CHANTICLEER 203 



out of existence. Naturally the paper would dis- 

 appoint him ; he would be grieved at the writer's 

 erroneous views. I hope that his feelings would 

 take no acuter form. I have listened to a person, 

 usually mild-mannered, denouncing a neighbour 

 in the most unmeasured terms for the crime of 

 keeping a crowing cock. If the cock had been a 

 non-crower, a silent member, it would have been 

 different : he would hardly have known that he had 

 a neighbour. There is a very serious, even a sad, 

 side to this question. Mr. Sully maintains that as 

 civilization progresses, and as we grow more intel- 

 lectual, all noise, which is pleasing to children and 

 savages, and only exhilarates their coarse and 

 juvenile brains, becomes increasingly intolerable 

 to us. What unfortunate creatures we then are ! 

 We have got our pretty rattle and are now afraid 

 that the noise it makes is going to be the death of us. 

 But what is noise i Will any two highly intellectual 

 beings agree as to the particular sound which 

 produces the effect of rusty nails thrust in among 

 the convolutions of the brain i Physicians are 

 continually discovering new forms of nervous mala- 

 dies, caused by the perpetual hurry and worry and 

 excitement of our modern life ; and perhaps there 

 is one form in which natural sounds, which being 

 natural should be agreeable, or at any rate innocent, 

 become more and more abhorrent. This is a question 



