SOUNDS FROM INANIMATE NATURE. 297 



Thunder is heard with different emotions when it pro- 

 ceeds from clouds which are moving towards us and when 

 from those already settled down in the east, after the 

 storm is past. The consciousness that the one indicates 

 a rising storm renders forcibly suggestive the perils we 

 are soon to encounter and increases our anxiety. When 

 we are in the midst of the storm we feel the emotion of 

 terror rather than that of sublimity. An uncomfortable 

 amount of anxiety destroys that tranquillity of mind 

 which is necessary for the full enjoyment of the sublime 

 as well as the beautiful scenes of ISTaure. 



It is pleasant after the terrors of the storm have ceased, 

 when the blue sky in the west begins to appear in dim 

 streaks through the misty and luminous atmosphere, to 

 watch the lightnings from a window, as they play down 

 the dark clouds in the eastern horizon, and to listen to 

 the rumblings of the thunder as it begins loudly overhead, 

 then dies away almost like the roaring of waves in a dis- 

 tant part of the heavens. Then do we contemplate the 

 spectacle with a grateful sense of relief from the fears 

 that lately agitated the mind, and surrender our souls to 

 all the influences naturally awakened by a mingled scene 

 of beauty and grandeur. 



The emotion of sublimity is more powerfully excited 

 by any circumstances that add mystery to a scene or to 

 the sounds we may be contemplating. Hence any un- 

 known sound that resembles that of an earthquake im- 

 presses the mind at once with a feeling of awe, however 

 insignificant its origin. The booming of a cannon over a 

 distance that renders its identity uncertain causes in the 

 hearers a breathless attention, as to something ominous 

 of danger. We may thus explain why all sounds are so 

 suggestive in the stillness of night: the rustling of a 

 zephyr as it glides half noiselessly through the trees ; a 

 few heavy drops of rain from a passing cloud, the signal 



