homogeneous, less metallic, very deep and strong, yet mellow and soft; soft, I mean, in its quality.  As to the noise of the rapids, there is none more musical.  It is neither rumbling nor sharp.  It is clear, plangent, silvery.  It is so like the voice of a steep brook—­ much magnified, but not made coarser or more harsh—­that, after we have known it, each liquid call from a forest hillside will seem, like the odor of grapevines, a greeting from Niagara.  It is an inspiriting, an exhilarating sound, like freshness, coolness, vitality itself made audible.  And yet it is a lulling sound.  When we have looked out upon the American rapids for many days, it is hard to remember contented life amid motionless surroundings; and so, when we have slept beside them for many nights, it is hard to think of happy sleep in an empty silence.

—­Mrs. Van Rensselaer:  Niagara ("Century").

Yell’d on the view the opening pack;
Rock, glen, and cavern, paid them back;
To many a mingled sound at once
The awaken’d mountain gave response. 
A hundred dogs bay’d deep and strong,
Clatter’d a hundred steeds along,
Their peal the merry horns rung out,
A hundred voices join’d the shout;
With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo,
No rest Benvoirlich’s echoes knew. 
Far from the tumult fled the roe,
Close in her covert cower’d the doe;
The falcon, from her cairn on high,
Cast on the rout a wondering eye,
Till far beyond her piercing ken
The hurricane had swept the glen. 
Faint, and more faint, its failing din
Return’d from cavern, cliff, and linn,
And silence settled, wide and still,
On the lone wood and mighty hill.

—­SCOTT:  Lady of the Lake.

+Theme LXIV.+—­Describe some sound or combination of sounds, or write a description introducing sounds.

Suggested subjects:—­
  1.  Alone in the house.
  2.  In the woods at night.
  3.  Beside the brook.
  4.  In the factory.
  5.  A day at the beach.
  6.  Before the Fourth.
  7.  On the seashore.

(Notice especially the words that indicate sound.)

4. Color or the use of color.

A gray day! soft gray sky, like the breast of a dove; sheeny gray sea with gleams of steel running across; trailing skirts of mist shutting off the mainland, leaving Light Island alone with the ocean; the white tower gleaming spectral among the folding mists; the dark pine tree pointing a somber finger to heaven; the wet, black rocks, from which the tide had gone down, huddling together in fantastic groups as if to hide their nakedness.

—­Laura E. Richards:  Captain January.