Even if Ireneus had not willingly accepted the plan worked out for the Employment of his leisure in study, the rigorous climate of Sweden would, in some manner, have made it compulsory for him to do so. To the cold and dry days, which, during the winter, enlightened and animated the people of the north, succeeded storms and hurricanes. Tempests of snow floated in the air, covered the paths, and blocked up the doors of the houses. A cloudy horizon and black sky seemed to close around every house, like a girdle of iron. At a little distance not even a hill could be distinguished from a forest; all was, as it were, drowned and overwhelmed in a misty ocean, in movable columns of snow, which were impetuous, and irresistible as the sand-whirlpools of the desert. About midday a light purple tint, like a dying twilight, glittered in somber space: a ray thrown by the sun across the clouds, gave an uncertain light. All, however, soon became dark again. One might have fancied that the god of day had retired over-wearied from regions he had in vain attempted to subdue. Nowhere does the symbolical dogma of the contests of darkness and light manifest itself in more characteristic traits than in the Scandinavian mythology; and nowhere does it appear physically under a more positive image than in the regions which have been for centuries devoted to this mythology. During the summer at the north, the sun reigns like an absolute sovereign over nature, and ceaselessly lights it with his crown of fire; he ever watches it, like a jealous lover. If he inclines toward the horizon, if his burning disk disappears behind the purple mountain brows, he leaves for only a moment those polar regions, and leaves even then a clearness behind like the dawn. He soon reappears in his spotless splendor.