[38] This is denied, however, as we have already seen, by Mr. Baldwin, who traces the ancient Ethiopians, as well as the Egyptians and Phœnicians, from the Cushites of Arabia.
[39] In Chapter I. I have referred to the reported discovery by the French savan, M. Lejean, of a spoken language between Kashmir and Afghanistan containing older idioms than Sanscrit, and nearer in affinity to the cognate European tongues. At a recent meeting of the Philological Society, Professor Goldstücker mentioned, as a curious fact, that, in old Sanscrit musical manuscripts, the word laya occurs with the same meaning as in French and English. The word laya has not yet found its way into any Sanscrit glossary.
[40] How charmingly this is illustrated by the childish faith with which we have all placed large whelk or other univalve shells to the ear, and, after listening with wonder for a time at the musical murmurings there heard, exclaimed that the tide was then flowing landward. Wordsworth refers to this in the following beautiful lines:—
... I've seen
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell,
To which, in silence hush'd, his very soul
Listened intently; for murmuring from within
Were heard sonorous cadences, whereby,
To his belief, the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
[41] May not this Prithivi be the forerunner of the Greek Dêmetêr and the Roman Ceres, as well as of the harvest queen, or "kern-baby," and the "mell-doll" of the autumnal festivals of the North of England?
[42] How beautifully and how truly has Eliza Cook expressed this sentiment, without any reference to, or even knowledge of, the philologist's interpretation of the Grecian or Aryan myth, in one stanza, in her poem entitled "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy for ever":—
Oh! "beautiful for ever" is the sheen
Of April's sun, that, with a bridegroom's smile,
Nestles in nature's breast of balmy green;
With larks to sing a marriage song, the while
The "bridal of the earth and sky" is seen
Before the priest that bars all greed and guile;
With blissful promise there shall soon be born
Fair offspring in red grapes and yellow corn.