Source identified
Read & copy the quotation
“poetry and music, and not prose and speech, are the natural expressions of the deepest and highest emotions.”
- Source
- To Cuba and Back
- Date
- 1859
- Local voice
- Authorial / signed preface voice · Richard Henry Dana Jr. (travel narrator)
Meaning of “poetry and music, and not prose and speech,…”
Dana treats music and poetry as forms especially suited to feelings that ordinary explanatory speech cannot fully carry.
Where does it come from?
To Cuba and Back, Chapter XVI, “Havana: Worship, Etiquette and Humanitarianism,” Project Gutenberg #33455. Dana reflects that poetry and music are natural expressions of the deepest emotions while observing Catholic worship in Havana. It is nineteenth-century first-person travel, aesthetic and religious observation rather than an empirical law about emotion or communication.
Why the local voice matters
To Cuba and Back, Chapter XVI. Dana makes this aesthetic and religious reflection while observing Sisters of Charity at prayer in Havana; it is first-person travel narration, not an empirical law of emotion.