e here spoken of.
Were they constant, they would become indifferent, as we may find with
respect to disagreeable noises, which we do not hear after a time. I
know no situation more pitiable than that of a blind fiddler who has but
one sense left (if we except the sense of snuff-taking(1)) and who has
that stunned or deafened by his own villainous noises. Shakespear says.

How silver-sweet sound lovers' tongues by night!

It has been observed in explanation of this passage, that it is because
in the day-time lovers are occupied with one another's faces, but that
at night they can only distinguish the sound of each other's voices. I
know not how this may be; but I have, ere now, heard a voice break so
upon the silence,

To angels' 'twas most like,

and charm the moonlight air with its balmy essence, that the budding
leaves trembled to its accents. Would I might have heard it once more
whisper peace and hope (as erst when it was mingled with the breath of
spring), and with its soft pulsations lift winged fancy to heaven. But
it has ceased, or turned where I no more shall hear it!--Hence, also, we
see what is the charm of the shepherd's pastoral reed; and why we hear
him, as it were, piping to his flock, even in a picture. Our ears are
fancy stung! I remember once strolling along the margin of a stream,
skirted with willows and plashy sedges, in one of those low sheltered
valleys on Salisbury Plain, where the monks of former ages had planted
chapels and built hermits' cells. There was a little parish church near,
but tall elms and quivering alders hid it from my sight, when, all of
a sudden, I was startled by the sound of the full organ pealing on the
ear, accompanied by rustic voices and the willing choir of village maids
and children. It rose, indeed, 'like an exhalation of rich distilled
perfumes.' The dew from a thousand pastures was gathered in its
softness; the silence of a thousand years spoke in it. It came upon the
heart like the calm beauty of death; fancy caught the sound, and faith
mounted on it to the skies. It filled the valley like a mist, and still
poured out its endless chant, and still it swells upon the ear, and
wraps me in a golden trance, drowning the noisy tumult of the world!

There is a curious and interesting discussion on the comparative
distinctness of our visual and other external impressions, in Mr.
Fearn's _Essay on Consciousness_, with which I shall try to descend from
this rhapsody to