Concision is sometimes the merit of dull imaginations. Harmony is a rarer and more decisive quality. There is no comment to be made on what Albalat says in this connection, unless it be that he believes a trifle too much in the necessary relations between the lightness or heaviness of a word, for example, and the idea which it expresses. This is an illusion which springs from our habits of thought, and an analysis of the sounds destroys it completely. It is not merely, says Villemain, imitation of the Greek or the Latin _fremere_ that has given us the word _frémir_; it is also the relation of its sound to the emotion expressed. _Horreur, terreur, doux, suave, rugir, soupirer, pesant, léger_, come to us not only from Latin, but from an intimate sense which has recognized and adopted them as analogous to the impression produced by the object.[8] If Villemain, whose opinion M. Albalat accepted, had been better versed in linguistics, he would doubtless have invoked the theory of roots, which at one time gave to his nonsense an appearance of scientific force. As it stands, the celebrated orator's brief paragraph would afford very agreeable matter for discussion. It is quite evident that if _suave_ and _suaire_ invoke impressions generally remote from each other, this is not because of the quality of their sound. In English, _sweet_ and _sweat_ are words which resemble each other. _Doux_ is not more _doux_ than _toux_ and the other monosyllables of the same tone. Is _rugir_ more violent than _rougir_ or _vagir_? _Léger_ is the contraction of a Latin word of five syllables, _leviarium_. If _légère_ carries with it its own meaning, does _mégère_ likewise? _Pesant_ is neither more nor less heavy than _pensant_, the two forms being, moreover, doublets of a single Latin original, pensare. As for _lourd_, this is _luridus_, which meant many things: yellow, wild, savage, strange, peasant, heavy--such, doubtless, is its genealogy. _Lourd_ is no more heavy than _fauve_ is cruel. Think also of _mauve_ and _velours_. If the English _thin_ means the same as the French _mince_, how does it happen that the idea of its opposite, _épais_, is expressed by _thick_? Words are negative sounds which the mind charges with whatever sense it pleases. There are coincidences, chance agreements, between certain sounds and certain ideas. There are _frémir, frayeur, froid, frileux, frisson_. Yes; but there are also: _frein, frère, frêle, frêne, fret, frime_, and twenty other analogous sonorities, each of which is provided with a very different meaning.