ABSTRACT
After ‘obscurely green’ would it be possible (quite apart from sense) to have ‘deeply dark’ or ‘impenetrably gloomy’? Why, apart from sense, can so few of the syllables be changed in vowel sound, in emphasis, in duration or otherwise, without disaster to the total effect? As with all such questions about sensory form and its effects, only an incomplete answer can be given. The expectancy caused by what has gone before, a thing which must be thought of as a very complex tide of neural settings, lowering the threshold for some kinds of stimuli and raising it for others,
and the character of the stimulus which does actually come, both play their part.
