this one expresses the monster. It is the howl of the formless. It is
the inarticulate finding utterance in the indefinite. A thing it is full
of pathos and terror. Those clamours converse above and beyond man. They
rise, fall, undulate, determine waves of sound, form all sorts of wild
surprises for the mind, now burst close to the ear with the importunity
of a peal of trumpets, now assail us with the rumbling hoarseness of
distance. Giddy uproar which resembles a language, and which, in fact,
is a language. It is the effort which the world makes to speak. It is
the lisping of the wonderful. In this wail is manifested vaguely all
that the vast dark palpitation endures, suffers, accepts, rejects. For
the most part it talks nonsense; it is like an access of chronic
sickness, and rather an epilepsy diffused than a force employed; we
fancy that we are witnessing the descent of supreme evil into the
infinite. At moments we seem to discern a reclamation of the elements,
some vain effort of chaos to reassert itself over creation. At times it
is a complaint. The void bewails and justifies itself. It is as the
pleading of the world's cause. We can fancy that the universe is engaged
in a lawsuit; we listen--we try to grasp the reasons given, the
redoubtable for and against. Such a moaning of the shadows has the
tenacity of a syllogism. Here is a vast trouble for thought. Here is the
_raison d'être_ of mythologies and polytheisms. To the terror of those
great murmurs are added superhuman outlines melting away as they
appear--Eumenides which are almost distinct, throats of Furies shaped in
the clouds, Plutonian chimeras almost defined. No horrors equal those
sobs, those laughs, those tricks of tumult, those inscrutable questions
and answers, those appeals to unknown aid. Man knows not what to become
in the presence of that awful incantation. He bows under the enigma of
those Draconian intonations. What latent meaning have they? What do they
signify? What do they threaten? What do they implore? It would seem as
though all bonds were loosened. Vociferations from precipice to