My purpose was surely laudable, and yet on leaving the house and returning to it, I was obliged to use the vigilance and circumspection of a thief.
One night I left my bed with this view.

I posted first to my vocal glen, and thence scrambling up a neighbouring steep, which overlooked a wide extent of this romantic country, gave myself up to contemplation, and the perusal of Milton's Comus.
My reflections were naturally suggested by the singularity of this echo.

To hear my own voice speak at a distance would have been formerly regarded as prodigious.

To hear too, that voice, not uttered by another, by whom it might easily be mimicked, but by myself! I cannot now recollect the transition which led me to the notion of sounds, similar to these, but produced by other means than reverberation.

Could I not so dispose my organs as to make my voice appear at a distance?
From speculation I proceeded to experiment.