of visible form: what I chiefly mean is, that the feelings belonging to the sensations of our other organs, when accidentally recalled, are kept more separate and pure. Musical sounds, probably, owe a good deal of their interest and romantic effect to the principle 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,
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,
and charm the moonlight air with its balmy essence, that the budding leaves trembled to its
- ↑ See Wilkie’s Blind Fiddler.
