Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/214

 profound than that. On the other hand, it is a succession of visual perceptions of which no two between the cradle and the grave exactly resemble each other: and what better example of infinite variety could there be than that? Hence, to use Socrates's phrase of hypocritical sympathy with a confuted adversary, "we seem in danger of having to admit" that monotony must be in ourselves and cannot be in the world without. It is, in fact, our own personal contribution to the sum of things. It is a portion of that inexhaustible fund of "tediousness" which, in the liberal spirit of Chief Constable Dogberry, we handsomely bestow upon the Cosmos.

To the man who sees no difference between one human being and another a London street is monotonous, as are the Alps to him who finds every peak and pass and glacier exactly like the last. Thus, then, if any one pleases to say, as some have been heard to say, that the Nile Valley up to the First Cataract is a mere tiresome succession of