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 



