible ; 

 and if the mind did not perceive things and evolve thoughts in its oneness, they would not be intelligible. 

 Expressions such as space of time, strong sound, cold or warm coloring, sweet voice, waving music, 

 crying red, a clear tone, a dull sound, high-minded, sharp taste, a flat fellow, an itching desire, and 

 a thousand others, would convey no ideas. The whole meaning of the metaphor and the trope must 

 be explained upon the same ground. There is but one sensorium where all sensations center, no 

 matter which sense may have been the channel of perception, and whence all the urgency to breathe 

 out the word proceeds. A most curious instance of this transposition from one sensuous sphere to 

 another was once afforded me by a little peasant boy in Thuringia. He said to me: "Dear sir, buy 

 this nosegay; the violets taste very loud " — meaning they smell very strong. Yet this double trans- 

 position is perfectly intelligible, nor was it for the boy a transposition. The expression proceeded 

 entire from one indivisible mind, and radiated, as it were, into different spheres of perceptible objects 

 of the world without. 



