A SUMMERS DAY. 



THE morning has been oppressively warm. One could 

 have foretold a very hot day by the morning mist which rose 

 off the meadows and floated heavenwards into the blue 

 ether ; affording, as friends skilled in natural philosophy tell 

 us, an illustration of the perpetual change and unaltering 

 quantity of matter ; in virtue of which properties, this morn- 

 ing mist may be held to represent evaporated water caught 

 up to the clouds, whence it will descend again to spoil my 

 holiday as the rain-shower, and to refresh thirsty plant-life 

 as the evening dew. To-day, one feels restless indoors, 

 grateful as the shade may be. In such a summer-time the 

 restlessness of indolence reigns paramount. Too lazy for 

 physical exertion, the sybaritic side of one's nature longs 

 for some employment and pleasant recreation which shall 

 amuse without fatiguing. To concentrate attention on 

 books of philosophical type is simply impossible ; and the 

 opposite extreme of literature, represented by the last yellow- 

 boarded volume which captured our florin at the railway 

 bookstall as we left town, also appeals in vain. Emphati- 

 cally the day predisposes to ennui, and the choice between 

 somnolence and the alternative of "do-nothingness," for a 

 moment appals us by the magnitude of the issues involved. 

 The day is too bright for snoozing, but too warm for even a 

 botanical ramble. It must be sweltering in the wheat-field 

 yonder, where the reapers are busy at work ; and as the 

 waggons roll to and from the farm-yard, groaning beneath 

 their golden weight, one regards the boy-drivers with feelings 



