Some Of The Most Ancient Languages Seem Bald And Incomplete,
Too Rigid; They Need Intonation, As It Were, To Express Passion Or
Changes Of Emotion, And When Written The Letters Are Too Far Apart To
Indicate What Is Meant.
Not too far apart upon the page, but far apart in
their sense, which has to be supplied as you supply the vowels.
In actual
use such languages must have required much gesture and finger-sketching
in the air. The letters of the Egyptians largely consist of animals and
birds, which represent both sounds and ideas. Dreaming over the embers of
his fire, the Cave-man saw pass before his mental vision all the
circumstances of the chase, ending with the crash when the mammoth
crushed into the pit, at which he would start and partially awake.
Intentness of mind upon a pursuit causes an equivalent intentness of
dream, and thus wild races believe their dreams to be real and
substantial things, and not mere shadows of the night. To those who do
not read or write much, even in our days, dreams are much more real than
to those who are continuously exercising the imagination. If you use your
imagination all day you will not fear it at night. Since I have been
occupied with literature my dreams have lost all vividness and are less
real than the shadows of trees, they do not deceive me even in my sleep.
At every hour of the day I am accustomed to call up figures at will
before my eyes, which stand out well defined and coloured to the very hue
of their faces.
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