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”).