Motu

“ The root of the mother-word will stand in the centre, and around her the grove of her children. By influence of taste, diligence, sound sense, and the judicious comparison of different dialects, lexicons will be brought to distinguish what is essential from what is accidental in the signification of words, and to trace the gradual process of transition; while in the derivation of words, and the application of metaphors, we shall behold the invention of the human mind in its act, and more fully understand the logic of ancient figurative language. ”

“ And every mote, on earth or air, Will speed and gleam, down later days, And like a secret pilgrim fare By eager and invisible ways, Nor ever rest, nor ever lie, Till, beyond thinking, out of view, One mote of all the dust that's I Shall meet one atom that was you. ”

“ Symbolism, as they know, often springs from a systematic use of metaphor, persisted in until figures of speech become technical terms, so that what was once a beautiful image and a vivid illustration descends into a slavery of repetition and becomes—or would become but for its beauty—little better than an addition to that degraded language of the illiterate classes called slang. Symbolism is, indeed, all this, and more. ”

“ Acting upon this principle of practical usefulness, I have also made the index very inclusive of various kinds of motifs. Sometimes the interest of a student of traditional narrative may be centered on a certain type of character in a tale, sometimes on an action, sometimes on attendant circumstances of the action. Hence I have endeavored to use all the elements of tales that have in the past been objects of special study and similar elements that are likely to serve as such objects in the future. A glance at the synopsis will indicate the varied nature of the contents of the classification. ”

“ For what is a metaphor or a simile but a mere paralogism—having nothing to do with the matter in hand, and not to be allowed for a moment to influence the reader’s judgment, unless there be some real and objective analogy—homology we should call it—between the physical phenomenon from which the symbol is taken, and the spiritual truth which it is meant to illustrate? ”

“ How shall I rise through words, which are mere symbols, to conceptions, which, not being in my own soul, mere words do not suggest? If I saw a living being embodying these sublime conceptions before me, or read a description of him that brought him vividly before the soul, then the words would be no longer clothed with my poor meanings, but would bring before me the living forms of goodness and of greatness into which they expanded when represented by that heavenly mind. ”

“ In what spirit dost thou lead them to the first study—the book of nature? Dost thou spread it before them as a book of God, that they may see its great wonders, learn its great lessons, perceive its great symbols, learn its great poesy, and inhale its great sublime worship,—not comprehending all at once, but gathering them in, for future thought and future perception? ”

“ Anything that goes to make up a traditional narrative has been used. When the term motif is employed, it is always in a very loose sense, and is made to include any of the elements of narrative structure. In general, any item in tales that other investigators have made notes on has been accepted. Sometimes, as in those treated in Chapter A, the events of creation, or the nature of the creator of of the gods, may be the subject of interest. Again, as in Chapter C, the index may involve incidents based on certain principles of conduct (e. g. tabu) ”

“ And to those who will acquaint themselves with it, there is now presented a clear and unanswerable demonstration of the divinity of the Word. Unlike any other writings, that the world has ever seen, it is shown to contain an internal and spiritual sense, which is manifested through the sense of the letter, as a man's spirit is manifested through the medium of his body; or as the spiritual world is manifested through the medium of the natural world. ”

“ My knowledge, too, is a moth,—only vexing me by a sense of the limitations of my condition. If I could grasp Nature,—if I could handle the stars,—if I could wake the thunder,—if I could summon the cloud! ”

“ Issuing like that from a deep source, every idea of the poet, one with the word, sums up in its microcosm, the poet’s entire element. A single drop, it’s all water. So that every detail of style, every term, every word, every expression, everything spoken, every meaning, every extension, every construction, every turn of phrase, often even the punctuation itself is metaphysical. The word, as we’ve said elsewhere, is the embodiment of the idea, but that body is alive. ”

“ Were there space we might go on to point out how this law of life is traceable, not only in the origin but in the development of language; how in primitive tongues the plural is made by a duplication of the singular, which is a multiplication of the word to make it like the multiplicity of the things; how the use of metaphor—that prolific source of new words—is a suggesting of ideas that are like the ideas to be conveyed in some respect or other ”

“ Any real object, vividly apprehended, we thus see, will awaken in an intelligent and emotional being a response which is the beginning of poetry. The depth and breadth and volume of that response will, of course, be proportioned to the nobility of the object which evokes it, and to the responsive capacity of the mind to which it makes its appeal. And if it be asked, How are we to estimate the nobility of any object? ”

“ Or a quaint motto, which he thinks has wit:
He writes, in inspiration puts his trust,
Tho' wrong his thoughts, the gods will make them just;
Genius directly from the gods descends,
And who by labour would distrust his friends?
Thus having reason'd with consummate skill,
In immortality he dips his quill:
And, since blank paper is denied the press,
He mingles the whole alphabet by guess:
In various sets, which various words compose,
Of which, he hopes, mankind the meaning knows. ”

“ Now, I once read a book, the author of which was very jubilant over his discovery that this verb as, to be, meant originally, simply, to breathe. Thus, if we go back a step farther, and say, ‘Do you in sooth?’ or, ‘Do you tell me that which breathes?’ we shall not be long in coming to the conclusion that Truth and Life are identical; and that What is Truth? means exactly the same as What is Life? ”

“ From the astral or ethereal molecules! From the Monads!
By a pre-established harmony, the suitable monads glomerate around the heavenly idea that proceeds to reveal itself upon our tongue when we speak the Word. Thus the thought gets its Form.
Thus far I have spoken of the thought or idea descending to utter itself upon our tongue, we being the mere tools of the idea. And such is almost always the case. We neither originate thought nor its form. Thought or Spirit speaks through us as the passive agents. ”

“ Thus if anyone ask what is the mind's object when you say 'Columbus discovered America in 1492,' most people will reply 'Columbus,' or 'America,' or, at most, 'the discovery of America.' They will name a substantive kernel or nucleus of the consciousness, and say the thought is 'about' that,—as indeed it is,—and they will call that your thought's 'object.' Really that is usually only the grammatical object, or more likely the grammatical subject, of your sentence. ”

“ Soul, mind, spirit, these old and simple words are the strongest, the profoundest, the surest; age cannot antiquate them, nor science undo them; they last with the rocks, and still go beyond. But, having in view rather the operation than the cause, we find a use also in such alternative phrases as “mode of thinking,” “mode of feeling and thinking,” “habit of thought,” “moral and intellectual character or constitution,” and the like. ”

“ Take a word expressive of the smallest possible modification of matter,—a word invented in the most expressive language in the world, and invented by no less eminent a philosopher than Democritus, and that, too, with great applause,—the word ‘atom,’ meaning that which cannot be cut. ”

“ Accordingly, in my reading I have been especially desirous of broadening the field of investigation. Certain works introduce the reader to a new world of narrative interest and to a large number of new motifs. Such have been very valuable for my purpose. And the investigations of other folklorists who from their wide reading have brought together lists of versions of tales have also served to increase the scope of the classification.
Some indication of the works from which the largest number of motifs have been gathered may be of interest:
Folktale and Myth. ”

“ But the external sense of the Word is like the white light when it falls upon a cloud descending in drops of rain, where it is divided or broken into the many colours of the glorious arch that spans the heavens—the beautiful rainbow. The natural sense of the divine Word is indeed the pure light of the internal sense broken into its many colours, when it falls upon the cloud of the letter ”

“ Beyond this universality of the symbolic language, we are apprised of the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a temple, whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments of the Deity, in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in events, and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when nature is used as a symbol. Thought makes every thing fit for use. The vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded from polite conversation. ”

“ The arising sun; the setting sun! There we have the symbol and the type of humanity, and all things with which humanity has to do. The symbol and the type, yes, and the earthly beginning, and the end also. ”

“ The fact which words can compass may be so told that there is born from it a sentiment of that rich atmosphere which is beyond the reach of words; they may remind or may awaken wonder, itself a new sense with which to apprehend. ”

“ One gives out light and warmth as some divine orb. The other lives in the shadow of a devilish, dead sun, and therefore it exhales darkness. The luminosity and the warmth of the one, the darkness and the woe of the other, express themselves in slang. Nothing could be more mysterious; for from some inexplicable synthesis of the two, genius is born. ”

“ In the hieroglyphics there is, beside the bare literal meaning, a high symbolical inspiration, like a soul of life—like the breathing of a high in-dwelling spirit,—a deeply felt significancy—a lofty and beautiful design apparent through the dead character denoting any particular name or fact. ”

“ Language, written or spoken, is such a symbolism. The mere sound of a word, or its shape on paper, is indifferent. The word is a symbol, and its meaning is constituted by the ideas, images, and emotions, which it raises in the mind of the hearer. ”

“ Of these, however, there are scarcely any types except light, colour, sound, and motion, variously combined to represent spiritual beings, their forms, their occupations, and manner of discoursing; but even amongst such inexpressible, nay, unimaginable scenes and passages, the human nature which cleaves to the poet, and shows itself, under every transmigration, allied to flesh and blood, gives an interest which allegorical pictures of invisible realities can never keep up beyond the first brilliant impression. ”

“ It will be necessary for us to consider before proceeding, what is meant by the term soul; and this becomes a somewhat difficult task, as the term has been variously applied to signify the principle of life in an organic body, or the first and most undeveloped stages of individualized spiritual being, or finally, all stages of spiritual individuality, incorporeal as well as corporeal. ”

“ The laws of this translation we do not know, or why one feature or gesture enchants, why one word or syllable intoxicates, but the fact is familiar that the fine touch of the eye, or a grace of manners, or a phrase of poetry, plants wings at our shoulders; as if the Divinity, in his approaches, lifts away mountains of obstruction, and deigns to draw a truer line, which the mind knows and owns. ”

“ As soon as the word is at hand, we instinctively feel, with something of a sigh of relief, that the concept is ours for the handling. Not until we own the symbol do we feel that we hold a key to the immediate knowledge or understanding of the concept. ”

“ The foot of a mountain is as much a metaphorical expression as the arm of the sea or the arm of law, and every metaphorical expression is an example of analogy. Three-fourths of our language, indeed, may be said to consist of worn-out metaphors. In no other way can terms be found for the spiritual and the abstract. Spirit is itself “the breath,” the abstract that which is “drawn apart.” Our knowledge grows by comparing the unknown with the [182] known, and the record of that increase of knowledge grows in the same way. ”

“ Every page furnishes instances of that intensifying of expression, where some happy word conveys a whole train of ideas condensed into a single luminous point—words so new, so full of meaning, yet so unforced and natural, that the rudest mind intuitively perceives their meaning, and yet which no study could improve or imitate. ”

“ Had man been limited to articulate speech he could not have made the immense progress he has made in the development of complex mental processes, for language, by using written verbal symbols, has allowed, not merely the transmission of thought from one individual to another, but the thoughts of the world, past and present, are in a certain measure at the disposal of every individual. ”