"Soon meet again," and remember how, in heart, soul, and thought, we stood forever divided the one from the other, when, once more face to face, we each inly exclaimed—"Met again!"
The air that we breathe makes the medium through which sound is conveyed; be the instrument unchanged, be the force which is applied to it the same, still, the air that thou seest not, the air to thy ear gives the music.
Ring a bell underneath an exhausted receiver, thou wilt scarce hear the sound; give a bell due vibration by free air in warm daylight, or sink it down to the heart of the ocean, where the air, all compressed, fills the vessel around it,[1] and the chime, heard afar, starts thy soul, checks thy footstep—unto deep calls the deep—a voice from the ocean is borne to thy soul.
Where, then, the change, when thou sayest, "Lo, the same metal—why so faint-heard the ringing?" Ask the air that thou seest not, or above thee in the sky, or below thee in ocean. Art thou sure that the bell so faint-heard, is not struck underneath an exhausted receiver?
CHAPTER XIX.
The morning was dull and overcast, rain gathering in the air, when Vance and Lionel walked to Waife's lodging. As Lionel placed his hand on the knocker of the private door, the Cobbler, at his place by the window in the stall beside, glanced toward him, and shook his head.
"No use knocking, gentlemen. Will you kindly step in?—this way."
"Do you mean that your lodgers are out?" asked Vance.
"Gone!" said the Cobbler, thursting his awl with great vehe-
- ↑ The bell in a sunk diving-bell, where the air is compressed, sounds with increased power. Sound travels four times quicker in water than in the upper air.
