corpse:_--as, one way, and another I have often tried to impress on you it really does.--Of course the hieroglyphs, the written words, run into hundreds of thousands; for the literature, you have a vocabulary indeed. But you see that the spoken language depends, to express its meaning, upon a different kind of elements from those all our languages depend on. We have solid words that you can spell: articles built up with the bricks of sound-stuff we call letters: _c-a-t_ cat, _d-o-g_ dog, and so on;--but their words, no; nothing so tangible: all depends on little silences, small hiatuses in the vocalizition,--and above all, _musical tones._ Now then, which is the more primitive? Which is nearer the material or intellectual, and which, the spiritual, pole? ------- * _Encyclopaedia Britannica:_ article, China: Language. ------- More primitive--I do not know. Only I think when the Stars of Morning sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy; when primeval humanity first felt stirring within it the Divine fire and essence of the Lords of Mind; when the Sons of the Fire mist came down, and found habitation for themselves in the bodies of our ancestors; when they saw the sky, how beautiful and kindly it was; and the wonder of the earth, and that blue jewel the sea; and felt the winds of heaven caress them, and were aware of the Spirit, the Great Dragon, immanent in the sunlight, quivering and scintillant in the dim blue diamond day; "They prayed, but their worship was only The wonder of nights and of days,"