|lJ3 Cornell University Library PE 1133.T65 3 1924 027 388 945 CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ENGLISH COLLECTION ft.Wi Date Due ".R ' MAY 11 lase BKV+A-' ffrim^ S£ i e ni XX J& pr#v fir U W • cSS 23233Q _-2H^ A.^+o*. -^t v7^W^. 4.. fc tss irRINTED FROM THE AuDOVEB REVIEW FOR MARCH, 1887.] THE LAWS OF TONE-COLOR IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The primary laws of artistic language are clearness, conciseness, rhythm in some form, and suggestiveness. By the law of suggestiveness, I mean that the artist in language must have regard to the history and tenden- cies of a word, to its general flavor, — in a word, to what it suggests, as well as to its accepted meaning. Tone-color is not one of these fundamental, basal laws of language. What sort of a principle is it ? The tone-color of any sound is that peculiarity which distinguishes it from another of the same pitch and intensity. The cause of the tone- color, or quality of a sound, is the number and prominence of the over- tones, or harmonics, which are combined with the fundamental, or pitch- determining tone. The differences between the various vowel-sounds, when produced by the same voice and at the same pitch, are differences in tone-color. Different musical instruments have each a peculiar ex- pression because of their generic differences in tone-color ; hence it is not impossible, a priori, that the specific differences between the vowel- colors of the same voice may give to each color a peculiar expressional value. That is, o (as in gold), considered as a sound, may express ideas which e (feel) does not naturally express, and which e in arbitrary, ac- cepted combinations does not equally well express. It may seem to some that I am opposing the conclusions of such writers as Professor Whitney (" Language and the Study of Language "), but I am not. He considers the origin and growth of language ; I consider it as something given : he treats language as an instrument answering utili- tarian ends ; I, as answering aesthetic ends. But why has not the general principle of tone-color which I have sug- gested been clearly recognized ? I will mention two reasons. In the first place, those who have recognized tone-color as having any value have been anxious to establish it as an important factor in the origin of language. Wedgwood has emphasized the claims of onomatopeia; Heyse ("System der Sprachwissenschaft "), those of sound-metaphor (Lautmetaphor). Heyse's position with reference to those "words to which onomatopeia is inapplicable was, that for every impression which man receives through every sense (except that of hearing) there exists a natural sound-analogue, which stands to that impression as its natural vocal expression. This was intended to explain the original forms of words. Heyse's view has been much satirized ; and I think that he re- garded as primary and causative what is really secondary and derivative, the product of association. My claim is more moderate. I claim that particular ideas and feelings have analogues in sound which best express them, and that this is felt to be true at the present time by the aesthetic sense, the language-consciousness, of the cultivated users of English. In this way I believe in sound-metaphor. A second reason for the neglect of tone-color is that those who have studied it as now existing in artistic English have failed to see that it is secondary, and must constantly yield to other and primary considerations. Such laws as those of clearness, conciseness, etc., outrank it, and must be ■ entirely satisfied before tone-color, that residuary legatee, can present its jr 1887.] Philosophical Criticism. 327 purely aesthetic claim. Passages may be highly artistic, and therefore highly pleasurable, in which only the more negative laws of tone-color are observed. Hence, if I can show by passages of special force and conclu- siveness that any particular color has a peculiar expressional value, I do not therefore insist that a similar idea will always be expressed by similar coloring. Negative testimony cannot offset positive testimony. Let us look at a table of the English vowel-colors. Colors which are regularly unaccented and all minute distinctions are omitted. VOWEL-COLORS. Visible- Speech Sym- bols. I. The Bells. n. m. IV. Rimes in the Pied Piper of Hamelin. I (little) . . . r 28.3 11.3 9.7 10.4 12.9 e (met) .... i 13.2 14.1 12.9 7.6 8.6 a (mat) .... i 7.5 7.0 13.7 9.0 19.1 e (mete) . . . r 5.7 1.4 8.1 9.0 6.3 ai (fair) . . . C 1.9 2.8 2.4 — — a (mate) . . . i 1.9 — 8.9 2.8 10.6 i (I) = ah -f I . j-r 17.0 7.0 10.5 11.1 13.9 Partial Footings 75.5 43.6 5.6 66.2 1.6 49.9 1.4 71.4 u, e w (due)= I -)- Do f-l 3.0 ah, o (what, not) J 7.5 14.1 10.5 16.7 4.3 ah (Ah !) . . . j 1.9 2.8 .8 1.4 .7 oi (boil) = aw -f- 1 j-r — — — — 1.3 fi(up) .... ] 1.9 7.0 2.4 2.1 9.3 c>6, u (wood, pull) i — — 1.6 1.4 1.3 ow (cow) = ah -(- ob H 1.9 8.5 7.3 1.4 1.3 5 (go, ore) . . . u 1.9 9.9 4.8 15.3 4.6 Oo (gloom) . . \ 5.7 7.0 2.4 7.6 1.3 aw (awe) . . . I 3.8 1.4 2.4 2.8 1.3 Totals . . . 100.1 99.9 100. 100. 99.8 The colors at the very bottom of this scale are peculiarly fitted to ex- press solemnity, awe, horror, and deep grief, also slowness of motion, and extreme or oppressive greatness of size. The entire lower half of the scale, in general, is adapted to express largeness, slowness, seriousness, and gloom. The colors at the very top are especially fitted to express un- controllable joy and delight, excessive gayety, triviality, rapid movement, ^ /> r.i <=nr> 4 > XfW\ rW-Kl 328 Philosophical Criticism. [March, delicacy, and physical littleness. The scale runs, then, from the large to the litde, from horror to ecstatic delight, and from the solemn and awful to the simply trivial. There are several purely objective confirmations of these statements. Singers know that a high pitch is more easily reached with some vowels and a low pitch with others. Hence, phoneticians recognize each vowel- color as having a certain inherent or natural pitch as compared with the others. My scale follows substantially the order of inherent pitch as given by Sweet and others, beginning at the bottom with the sounds of lowest natural pitch. Every one knows that the ideas which I have placed at the bottom of the scale must be expressed in reading by a low pitch, and some of them by a very low pitch ; also that the ideas which I have put at the top are naturally expressed by a high pitch. What is more natural than that these individual vowel-sounds should in time, whether originally or not, be felt to be, according to their natural pitch, the best sound-representatives of these feelings and ideas ? What is more certain than this result, unless some strong counteracting tendency be present ? It will be seen that I am considering inherent pitch as, prac- tically, a part of tone-color. In anger and hysterical grief and fear, however, the pitch in reading is high, as it is in nature ; and high vowels are very expressive. In " Othello," Emilia wishes to have " put in every honest hand a whip To lash the rascals naked through the world." In correct elocution the rate of utterance in expressing the ideas and emotions which I have placed at the bottom is slow, while at the other extreme the movement becomes very rapid. In accordance with this the four lowest sounds in the table are long, and the three uppermost short. By observing the Bell (visible-speech) symbols, it will be seen that the scale follows a definite physiological order. The curves show that the front vowels are at the top, and back vowels at the bottom. Notice the agreement of this scale with the recognized principles of onomatopeia. Says Koch concerning the imitative force of the German vowels: "A (ah) designates a loud, strong sound; u (60), a loud, low sound; and i (e), a clear, delicate (feinen), shrill sound." ("Allotria," Einleitung.) Wedgwood (" Proc. Philological Soc." II.) does not put the first part of the law so well as Koch, but concludes : " On the other hand, notes of a high pitch, or sounds caused by the collision of small surfaces, are imitated by the vowel i [as in bit, machine], in the utterance of which the air is compressed through the smallest possible passage." Has this law of onomatopeia any direct connection with the general expres- sional power of the vowel-colors ? Yes. Poe wrote his poem, " The Bells," upon the distinct hypothesis that those colors which best imitate certain sounds also naturally express at the same time certain allied emotions. Indeed, the use of words and phrases at the same time as onomatopoetic imitations and to call up their emotional counterparts is a common device of all poets, and must convince us that the line cannot be drawn between simple onomatopeia and the closely allied expression of emotion. I quote from Longfellow and Lockhart : — " Friend ! but yesterday the bells Rang for thee their loud farewells; 1887.] Philosophical Criticism. 329 And to-day they toll for thee, Lying dead beyond the sea." "And evermore the hoarse tambour Breaks in upon their wailing : Its sound is like no earthly sound — 'Alas, alas for Celin!'" Steinthal (" Abriss der Sprachwissenschaft ") says : " We possess in German to-day numberless words with onomatopoetic effect, as mild, spitz, weioh, hart, sanft, rauh, Donner, Blitz, zucken, Zorn, Grimm, Wut, etc. At least for our speech-consciousness these are unquestion- ably onomatopoetic effects." Now Donner is the only one of these which seems to have any strict onomatopoetic force. Why do growl, grumble, croak, German brummen, etc., have their double force ? In the following quotations illustrating the general scale observe the fitness between the vowel-colors and the ideas expressed. Shallow or- ders, in " Henry IV.," " a joint of mutton and any pretty little liny kickshaws." Ophelia does not wish Laertes to advise her virtuously, and then imitate the " reckless libertine," who " Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, And recks not his own rede." The description of Queen Mab and her chariot in " Romeo and Juliet " expresses physical littleness and daintiness. All through the passage the accented, high, light vowels are felt to be the most expressive. Who can be insensible to the coloring of, " In shape no bigger than an agate- stone," and "Drawn with a team of little atomies "? Drayton's names for the dainty elves who wait upon Queen Mab are interesting : — " Hop, and Mop, and Drap so clear, Pip, and Trip, and Skip, that were To Mab their sovereign dear, Her special maids of honor ; Fib, and Tib, and Pinck, and Pin, Tick, and Quick, and Jill, and Jin, Tit, and Nit, and Wap, and Win, The train that wait upon her." The following line from Keats's " Eve of St. Agnes " shows how the upper part of the scale can express delicacy : — "And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon." Leigh Hunt comments thus : " Here is delicate modulation, and super- refined epicurean nicety!" One is compelled to "read the line deli- cately, and at the tip-end, as it were, of Jiis tongue." The lingual con- sonants help in this effect, which is so marked that Hunt need not have said " as it were." Shakespeare uses a number of light-colored, often inter jectional words to express worthlessness, triviality, or contempt. Any one can appreciate this who will look up in a Shakespeare concordance such words as tilly- fally, tilly-valley, tiddle-taddle, pibble-pabble, pribbles and prabbles, tit- tle-tattling, kicky-wicky, and bibble-babble. " A fiddle-pin's end ! " and J' this rabble's brabble," occur in " The Ring and the Book." We have in English many ablauting compounds in I and a to which a petty force attaches, such as chit-chat, fiddle-faddle, dilly-dally, knick-knack, riff- 330 Philosophical Criticism. [March, raff, etc. I think that there is not so much contempt or pettiness ex- pressed by any of our similar formations containing a darker vowel, as tip-top, sing-song, ding-dong (see the song in "The Tempest"), see- saw, etc. How contemptuous, finally, is " He hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard " (" Merry Wives ") ! Dr. Guest (" Hist. Eng. Rhythms ") declares : " Shakespeare seems to have affected the short vowels and particularly the short i, when he had to describe any quickness of motion." This is natural. " Large bodies move slowly " and heavily, and their motion is best described by slow, heavy vowels ; and quick movement by light vowels. Let us turn to the lower part of the scale. Of course, whole poems will never be heavily shaded. That would be intolerable. Only em- phatic words, phrases, and passages need be dark because the thought is dark ; and even there tone-color may be disregarded in favor of more important principles. These lines from Addison's " Cato " are darker than the mere counting of the dark syllables would show : — " The dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, And heavily in clouds brings on the day." We must weigh rather than count. Notice from '* Othello," " On hor- ror's head horrors accumulate ; " and from Poe, — " 'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume," and — " The lonesome October Of my most immemorial year." The dark vowels best express physical massiveness, and best suggest the deep, heavy voices which seem to us properly to belong to large men. Keats thus describes the speech of " huge Enceladus " : — " The ponderous syllables, like sullen waves, In the half-glutted hollows of reef-rocks, Came booming thus." Poe avoids monotony in the last division of " The Bells " by intro- ducing the mirth of the King of the Ghouls at the misery which he is rolling upon the hearts of men. This introduces lighter vowels, as he " dances " and " yells," without lessening the horror. The least agreeable sound in this scale is a. Before a nasal it is often partly nasalized, which makes it still more disagreeable. Harshness and dissonance of all kinds are expressed by this sound. The third division of " The Bells " rings with the twanging, jangling, wrangling, clamor, and clangor of the harsh, brazen bells. With equal force Browning says of certain lawyers, — " So wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month." This color is used by Tennyson to set forth powerfully the harsh appear- ance of all nature after the death of Arthur. " And ghastly through the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day." When fullness, richness, perfect beauty, largeness without oppressive- ness, and complete satisfaction are to be expressed, certain colors are peculiarly adapted for this office by their own fullness and richness. These are, first and best, 6, next ah, 60, 1 (ah-I), and ow. They are peculiarly rich sensuous . impressions. This is the exact opposite of the specialization of & just mentioned. Thus two passages may be colored 1887.] Philosophical Criticism. 331 much alike as regards their vowels, one of them expressing gloom accord- ing to the general scale by the same dark colors with which the other expresses largeness, richness, or completeness in some form, according to this specialization. The consonants, however, may be strongly con- trasted. For this special force of these colors see the second division of " The Bells." Also notice this from Milton : — " Heaven opened wide Her everduring gates, harmonious sound On golden hinges moving." Richness contends with seriousness in this passage : — • " 'T is midnight's holy hour, and silence now Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er The still and pulseless world." " Like a gentle spirit " gives a few rays of starlight which nicely relieve the darkness. There is no finer mingling of richness and sadness, both of idea and coloring, in the English language, than the description of the music of Melancholy in Collins's " Ode to the Passions " ; and no finer contrast than that afforded " when Cheerfulness . .'. blew an inspiring air," . . . till " Sport leaped up and seized his beechen spear." ' Professor Corson, of Cornell, says that Tennyson regularly uses the forms sang and rang for bright passages, and sung and rung for dark ones. A character in " The Ring and the Book " calls Pompilia " a gleam i' the gloom," like the fly of an angler. Perhaps the difference between the force of the two extremes of the vowel-scale can be best felt if one reads the same passage in two ways, first prolonging the high vowels with great emphasis and hurrying over the low ones, and then doing the reverse. For instance, " No i^iTr i^Tn for 2; when I am ?£55 Than you shall ^ the i^ij .~5uH «'■" Tone-color is a most important element in elocution, — but the elocu- tionists do not all know it. As a last illustrative quotation, feel the vast horror of Keats's lines : — " I saw their starved lips in the gloam With horrid warning gape'd wide." Other things, however, besides tone-color, must be taken into account in order to explain the wonderful power of such a passage as this. Says a pupil of Delsarte (Delaumosne, " System of Oratory ") : " We understand the laugh of an individual ; if upon the e, he has made a sorry jest ; if upon a (French e), he has nothing in his heart and most likely nothing in his head ; if upon ah, the laugh is forced. O, ah, and oo are the only normal expressions." In making up the percentages from " The Bells," I have counted only the accented syllables in each division, omitting in all cases the word " bells." The repetition of this word has been declared almost fatal to the poem (Sargent, " Cycl. Brit, and Am. Poetry "), and at any rate it is a common factor in all the parts. This table will reward careful study. Turning now to the consonant-colors, as I have divided them, the " momentary " consonants, as compared with those which are " pro- longed," express ideas of greater suddenness and vigor. Subdividing this 332 Philosophical Criticism. [March, first group, the surd mutes and spirants are pronounced with great force and clearness, especially the surd mutes. The muscular action is very intense and the release of the organs very marked ; hence the explosive effect of these consonants is very decided. The initial h and wh have much the same force. Not arbitrarily, then, but naturally and neces- sarily, and at any rate actually, the surd mutes, and to a less degree h, wh, f, and th (thin), express boldness, precipitation, unexpectedness, vigor, CONSONANT-COLORS. ' Momentary Consonants. Surd Mutes . . . Surd Spirants . . Aspirated Semivowels Sonant Mutes . . Prolonged Consonants. Sonant Spirants . . Nasals Surd Sibilants . . Sonant Sibilants . . Liquids Non-liquid Semivowels Labial Series. P f wh b v m Palatal Series. k [h] g n g sh zh Lingual Series. Whisper Consonants. t P th (thin) K r rough T d F H th (then) Th-in n S s Sh z Wh I, r smooth — — — Voice Consonants. B G D V, Th-en Z.Zh W,Y R smooth R rough L M,Ng N determination, explosive passion, and forcible and startling effects of all kinds. They must be the initial consonants of accented syllables in order to have their full expressional value. Combinations of these let- ters, as st, etc., have much the same force, or even more. I subjoin illustrative passages without comment. " Hear the . . . Brazen bells ! What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells ! In the startled ear of night How they scream out their affright! " " A cry that shivered to the tingling stars." (Tennyson.) " Harry to Harry shall hot horse to horse." (" Henry IV.") " My tough lance thrusteth sure, My strength is as the strength of ten, . . . The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly." (Tennyson.) "Dog-snap and cat-claw, curse and counterblast." (Browning.) " The wrestling thews that throw the world." (Tennyson.) When any mute is the decisive sound in an alliteration, other conso- 1 This division of the consonants is for convenience, and is not strictly scientific. 1887.] Philosophical Criticism. 333 nants of the same vertical series are valuable as supporting this allitera- tion. Sometimes great power is given to a single " momentary " conso- nant. One often needs to know the whole context to appreciate this. Instances are : — " But somewhere out of human view, Whate'er thy hands are set to do Is wrought with iumult of acclaim." (Tennyson.) "Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east." (Tennyson.) " Such and so grew these holy piles, Whilst love and terror laid the tiles." (Emerson.) The sonant mutes and especially the sonant spirants, because of their clinging nature, give less startling and powerful effects than the conso- nants already mentioned. Often when many sonant mutes are associated, especially if they are contrasted with surd mutes used immediately before or after, the effect is quite subdued. In reading such passages the sonant mutes should be " prolonged " as much as possible. In " The Ring and the Book " the patriarch, Noah, is represented as saying concerning the returned dove : — " Though this one breast by miracle return, No wave rolls by, in all the waste, but bears Within it some dead dovelike thing as dear, Beauty made blank and harmlessness destroyed." Swinburne speaks of " a dead lute-player That in dead days had done delicious things." The labials, as a class, because of the great extent and prominence of the muscular action in their articulation, are especially explosive in their effect, and b and in have a more forcible effect than the other sonant mutes and nasals. Clarence says in " Richard III." : — " The envious flood Stopt-in my soul, and . . . . . . smothered it within my panting bulk, Which almost burst to belch it in the sea." " That bubble, they were bent on blowing big, He had blown already till he burst his cheeks." (Browning.) " Mute in the midst the whole man one amaze." (Browning.) Isolt, meeting Tristram, " Belted his body with her white embrace." " The three nasals have a close affinity to any deep low sound ; such as a hum, a murmur, or the twang of a musical string slowly vibrating." (Guest's "Hist. Eng. Rhythms.") " The shard-borne beetle with bis drowsy hums Hath rung night's yawning peal." (" Macbeth.") Notice the deepening of words by the insertion of a nasal : click, clink, clack, clank, clap, clamp, trap, tramp. The sibilants have much directly imitative force ; as in hissing, siz- zling. When nicely articulated and not prolonged, s often expresses delicate, musical, and pleasant effects. " I . . . heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, 334 Philosophical Criticism. [March, That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, To hear the sea-maid's music." ("Midsummer Night's Dream.") S must be prolonged when intended to be unpleasant. Sh is decidedly the unpleasant consonant color. Bacon says that " the noise of screech- owls hath resemblance with the letter sh." The brazen bells " can only shriek, shriek, shriek." We shudder, too, as we hear, in " Maud," " The shrill-edged shriek of a mother divide the shuddering night." Z and zh are rich, pleasant colors, as in easy, luxurious, azure, pleas- ure. L and r smooth, especially 1, express above all other letters softness, smoothness, liquidity, lingering, love, longing, and (forgive the anti- climax!) laziness. Other prolongable consonants reenforce this effect, and save the artist from the necessity of using surd mutes- and spirants. " Elaine the fair, Elaine the lovable, Elaine the lily maid of Astolat." (Tennyson.) Read especially in this connection the Lullaby Chorus in " Midsummer Night's Dream." Professor Bell, in different books, and Murdoch and Russell (" Vocal Culture ") are at some pains to give rules as to when r should be pro- nounced rough or consonantal (not trilled), and when smooth or vocalic. The true rule is to follow the idea expressed. R is smooth or rough in most cases, when not final, simply according to the taste of the reader ; and the two pronunciations express opposite ideas. It should be smooth in this extract : — " And showered the rippled ringlets to her knee." (Tennyson.) And rough in this : — ..." Rocks in pieces broke And ragged ribs of mountains." (" Faerie Queene.") Leaving out from the whisper consonants, in our second classification, the surd mutes and spirants, we have left of them s, sh, h, and wh. These express fear, secrecy, deception, caution, mystery, and whatever emotions naturally take the whisper. These four sounds are in the words hush and whisper. Other whisper consonants can reenforce such an effect. "An hideous Geaunt, horrible and hye." (" Faerie Queene.") Leaving the general subject of individual colors, I pass to that of color-grouping. To speak first of the " jointing " of words : sounds must not come together which are not easily articulated in rapid succes- sion, unless struggle, difficulty, or some similar idea is to be expressed. Difficulty of utterance is demanded in the line, — " When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw.' 7 (Pope.) The greatest possible variety of coloring is not usually desirable. Every important specialization of idea or feeling should be mirrored in the coloring, if it can be done without any sacrifice of what is more im- portant. 1 1 Since this article was put in type I have come across the following pas- sages in Lord Houghton's Life of Keats : — " Mr. Bailey has informed me that one of Keats's favourite topics of con- 1887.] Philosophical Criticism. 335 The general topic of the repetition and similarity of coloring is a very- broad one, and cannot be treated here with any fullness because of lim- ited space. It includes alliteration ; assonance ; syzygy ; rime (rhyme) ; and the repetition of words, phrases, sentences (often as refrains), and stanzas (often as choruses). I have taken from Professor Sylvester (" Laws of Verse ") the term syzygy (" a yoking together ") to denote the general predominance in a passage of a consonant or vowel color or class of colors. Thus we may have a p-syzygy, a labial syzygy, etc. It is thus simply a broader term than alliteration or assonance. Perhaps the phrases, " general alliteration " and " general assonance," are preferable. Early Teutonic poetry made use of alliteration as its distinctive artistic principle, only the initial sounds of accented syllables being used in the alliteration. Always two and usually three of the four accented syllables in a full line must alliterate. (Some scholars claim eight accents for the full line.) From this early form of color-repetition the other forms were more or less clearly developed, even rime. One of several proofs of this is the famous Anglo-Saxon Riming Poem, which has both rime and allit- eration throughout. Hence, the introduction of rime by the Normans only hastened what was already coming. (Schipper, " Englische Metrik.") At least one Anglo-Saxon poem has a refrain. All repetitions of words ally themselves with the tendency in all poetry, from the Hebrew Psalms to " Hiawatha," to repetitions of the idea ; and in modern poetry, with the repetition of a form-unit, the verse-foot. In strict parallelism, however, words are not repeated. Cases of repetition and similarity of coloring may be either expressive or non-expressive. The mere repetition of a color may give a sensuous pleasure, even if its peculiar expressional value is lost sight of. Rime or. alliteration often reenforces the rhythm pleasantly when not itself ex- pressive. Cases of expressive alliteration have already been given. Mr. Lanier (" Science of English Verse ") objects to that repetition of a vowel-color which I have termed vowel-syzygy, or general assonance. But notice the successive accented syllables in these passages : — ..." The lonesome October Of my most immemorial year." " Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear ; And Sport leaped up and seized his beechen spear." A broad rule concerning rime is that of Coleridge, I think, that neigh- boring rimes should have different colors, and better contrasted colors. Since, also, the rimes should come upon important words, this principle constantly interferes with expressive riming, where there is a fixed rime- scheme ; but even then individual rimes may be very expressive. Where the rime-scheme is free, expressive riming may be expected. I have tab- ulated the rimes of " The Pied Piper of Hamelin " (see Vowel Table). The poem is full of the scampering of rats and the tripping of children, and this is mirrored in the rimes. I have already spoken of the repetition of words, phrases, etc. Skill in this respect was a good part of Poe's peculiar power. I have been versation was the principle of melody in verse, which he believed to consist in the adroit management of open and close vowels. He had a theory that vowels could be as skilfully combined and interchanged as differing notes of music, and that all sense of monotony was to be avoided, except when expressive of a special purpose." 336 Philosophical Criticism. [March, interested to tabulate those lines in Shakespeare's comedies in which an important word (not counting unemphatic personal pronouns, preposi- tions, etc.) is repeated within the line. On the basis of Mr. Fleay's count of the total number of blank verse lines in each play, I have determined what percentage of them in each case is of this sort. There are very great differences in the character of these lines, which I do not tabu- late ; but my statistics may have some use. I shall not draw any con- clusions from them. Typical lines are : " O what a scene of foolery have I seen" ("Love's Labour's Lost"), and " I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano " (" Merchant of Venice "). The percentages are : " Love's Labour 's Lost," 7.22 % ; " Much Ado," 5.86 ; " Midsummer Night's Dream," 5.47; "Measure for Measure," 4.8; "As You Like It," 4.72; " Twelfth Night," 4.64 ; " AIL 's Well," 4.49 ; " Winter's Tale," 4.16 ; " Merchant of Venice," 3.62 ; " Taming of the Shrew," 2.99 ; " Two Gen- tlemen of Verona," 2.77 ; " Merry Wives," 2.7 ; " Comedy of Errors," 2.48; "Tempest," 2.24. Average, 4.15+ %. I wish now to interpret a piece of complex coloring. Of course I know in advance what the piece is, but will assume that the reader and myself are equally in the dark. I will put down the important accented vowel .and consonant colors (those emphasized by repetition), and the rimes of a certain stanza. Then the reader and I will interpret them together. Colors in parentheses occur in syllables entirely unaccented. I indicate all of the accented vowels of the last two lines : — Consonants. Vowels. Rimes. 1. s (s) g s e e 6 2. r r g g e aw 3. s ch sh See a 4. w w b b e a a 5. w cr str c aw aw i aw 6. r tw f f 0)» 00J, e 7. w w w oo aw oo u 8. (w) w oo I o e As usual, nothing is clear from the rimes alone, aw, which occurs here, gives a lighter effect than aw, but is not separated from it in my general vowel table. The lightness of the vowels in the first six lines in- dicates that the thought is light, graceful, cheerful. The sudden abun- dance of I's in lines five and six should indicate triviality, or great merri- ment, or physical littleness, or perhaps rapid movement. The abundance of dark, rich vowels in lines seven and eight may indicate sudden gloom ; or it may be a deepening of the color to express richness, rounded beauty, or complete satisfaction in some form. The consonant coloring is soft, and indicates an absence of all strenuous or startling effects. The rich semi-vocalic alliteration in lines seven and eight makes it probable that the dark vowels in them are not intended to indicate gloom. Now for the stanza (from Dobson's " To a Greek Girl ") : — " How sweet with you on some green sod To wreathe the rustic garden-god ! How sweet, beneath a chestnut-shade, With you to weave a basket-braid ! To watch across the stricken chords Your rosy-twinkling fingers flee ! Or woo you in soft woodland words, With woodland-pipe, Autonoe ! " 1887.] German Theological Literature. 337 In English verse "the tie which bound the first endures the last." Alliteration, or, more broadly, general alliteration (syzygy), is still the most nearly universal principle of tone-color in English poetry. Pro- fessor Sylvester even says that verse without it "is no more verse than shoddy is cloth." Since prose repeats its ideas less than poetry and repeats no precise unit of form, therefore its colorific repetitions are less numerous and ex- tensive ; but the coloring of particular passages, and even of single words, may be very effective. Some of the statements in this paper may be wrong and others inaccu- rate, but this much is sure : the skilled writer will not employ and the skilled reciter or orator will not deliver sounds as the purely arbitrary symbols of thought. Each of them will recognize the necessary subordi- nation of tone-color to other principles ; but each will strive to enforce the strong features of his composition by effective coloring ; and when this is done, the fact will be recognized by the sensitive reader or hearer. Albert H. Tolman. Bxpon College.