Chapter IV

Now I should tell you, Gentlemen, that I hold such utterances as this last--whatever you may think of the utterances of the Botocudos--to be exorbitant: that I distrust all attempts to build up (say) "Paradise Lost" historically from the yells and capers of recondite savages. 'Life is real, life is earnest' may be no better aesthetically (I myself think it a little better) than 'Now we have something to eat' 'Brandy is good' may rival Pindar's [Greek: Arioton men udor], and indeed puts what it contains of truth with more of finality, less of provocation (though Pindar at once follows up [Greek: Arioton men udor] with exquisite poetry): but you cannot--truly you cannot--exhibit the steps which lead up from 'Brandy is good' to such lines as

Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine.

I bend over the learned page pensively, and I seem to see a Botocudo Professor--though not high 'in the social scale,' they may have such things--visiting Cambridge on the last night of the Lent races and reporting of its inhabitants as follows:

They pay scant heed to their chiefs: they live only for their
immediate bodily needs, and take small thought for the
morrow. On festal occasions the whole horde meets by night
round the camp fire for a dance. Each dancer lays his arms
about the necks of his two neighbours, stamping strongly
with one foot and dragging the other after it. Now with
drooping heads they press closer and closer together; now
they widen the circle. Often one can hear nothing but a
continually repeated _kalanî aha,_ or again one hears short
improvised songs in which we are told the doings of the day,
the reasons for rejoicing, what not, as 'Good hunting,' 'Good
old--'[naming a tribal God], or in former times '_Now_ we shall
be but a short while,' or '_Woemma!_' Now and then, too, an
individual begins a song and is answered by the rest in
chorus--such as

For he is an estimable person
Beyond possibility of gainsaying.

The chorus twice repeats this and asseverates that they
are following a custom common to the flotilla, the
expeditionary force, and even their rude seats of learning.

And Dr Gummere, or somebody else, comments: 'As the unprejudiced reader will see, this clear and admirable account confirms our hypothesis that in communal celebration we have at once the origin and model of three poems, "The Faerie Queene," "Paradise Lost" and "In Memoriam," recorded as having been composed by members of this very tribe.'

Although we have been talking of instincts, we are not concerned here with the steps by which the child, or the savage, following an instinct attains to _write_ poetry; but, more modestly, with the instinct by which the child _likes_ it, and the way in which he can be best encouraged to read and improve this natural liking. Nor are we even concerned here to define Poetry. It suffices our present purpose to consider Poetry as the sort of thing the poets write.

But obviously if we find a philosopher discussing poetry without any reference to children, and independently basing it upon the very same imitative instincts which we have noted in children, we have some promise of being on the right track.