The Alphabet
February 9, I927 THE COMMONWEAL 37I sibly it is assumed--this may be said in passingmthat even though M. Souday is neither informative nor effective, he is unconsciously amusing. Well,...
...As yet these tablets are untranslated, and are written in a language which had an alphabet of ninety letters...
...The problem, you see, leads very far...
...It brings us directly, in fact, to the basic matters which the world today is once more anxious to decide...
...But if the discoveries recently announced by M. Salomon Reinach should prove all they are asserted to be, this conclusion must be discarded...
...Well, the two aspects of the debate which demand attention are the interest which it aroused and the condusions to which it was brought...
...It is unlikely that these inscriptions will ever be translated...
...Our alphabet has only twenty-six letters, and the Gaelic even fewer...
...Even though few of the Ahh~ Bremond's correspondents and fellow-critics could define poetry, they were able to manifest great familiarity with it and to show that they had formulated valuable and often profound ideas about it...
...Not that the two are the same...
...but that means merely that he is adding to the achievement of the most important faculty of human nature the achievement of the other faculties...
...These have faces modeled on them, with eyes and nose, but no mouth, indicating that death is silence...
...The discoveries are of an earlier age, and consist of a few neolithic polished ax-heads and flint implements, the material of which must have been brought from a distance, since there is no flint in this district...
...Ages of education, like our own, need to be reminded that their neatly arrived at formulae do not explain all the mysteries of art and religion...
...THE ALPHABET ENERATIONS of school-children have been taught that our alphabet came from Phoenicia, the inhabitants of that region being the first to advance beyond the pictographic stage of Egyptian hieroglyphics...
...And yet, if we may for our part inject a word into the debate, too close an identification of "poetry and prayer" seems to encourage a mistake which, it is true, is the opposite of the rationalistic mistake...
...Pebbles, with carvings of animals, seem to indicate the very end of the old stone ageuperhaps six or seven thousand years ago...
...In this sense it is correct to define the romantic attitude as the correct one--a statement which the Abb6 Bremond had made prior to the debate, and which had caused a considerable flutter...
...They are covered with long and weU-engraved inscriptions...
...and it is quite correct to say (what could not be said outside of aesthetic, Catholic France) that not even the problem of the franc or the fortunes of M. Poincair$ aroused more intense sympathy...
...However, as some of the characters appear to be indifferently written, going either to the right or left, it is possible to reduce the number to about fifty...
...This idea is a part of the great theory which derives all culture from the eastern end of the Mediterranean...
...The conclusions arrived at by the Abb6 Bremond are diverse, but the most significant is his identification of the experience which is the source of poetry with the experience which is the source of mysticism...
...But by far the most remarkable objects which have been discovered are the clay tablets first unearthed by the farmer's son, several more of which have been found...
...It is an excellent thing that points of view like this should be brought to the general attention...
...Though both are "supra-rational," in the sense that they are guided neither by logic nor by cosmic actuality, yet poetry is a tentative essay of the spiritual force which in true mysticism finds its proper sphere and its winged flight...
...Among these are to be found every one of the letters of our alphabet except b. They are not formed exactly as we form them today, but they are recognizable by palaeographers as forms of our letters familiar in archaic writings...
...Would it not, therefore, be more correct to say that poetry is pure expression of the personality of man, including reason...
...Similarly, prayer needs definiteness of intention, of import, of petition if it is to avoid being merely an "elevation of the spirit...
...The latter happened to be interested in archaeology, and he bought the patch of ground from the farmer, and since then has been excavating it with the help of the boy who made the first find...
...We may lament the impossibility of deciphering the tablets found near Vichy, but if their authenticity continues to stand the test of experts, the discovery will certainly gratify those who believe in a western origin for European civilization...
...He showed them to the village school-master, who in turn showed them to the village doctor...
...At first there was considerable suspicion about them, but they have been examined by competent authorities who consider them genuine...
...Some years ago, the son of a French farmer who was clearing some land near Vichy, came upon two bricks with curious markings on them...
...The r6sume of the discussion, published in two volumes, has already attained more than twenty editions...
...Curious vases, perhaps funerary, some of them like the so-called "owl vases" of Troy, have aIso been found...
...Is not the word, which is the material of the poet, a vessel of reason as well as a wave of sound ? The most elementary combination of syllable and sense is already a ship afloat...
...This is encouraging to a generation which has listened rather penitentially to Spengler and the expressionists...
...The poet may attach more importance to the shadowy suggestions of a term than to its precise content...
...Accordingly, rational standards in the creation or judgment of literatwl'emeverything that is "classic" in the sense of Boileau or Pope--are negative of poetry as such...
...February 9, I927 THE COMMONWEAL 37I sibly it is assumed--this may be said in passingmthat even though M. Souday is neither informative nor effective, he is unconsciously amusing...
...No metal, nor any Celtic or Roman pottery has been found...
...Hence there appears to have been in western Europe a genuine alphabet of great antiquity...
Vol. 5 • February 1927 • No. 14
