SOUNDS FROM INANIMATE NATURE. * 345 



Each season of the year has its peculiar melodies heside 

 those proceeding from animated objects. In the opening 

 of the year, when the leaves are tender and pliable, there 

 is a mellowness in the sound of the breezes, as if they 

 lelt the voluptuous influence of spring. Nature then 

 softens all the sounds from inanimate things, as if to 

 avoid making any harsh discords with the anthem that 

 issues from the woodlands, vocal with the songs of myr- 

 iads of happy creatures. The echoes repeat less distinctly 

 the multitudinous notes of birds, insects, and reptiles. To 

 the echoes spring and summer are seasons of compar- 

 ative rest, save when residing among the rocks of the 

 desert or among the crags of the sea-shore. Here sitting 

 invisibly in these retreats, they are ever responding to the 

 melancholy sounds that are borne upon the waves as they 

 sullenly recount the perils and accidents of the great deep. 



But there are reverberations which are too refined and 

 subtle to be distinguished as echoes. All creation, indeed, 

 is a vast assemblage of musical instruments, whose chords 

 vibrate to every sound in Nature. Every sound that 

 peals over the landscape is in communication with millions 

 of harps whose strings give out some response in harmony 

 with the season and situation. As every ray of light 

 coming from the farthest perceptible distance in the uni- 

 verse is repeated millions of times in various forms of 

 beauty from dews and gems and flowers, — in the same 

 manner do the sounds in the atmosphere vibrate from 

 every spear of grass and every leaf of the forest, pro- 

 ducing some unconscious pleasure. 



After the frosts of autumn the winds become shriller 

 as they pass over the naked reeds and rushes and through 

 the leafless branches of the trees, and there is a familiar 

 sadness in their murmurs, as they whirl among the dry 

 rustling leaves. When the winter has arrived and en- 

 shrouded all the landscape in snow, the echoes venture 



