[111] Bunsen, Outlines, ii. 82. The poet Shelley implied the same thought in Alastor:
“I wait breath, Great Parent, that my song
May modulate with motions of the air,
And murmurs of the forest and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.”
[112] Locke on the Human Understanding, iii. I. § 1, 2.
[113] Harris’s Hermes, bk. ii. ch. 2, 3rd ed. p. 325.
[114] Renan, p. 139, quoting Adelung, Mithrid. i. p. xiv. Grimm, Über die Namen des Donners. (Berlin, 1855.) If the words “tonitru,” “donner,” &c., be not originally onomatopœian, as some assert (who derive them from tan, Gr. τείνειν), they became so from a feeling of the need that they should be.—Heyse, s. 93.
[115] Wedgwood, p. 5. The word “pouf” is also used of falling bodies, as in the Macaronic verse, “De brancha in brancham degringolat atque facit ‘pouf.’” It would be interesting to trace the causes for the divergencies in sound of obvious onomatopœian words in various languages: e.g. it is clear that “ding-dong” could only be used to denote the sound of a bell in a country possessing large heavy bells, and therefore churches. The sound bil or bell (Cf. tintinnabulum), expressive of a clear sharp tinkle, would naturally be used by a people, like the Galla, only accustomed to the small bells sold as trinkets by foreign traders. Among the Suaheli languages (out of five words given in Krapf’s vocabulary), no word for a bell at all resembles the sound. I am indebted to my friend, Mr. Garnett, for these remarks, as well as for other ingenious suggestions.