own mood, with his immediate aim in writing,
with the capacity of his expected readers. He
is discoursing with a certain real or imaginary
audience. He may put himself on paper, as
Montaigne said, as if he were talking to the
first; man he happens to meet; or he may
choose to address himself to the few chosen
spirits of his generation and of succeeding
generations. He trusts the arbitrary written
or printed symbols of word-sounds to carry
his thoughts safely into the minds of other
men. The "literary" user of language in mod-
ern times comes to depend upon the written
or printed page; he tends to become more or
less "eye-minded"; whereas the typical orator
remains "ear-minded" -- i.e. peculiarly sen-
sitive to a series of sounds, and composing for
the ear of listeners rather than for the eye of
readers.

Now as compared with the typical novelist,
the poet is surely, like the orator, "ear-
minded." Tonal symbols of ideas and emo-
tions, rather than visual symbols of ideas and
emotions, are the primary stuff with which he
is working, although as soon as the advancing
civilization of his race brings an end to the
primitive reciting of poetry and its transmis-

-99-