SOUNDS FROM INANIMATE NATURE. 25 



summer zephyrs that occasionally pay us a short visit 

 from the south, and signalize their coming by the crim- 

 soned dews at sunrise, let loose a thousand rills that 

 make a lively babbling music, as they leap down the 

 hill-side into the valleys. Yet of all these sounds from 

 inanimate nature, there is not one but is hallowed by 

 some glad or tender sentiment of which it is suggestive ; 

 and we have but to yield our hearts to their influences 

 to feel that for the ear as well as for the eye, nature has 

 provided an endless store of pleasures. 



I believe that the majority of agreeable sounds from 

 the inanimate world owe their charm to their power of 

 gently exciting the emotion of melancholy. Our minds 

 are constructed with such a benevolent regard to our 

 happiness, that all the feelings of the heart, including 

 even those of a painful sort, are capable, under certain 

 states or degrees of excitement, of becoming a source 

 of agreeable sensations. Such is the memory of past 

 pleasures, that brings with it a species of melancholy 

 which is a luxury to all persons of refined sensibility. 

 The murmur of gentle gales among the trembling aspen 

 leaves, or the noise of the hurricane upon the sea-ehore, 

 the roar of distant waters, the sighing of the wiad as it 

 flits by our windows or moans through the casement, 

 have the power of exciting just enough, of this senti- 

 ment to. produce an agreeable state of the mind.^ 

 Along with the melancholy they excite, thiere is some- 

 thing that tranquillizes the soul and exalts it above the 

 mere pleasures of sense. 



It is this power' of producing the sentiment of melan- 

 choly that causes the sound of rain to yield pleasure to 

 the majority of minds. The pattering of rain upon the 

 windows, but more particularly on the roof of a house 

 under which we are sitting, is attended with a singular 



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