A World without rhythm would be a world without joy and sorrow, toil and rest, life and death; a world without its land and water, hill and valley, light and shade, sunshine and storm, springtime and autumn; a world without alternation, relief, contrasting harmonies, and that ‘variety’ which ‘is the spice of life.’

Whence does the placid lake derive its beauty, or the pathless snow? Surely in very small measure indeed from mere placidity or pathlessness. Given the boundless sea with never a wave, no play of light and shadow; or an Antarctic waste of untrodden snow, and who would say ‘How lovely!’? Not so the gallant Scott, as he gazed on the white wilderness around him.

‘O God ! this is an awful place ! ‘was the poignant cry he recorded—not because of the terrible cold, or even the disappointment that met him at his goal, but because of that feature of the Antarctic solitudes that weighs most heavily on the stoutest heart—dreary, unrelieved Monotony.