trees, and
the range of mighty winds. Besides objects, surfaces, and atmospherical
changes, I perceive countless vibrations. I derive much knowledge of
everyday matter from the jars and jolts which are to be felt everywhere
in the house.

Footsteps, I discover, vary tactually according to the age, the sex, and
the manners of the walker. It is impossible to mistake a child's patter
for the tread of a grown person. The step of the young man, strong and
free, differs from the heavy, sedate tread of the middle-aged, and from
the step of the old man, whose feet drag along the floor, or beat it
with slow, faltering accents. On a bare floor a girl walks with a rapid,
elastic rhythm which is quite distinct from the graver step of the
elderly woman. I have laughed over the creak of new shoes and the
clatter of a stout maid performing a jig in the kitchen. One day, in the
dining-room of an hotel, a tactual dissonance arrested my attention. I
sat still and listened with my feet. I found that two waiters were
walking back and forth, but not with the same gait. A band was playing,
and I could feel the music-waves along the floor. One of the waiters
walked in time to the band, graceful and light, while the other
disregarded the music and rushed from table to table to the beat of some
discord in his own mind. Their steps reminded me of a spirited war-steed
harnessed with a cart-horse.

Often footsteps reveal in some measure the character and the mood of the
walker. I feel in them firmness and indecision, hurry and deliberation,
activity and laziness, fatigue, carelessness, timidity, anger, and
sorrow. I am most conscious of these moods and traits in persons with
whom I am familiar.

Footsteps are frequently interrupted by certain jars and jerks, so that
I know when one kneels, kicks, shakes something, sits down, or gets up.
Thus I follow to some extent the actions of people about me and the
changes of their postures. Just now a thick, soft patter of bare, padded
feet and a slight jolt told me that my dog had jumped on the chair to
look out of the window. I do not, however, allow him to go
uninvestigated; for occasionally I feel the same motion, and find him,
not on the chair, but trespassing on the sofa.

When a carpenter works in the house or in the barn near by, I know by
the slanting, up-and-down, toothed vibration, and the ringing concussion
of blow upon blow, that he is sawing or hammering. If I am near enough,
a certain vib