XIV. 
COUNTRY SOUNDS 
AN’S resting instinct is not strongly devel- 
oped, and even those who are not tethered 
to toil are apt to go on working far too long. The 
stimulus of psychological motives is often strong 
enough to make us disregard biological warnings, 
and there are familiar devices, such as a pipe, 
by which fatigue signals can be muffled. But 
one of the well-known symptoms of approaching 
the danger-zone of fatigue is a hyper-sensitiveness 
to sounds, especially noises, to which unfagged 
brains with plenty of energy to spare are quite 
indifferent. Cases have been recorded of the jaded 
hearing the ringing of the door-bell in a house many 
yards off, and when ordinary urban sounds 
begin to be an unusual source of irritation it is a 
hint to those who can that they should seek the 
country. For it is beyond doubt that part of a 
country holiday is in the rest to the ears. The 
great hush that wraps the hills is more refreshing 
than sleep. 
They say that the noisiest thing in the world 
is a sun-spot, a ‘roaring whirlpool of gases in the 
sun's atmosphere sometimes thousands of miles in 
diameter: but of the whirlpool which Huxley 
103 
