VIII.
5, 6.—“The voice erst roused by hunger or by rage,
Now tells the nobler passions of the age.”
“The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when, with his varied tones and cadences, he excites the strongest emotions in his hearers, little suspects that he uses the same means by which, at an extremely remote period, his half-human ancestors aroused each other’s ardent passions during their mutual courtship and rivalry.”—Darwin (“The Descent of Man,” Chap. XIX.).
7.—“... with love’s language is uplifted love.”
Language is thought, we are told; so also is love. And thus the reciprocal and cumulative action of love, thought, and language stands a corollary to Max Müller’s words:—“Language and thought are inseparable. Words without thought are dead sounds; thoughts without words are nothing. To think is to speak low; to speak is to think aloud. The word is the thought incarnate.”—(“Science of Language,” Lect. IX.)
Id.... “Even the rude Australian girl (aborigine) sings in a strain of romantic affliction:
‘I shall never see my darling again.’”
—Westermarck (“History of Human Marriage,” p. 503).
Id.... “And again, another benefit accrues to the race from marriages of affection. Do not your ancient epics which sing of love sing also of noble deeds and acts of heroism on the part both of men and women, actuated by a pure affection for each other? Alike in your dramas and in those of Shakespeare, and of all great writers, love is the great motive power which impels to deeds of prowess, the spring of noble actions, of unselfish devotion, of words and thoughts which have enriched all later generations, the one sentiment which elevates marriage amongst mankind to something infinitely higher and purer than the gratification of a mere animal instinct.”—Dr. Edith Pechey Phipson (Address to the Hindoos of Bombay on Child Marriage, 1891, p. 14).
8.—“... selfless thought.”
“Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might;
Smote the chord of Self that, trembling, pass’d in music out of sight.”
—Tennyson (“Locksley Hall”).