SOUNDS FROM INANIMATE NATURE. 27 



unalloyed with any painful anxiety for the safety of a 

 fellow-being. 



During a thunderstorm, the thunder is in most eases 

 too terrific to allow one to feel a tranquil enjoyment of 

 the occasion. Perhaps there is no sound in the world 

 which is so pleasantly modified by distance. Some 

 minutes before the commencernent of a thunderstorm, 

 there is a perfect stillness of the atmosphere which is 

 fearfully ominous of the approaching tempest. It fol- 

 lows the first enshrouding of daylight in the clouds 

 which are gathering slowly over our heads, as they 

 come up from the western horizon. It is at such a 

 time that the sullen moan of the thunder, far down, as 

 it were, below the belt of the hemisphere, is peculiarly" 

 solemn and impressive, and more productive of the 

 emotion of sublimity than when its crash is heard di- 

 rectly, over our heads. 



Thunder is evidently heard with different emotions, 

 when it proceeds from the clouds which are rising 

 towards us, and when it proceeds from those which 

 have already settled down in the east, after the storm 

 has passed away. The consciousness that the one in- 

 dicates a rising storm renders it strongly suggestive of 

 the perils we are soon to encounter, and adds intensity 

 to the feelings with which we contemplate it. When 

 we are in the midst of a violent thunderstorm, we feel 

 the emotion of fear rather than that of sublimity. 

 An uncomfortable amount of anxiety destroys that 

 tranquillity of mind which is necessary for the full en- 

 joyment of the sublime as well as the beautiful scenes 

 of nature. 



But it is pleasant after the terrors of the storm have 

 ceased, when the blue sky in the west begins to peer in 

 dim streaks, through the misty and luminous atmos- 



