SUMMER NIGHT IN THE WOODS. 161 



any creature is heard; and the rustling of the night 

 wind through the tremulous leaves of the birch, or it«' 

 moaning among the high branches of the pinea, 

 resembling the murmurs of distant waters, are the only 

 sounds that meet the ear. But this dreary stillness is 

 not of long duration. The droning flight of the beetle, 

 and the whirring of various kinds of moths that are 

 busy among the foliage of the trees, are the accompani- 

 ments of a summer night, suggesting to the fancy the 

 passing of a ghost, and filling the mind with many mys- 

 terious conjectures. Sometimes the owl, on his soft 

 silken wings, glides along with stealthy and noiseless 

 flight ; and we are soon- startled by his peculiar hoot- 

 ing — a sound which I can imagine must be terrific to 

 the smaller inhabitants of the woods. 



At midnight, in general, the stillness of the winds is 

 greater than in the daytime, and the gurgling of streams 

 is heard more distinctly amid the general hush of nature. 

 Sounds are now the most prominent objects of. atten- 

 tion ; and every noise from distant places booms distinctly 

 over the plains and hollows^ We are affected with a 

 superstitious feeling, in a lonely place at night, that dis- 

 poses us to listen with breathless attention to every 

 sound we cannot immediately explain. A morbid sen- 

 sibility thus awakened is the cause of that pleasure 

 which is felt by most persons under similar circum- 

 stances. It leads the youthful and the bold to seek 

 midnight adventure, and the more timid to trust them- 

 selves to those ambiguous situations, where, though no 

 danger awaits them, the silence and darkness and mys- 

 tery produce a state of the mind that borders on ecstasy, 

 and which may be considered the usual mental condi- 

 tion of the religious devotee. 



While pursuing our midnight .contemplations, occa- 

 14* 



