Imagine two sisters named Nettle and Envy. Off-hand, you will say that
these names sound ugly, whilst Rose and Faith sound pretty. Yet,
believe me, there is not, in point of actual sound, one pin to choose
either between Badger and Lavender, or between Rose and Nettle, or
between Faith and Envy. There is no such thing as a singly euphonious
or a singly cacophonous name. There is no word which, by itself,
sounds ill or well. In combination, names or words may be made to
sound ill or well. A sentence can be musical or unmusical. But in
detachment words are no more preferable one to another in their sound
than are single notes of music. What you take to be beauty or ugliness
of sound is indeed nothing but beauty or ugliness of meaning. You are
pleased by the sound of such words as gondola, vestments, chancel,
ermine, manor-house. They seem to be fraught with a subtle
onomatopoeia, severally suggesting by their sounds the grace or
sanctity or solid comfort of the things which they connote. You murmur
them luxuriously, dreamily. Prepare for a slight shock. Scrofula,
investments, cancer, vermin, warehouse. Horrible words, are they not?
But say gondola--scrofula, vestments--investments, and so on; and then
lay your hand on your heart, and declare that the words in the first
list are in mere sound nicer than the words in the second.
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