Then Big-Face, with brow-bristling and chest-pounding,
began to chatter. One after another of us joined in the
orgy of rage, until even old Marrow-Bone was mumbling
and spluttering with his cracked voice and withered
lips. Some one seized a stick and began pounding a
log. In a moment he had struck a rhythm.
Unconsciously, our yells and exclamations yielded to
this rhythm. It had a soothing effect upon us; and
before we knew it, our rage forgotten, we were in the
full swing of a hee-hee council.
These hee-hee councils splendidly illustrate the
inconsecutiveness and inconsequentiality of the Folk.
Here were we, drawn together by mutual rage and the
impulse toward cooperation, led off into forgetfulness
by the establishment of a rude rhythm. We were
sociable and gregarious, and these singing and laughing
councils satisfied us. In ways the hee-hee council was
an adumbration of the councils of primitive man, and of
the great national assemblies and international
conventions of latter-day man. But we Folk of the
Younger World lacked speech, and whenever we were so
drawn together we precipitated babel, out of which
arose a unanimity of rhythm that contained within
itself the essentials of art yet to come.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169