July Monotony of Sunshine. 215 



whilst a crude one will as surely neglect it. As an ac- 

 companiment to this dulling of all the greens, the sky 

 changes from the clear blue of early summer and the 

 dark blue of the first heats to a sort of gray, which is 

 very well known to the inhabitants of southern climates 

 the dark gray of the hot weather. This particular 

 kind of gray is never to be seen at all in northern coun- 

 tries. It is a real sky-color, not cloud-color ; but it is 

 far, indeed, from the blue which we most commonly 

 associate with the open heaven. I have often matched 

 it very carefully in oil and water color, and always 

 with renewed astonishment at the quantity of red and 

 yellow that it requires. These gray skies of the in- 

 tensely hot weather are often most accurately rendered 

 by the French landscape-painters, which makes north- 

 ern critics affirm that they cannot color. 



There are long weeks of monotony in the fine 

 summers, that may be appreciated for their practical 

 convenience by landscape-painters who work from Na- 

 ture, as the same effect of gray sunshine recurs day 

 after day ; but their influence upon the mind is rather 

 a tranquillizing than an exciting influence. The mo- 

 notony of sunshine is like any other monotony ; it tends 

 to lull the mind into a condition of fixed routine, in 

 which activity is still possible, yet repeats itself as the 

 days do. Through the long summer, which seems not 

 merely long but endless, we do always the same things 

 at the same hours, moving with the quiet regularity of 

 the shadow on the sun-dial. When the physical con- 

 stitution is inured to heat, there is no season of the 



