ILLUSIONS OF SOUND. 231 



by his extraordinary powers of illusion. There is no 

 species of deception more irresistible in its effects than 

 that which arises from the uncertainty with which we 

 judge of the direction and distance of sounds. Every 

 person must have noticed how a sound in their own ears 

 is often mistaken for some loud noise moderated by the 

 distance from which it is supposed to come ; and the 

 sportsman must have frequently been surprised at the 

 existence of musical sounds humming remotely in the 

 extended heath, when it was only the wind sounding in 

 the barrel of his gun. The great proportion of apparitions 

 that haunt old castles and apartments associated with 

 death exist only in the sounds which accompany them. 

 The imagination even of the boldest inmate of a place 

 hallowed by superstition, will transfer some trifling 

 sound near his own person to a direction and to a distance 

 very different from the truth, and the sound which other- 

 wise might have no peculiar complexion will derive 

 another character from its new locality. Spurning the 

 idea of a supernatural origin, he determines to unmask 

 the spectre, and grapple with it in its den. All the 

 inmates of the house are found to be asleep even the 

 quadrupeds are in their lair there is not a breath of 

 wind to ruffle the lake that reflects through the casement 

 the reclining crescent of the night ; and the massive 

 walls in which he is inclosed forbid the idea that he has 

 been disturbed by the warping of panelling or the 

 bending of partitions. His search is vain ; and he remains 

 master of his own secret, till he has another opportunity 

 of investigation. The same sound again disturbs him, 

 and, modified probably by his own position at the time, 

 it may perhaps appear to come in a direction slightly 

 different from the last. His searches are resumed, and 

 he is again disappointed. If this incident should recur 

 night #fter night with the same result ; if the sound 



