2 1 6 July Ennui of Sunshine. 



year more favorable to regular work. The intense light 

 does not weary the eyes, it is astonishing how easily 

 they endure the solar glare, and it is easy to provide 

 an artificial shadow. Then the mind, being entirely 

 undisturbed by any considerations about the weather, 

 settles into a routine of habits, and pursues its objects 

 with a tranquil simplicity of purpose which is sure 

 to lead to some tangible result. There is light enough, 

 and there is time enough for every thing : thus, with 

 plenty of work and a sustained energy, a man may 

 pass through the long monotony of the southern sum- 

 mer without weariness, and even regret the conclusion 

 of it when it breaks up at last in thunder ; but if 

 once the ennui of sunshine seizes you it is very terrible 

 and very difficult to contend against. Then the con- 

 stant gray-blue of the sky becomes hateful, the well- 

 known forms of the surrounding landscape, of which 

 nothing is relieved and nothing veiled, sicken you like 

 the mechanical repetition of a tune on the barrel-organ : 

 day after day you look vainly for the change that will 

 not come, and you sink at last into a kind of despond- 

 ency, which looks upon the condition of the world 

 as hopeless, a globe whose wretched inhabitants are 

 slowly roasted before a 'steady central fire from which 

 there is no escape. This temper has been accurately 

 described, or rather the feeling of it has been conveyed 

 to the reader, by Tennyson in ' Mariana in the South.' 

 Over and over again, in the poem, recurs the oppres- 

 sion of sunshine, the wearisome monotony of light. She 

 dreams of native breezes and runlets babbling down 



