The Spring and Summer of 1894. 431 



cannot go fast enough to please you. And then so 

 addicted to tobacco you wrap yourself in clouds of 

 smoke to indulge in your everlasting clay dreams. 

 Hark to the south wind, how it whistles in the rigging ; 

 it is quite inspiriting to listen to it. On Midsummer 

 Eve we ought, of course, to have had a bonfire as usual, 

 but from my diary it does not seem to have been the 

 sort of weather for it. 



"Saturday, June 23rd, 1894. 



" 'Mid the shady vales, and the leafy trees, 

 How sweet the approach of the summer breeze ; 

 When the mountain slopes in the sunlight gleam, 

 And the eve of St. John comes in like a dream. 



The north wind continues with sleet. Gloomy weather. 

 Drifting south. 8i43' N. lat., that 159' southward since 

 Monday. 



" I have seen many midsummer eve's under different 

 skies, but never such a one as this. So far, far from all 

 that one associates with this evening. I think of the 

 merriment round the bonfires at home, hear the scraping 

 of the fiddle, the peals of laughter, and the salvoes of the 

 guns, with the echoes answering from the purple tinted 

 heights. And then I look out over this boundless, w r hite 

 expanse into the fog and sleet, and the driving wind. 

 Here is truly no trace of midsummer merriment. It is a 

 gloomy look-out altogether! Midsummer is past and 

 now the days are shortening again, and the long night of 



