ABSTRACT
We may note from the subjoined analysis of the verbal elements in The Ondt and the Gracehoper, selected because of its brevity and effectiveness, the following significant points. The language of this Fragment consists of a mosaic of seventeen tongues, English serving as the basic element with which the other idioms are interwoven. Names of insects and insect-members, references to Egyptian religious symbolism, and to the four principles of the development of human society as laid down by the Italian jurist, Vico, are the material from which the author creates his fable. The tone of this Fragment is satiric to the point of ribaldry; the impression of the whole is that of some airy Word-Creature ready to take wing.
