572 
On Sound as a Nuisance . 
[September, 
of noise — distress us little. We may become as completely 
habituated to them as to the sound of the wind, the rustling 
of trees, or the murmur of a river. On the other hand, all 
sounds into which human or animal will enters as a neces- 
sary element are in the highest degree distressing.. Thus it 
is, to any ordinary man, impossible to become habituated to 
the screaming of a child, the barking and yelping of dogs, 
the strains of a piano, a harmonium, or a fiddle on the other 
side of a thin party-wall, or the clangour of bells. These 
noises, the more frequently we hear them, seem to grow 
more irritating and thought-dispelling. 
But whilst admitting a very wide distinction between 
these two classes of sounds, we must pause before ascribing 
these differences to the intervention or non-intervention of 
will. We shall find certain very obvious distinctions be- 
tween the two kinds of sound. The promiscuous din of 
movement, voice, and traffic, even in the busiest city, has in 
it nothing sharp or accentuated; it forms a continuous 
whole, in which each individual variation is averaged and 
toned down. The distressing sounds, on the other hand, are 
often shrill, abrupt, distinctly accentuated and discrete 
rather than continuous. Take, for instance, the ringing of 
bells ; it is monotonous in the extreme, but it recurs .at 
regular intervals. Hence its action upon the brain is in- 
tensified, just as in the march of troops over a suspension- 
bridge each step increases the vibration. The pain to the 
listener is the greater because he knows that the shock will 
come, and awaits it. Very similar is the case with another 
gratuitous noise, the barking of dogs. Each bark, be it 
acute or grave, is in the highest degree abrupt, sharply 
marked, or staccato , as we believe a musician would term it. 
Though the intervals are less regularly marked than in the 
case of church-bells, we have still a prolonged series of 
distinct shocks communicated to the brain. Well might 
Goethe say — 
“ vor allem 
1st das Hundegebell mir verhasst ; 
Klaffend zerreisst es das Ohr.” 
All the other more distressing kinds of noise possess the 
characters of shrillness, loudness, and of recurrent beats or 
blasts. 
As an instance of an undesigned, unintentional noise 
being distressing to those within ear-shot, we may mention 
the dripping of water. A single drop, whether penetrating 
through a defective roof, falling from the arch of a cavern, 
