222 A SUMMER NIGHT IN THE WOODS. 



I am supposing the night to be perfectly calm ; but 

 how calm soever it may be, now and then a breeze will 

 pass fitfully overhead, and the trees will shake their flut- 

 tering leaves in the wind. An unbroken stillness may 

 immediately follow, save at intervals a whisper is heard 

 from some unseen object, as if something that has life 

 were watching your motions, or you had obtained a faint 

 perception of sounds from the invisible world. 



Among the affecting circumstances attending a night 

 in the woods, I must not omit to mention the sound of 

 bells that proclaim the flight of time. Their sounds add 

 solemnity to the hour, while they afford a pleasant assur- 

 ance of the nearness of human dwellings. But the single 

 stroke that tells the hour of midnight, repeated at short 

 intervals from different villages, is peculiarly solemn and 

 impressive. "We then feel that we are under the very 

 meridian of night, and that darkness is our only protec- 

 tion. The effect of this single toll upon the mind at 

 such a time cannot be described. 



I have spoken only of sounds, but they are at midnight 

 hardly more impressive than sights which affect us the 

 more on account of their indistinctness. The swarms of 

 fireflies whirling and darting about in the lowlands are 

 almost the only creatures that can be seen, save now and 

 then some night-bird, as it passes like a dark spot over 

 the half-luminous sky. But these little sparks of insect 

 life do not aggravate the impressions made by darkness. 

 There is nothing about them that excites the imagination 

 or exalts the feelings. One can easily imagine the terror 

 with which the glaring eyes of the jaguar must be be- 

 held by the midnight sojourner in the South American 

 forest. The eyes of the owl, as seen through the trees, 

 might produce similar impressions ; but in our quiet woods 

 imagination is the source of all the terrors that might 

 arise from common objects. 



