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NEGRO FOLK RHYMES |
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in. Yes, this is very true, but they are of a strange type indeed. They are Nature Ballads, many of them, in the sense as ordinarily used. In quite another sense, however, from that in which Nature Ballad is ordinarily used, about all Folk Rhymes are Nature Ballads.
I do not have reference to the thought content, but have reference to what I term Nature Ballads in form. Permit me to explain by analogy just what I would convey by the term Nature Ballad in form.
All Nature is one. Though we arbitrarily divide Nature's objects for study, they are indissolubly bound together and every part carries in some part of its constitution some well defined marks which characterize the other parts with wThich it has no immediate connection. To illustrate: the absolutely pure sapphire, pure aluminic oxide, crystallized, is commonly colorless, but we know that Nature's most beautiful sapphires are not colorless, but are blue, and of other beautiful tints. These color tints are due to minutest traces of other substances, not at all of general common sapphire composition. We call them all sapphires, however, regardless of their little impurities which are present to enhance their charm and beauty. Likewise, all animal life begins with one cell, and though the one cell in one case devel-
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