"I enclose a picture in perspective and colour of my 'form.' I have taken great pains with this, but am far from satisfied with it. I know nothing about drawing, and consequently am unable to put upon the paper just what I see. The faults which I find with the picture are these. The rectangles stand out too distinctly, as something lying on the plane instead of being, as they ought, a part of the plane. The view is taken of necessity from an unnatural stand-point, and some way or other the region 1-12 does not look right. The landscape is altogether too distinct in its features. I rather know that there is grass, and that there are trees in the distance, than see them. But the grass within a few feet of the line I see distinctly. I cannot make the hill at the right slope down to the plane as it ought. It is too steep. I have had my poor success in indicating my notion of the darkness which overhangs the region of eleven. In reality it is not a cloud at all, but a darkness.
"My sister, a married lady, thirty-eight years of age, sees numerals much as I do, but very indistinctly. She cannot draw a figure which is not by far too distinct."
Most of those who associate colours with numerals do so in a vague way, impossible to convey with truth in a painting. Of the few who see them with more objectivity, many are unable to paint or are unwilling to take the trouble required to match the precise colours of their fancies. A slight error in hue or tint always dissatisfies them with their work.
Before dismissing the subject of numerals, I would call attention to a few other associations connected with them. They are often personified by children, and characters are assigned to them, it may be on account of the part they play in the multiplication table, or owing to some fanciful association with their appearance or their sound. To the minds of some persons the multiplication table appears dramatised, and any chance group of figures may afford a plot for a tale. I have collated six full and trustworthy accounts, and find a curious dissimilarity in the personifications and preferences; thus the number 3 is described as (1) disliked; (2) a treacherous sneak; (3) a good old friend; (4) delightful and amusing; (5) a female companion to 2; (6) a feeble edition of 9. In one point alone do I find any approach to unanimity, and that is in the respect paid to 12, as in the following examples:--(1) important and influential; (2) good and cautious--so good as to be almost noble; (3) a more beautiful number than 10, from the many multiples that make it up--in other words, its kindly relations to so many small numbers; (4) a great love for 12, a large-hearted motherly person because of the number of little ones that it takes, as it were, under its protection. The decimal system seemed to me treason against this motherly 12.--All this concurs with the importance assigned for other reasons to the number 12 in the Number-Form.
There is no agreement as to the sex of numbers; I myself had absurdly enough fancied that of course the even numbers would be taken to be of the male sex, and was surprised to find that they were not. I mention this as an example of the curious way in which our minds may be unconsciously prejudiced by the survival of some forgotten early fancies. I cannot find on inquiring of philologists any indications of different sexes having been assigned in any language to different numbers.
Mr. Hershon has published an analysis of the Talmud, on the odd principle of indexing the various passages according to the number they may happen to contain; thus such a phrase as "there were three men who," etc., would be entered under the number 3. I cannot find any particular preferences given there to especial numbers; even 7 occurs less often than 1, 2, 3, 4, and 10. Their respective frequency being 47, 54, 53, 64, 54, 51; 12 occurs only sixteen times. Gamblers have not unfrequently the silliest ideas concerning numbers, their heads being filled with notions about lucky figures and beautiful combinations of them. There is a very amusing chapter in Rome Contemporaine, by E. About, in which he speaks of this in connection with the rage for lottery tickets.
[COLOUR ASSOCIATIONS]
Numerals are occasionally seen in Arabic or other figures, not disposed in any particular Form, but coloured. An instance of this is represented in Fig. 69 towards the middle part of the column, but as I shall have shortly to enter at length into the colour associations of the author, I will pass over this portion of them, and will quote in preference from the letter of another correspondent.
Baron von Osten Sacken, of whom I have already spoken, writes:--
"The localisation of numerals, peculiar to certain persons, is foreign to me. In my mind's eye the figures appear in front of me, within a limited space. My peculiarity, however, consists in the fact that the numerals from 1 to 9 are differently coloured; (1) black, (2) yellow, (3) pale brick red, (4) brown, (5) blackish gray, (6) reddish brown, (7) green, (8) bluish, (9) reddish brown, somewhat like 6. These colours appear very distinctly when I think of these figures separately; in compound figures they become less apparent. But the most remarkable manifestation of these colours appears in my recollections of chronology. When I think of the events of a given century they invariably appear to me on a background coloured like the principal figure in the dates of that century; thus events of the eighteenth century invariably appear to me on a greenish ground, from the colour of the figure 7. This habit clings to me most tenaciously, and the only hypothesis I can form about its origin is the following:--My tutor, when I was ten to twelve years old, taught me chronology by means of a diagram on which the centuries were represented by squares, subdivided in 100 smaller squares; the squares representing centuries had narrow coloured borders; it may be that in this way the recollection of certain figures became associated with certain colours. I venture this explanation without attaching too much importance to it, because it seems to me that if it was true, my direct recollection of those coloured borders would have been stronger than it is; still, the strong association of my chronology with colour seems to plead in favour of that explanation."