SOUNDS FROM INANIMATE NATURE. 347 



It is this power to produce the sentiment of melancholy 

 that causes the sound of rain to afford pleasure. The 

 pattering of rain upon our windows, but more especially 

 upon the roof of the house under which we are sitting, is 

 attended with a singular charm. There are few persons 

 who do not recollect with "a sense of delight some adven- 

 ture in a shower, that obliged them on a journey to take 

 shelter under a rustic roof by the wayside. The pleasure 

 produced by the sight and sound of the rain under this 

 retreat often comes more delightfully to our memory than 

 all the sunshiny adventures of the day. But in order to 

 be affected in the most agreeable manner by the sound of 

 rain, it is necessary to be in company with those whom 

 we love, or to feel an assurance that the objects of our 

 care are within doors, and to be ignorant of any person's 

 exposure to its violence. 



During a thunder-storm the thunder is in many cases 

 too terrific to allow us to feel a tranquil enjoyment of the 

 occasion. There is no sound in Nature that is so pleas- 

 antly modified by distance. Some minutes before the 

 thunder-storm there is a perfect stillness of the atmosphere 

 which is fearfully ominous of the approaching tempest. 

 It follows the first enshrouding of daylight in the clouds 

 which are slowly gathering over our heads, as they come 

 up from the western horizon. It is at such times that the 

 sullen moan of the thunder, far down as it were below 

 the belt of the hemisphere, is peculiarly solemn and im- 

 pressive, and more productive of the emotion of sublimity 

 than when the crash is heard directly over our heads. 

 To be witness of a storm is pleasant when we are, and 

 believe others to be, in a place of safety. Then do we 

 listen with intense delight to the voice of winds and 

 waters as they contend with the Demon of the storm, 

 and the awful warring of the elements excites the most 

 sublime sensations, unalloyed with any painful anxiety 

 for the safety of a fellow-being. 



