On The Art of Reading

in childhood the mass will soon amaze you and leave you no room to be surprised that many learned scholars, on the supposition that uncivilised man is a child more or less-and at least s

elop out of this, historically, as a process in time and in fact? These scholars (among whom I will instance one of the most learned-Dr Gummere) hold that it did: and I may take a passage from Dr Gummere's "Beginnings of Poetry" (p. 9

e doubled to express greater intensity.... To speak is a?; to speak loudly or to sing, is a?-a?. And now for their aesthetic life, their song, dance, poetry, as described by this accurate observer. 'On festal occasions the whole horde meets by night round the camp fire for a dance. Men and women alternating ... form a circle; each dancer lays his arms about the necks of his two neighbours, and the entire ring begins to turn to the right or to the left, while all the dancers stamp strongly and in

norous commonplaces of our own verse-say "The Psalm of Life?"' I really cannot answer that question. Which do you prefer, Gentle

fessor

he rest in chorus.... They never sing without dancing, never dance wi

ence in the writings of Dr Brown and of Adam Smith, that dance, poetry and song were once a single and inseparable function, and is in itself fatal to the idea