n,--a period which antedated
the invention of instruments by an immeasurable time. They prove,
therefore, that musical form was not developed, as has sometimes been
stated, by the use of instruments, but that it took its rise in a
mental necessity similar to that which gave structure to language.

The influence of song upon story is seen in the attempt to bend prose
to a poetic form.

Many Indian songs have no words at all, vocables only being used to
float the voice. On classifying these wordless songs, we discover that
those which are expressive of the gentle emotions have flowing,
breathing vocables, but, where warlike feelings dominate the song, the
vocables are aspirate and explosive. In this determinate use of
vocables we happen upon what seems to represent the most primitive
attempt yet discovered to give intellectual definition in verbal form
to an emotion voiced in rhythm and melody.

In songs where words are employed, we also find vocables which are in
accord with the spirit of the song, used to make the words conform to
the musical phrase. These vocables are either appended to the word or
else inserted between its syllables, to give length or added euphony.
We also note a desire for rhyming, since vocables similar in sound
frequently occur at the end of each musical phrase.

It would lead into too many details to present the various devices
discernible in this aboriginal material by which the Indian sought
euphony and measure. Nor can it be easily illustrated how words of
many different languages were bent by elisions or stretched by
vocables, that they might conform to the musical phrase. There is
abundant evidence that the ear, accustomed to the pleasure of the
rhythmic cadence of the song, was beginning to demand a corresponding
metrical use of words in expressing the poetic thought involved in the
dramatic story which gave birth to the music.

The art of poetry is here in its infancy, giving even less sign of its
future development than music, which had already acquired the outline
of that form which has since crystallised into the art of music.
Notwithstanding, we find that words were chosen for their descriptive
power, and that they were made rhythmical to fit the melody. Like the
swelling buds on the bare branch, which hint the approach of summer's
wealth, so these little vocables and rhythmic devices whisper the
coming of the poets.

End of Project Gutenberg's Indian Story and Son