Literature, both poetry and prose, contains frequent allusions to the alleged effects of sunshine or the absence of sunshine on the feelings of man. Charles Lamb “felt himself immortal” and “a great deal taller” on bright days. Moore took delight in sitting in the sunshine: “Blessed power of sunshine! genial day, What balm, what life are in thy way! To feel thee is such real bliss, That, had the world no joy but this, To sit in sunshine calm and sweet, It were a world too exquisite For man to leave it for the gloom, The deep cold shadow of the tomb.” Byron felt “more religious on a sunshiny day,” Pope refers to “the soul’s calm sunshine,” Rousseau sat with bared head in the sun; Shelley so coveted the most intense sunlight that he did his writing from the roof, while it is a common observation that people generally, and particularly the aged, instinctively seek the sunshine. Mrs. Hemans wrote a rapturous apostrophe to the sunbeam: “The sunbeam of summer O! what is like thee; Hope of the wilderness, Joy of the sea.” Many writers cannot do satisfactory work unless the weather fits the mood, motive or scene; unfavorable weather states cause a disagreement in the thought processes(27). Southey refers to the depressing influence made upon him by the “vile, dark, rainy clouds” of Great Britain, when he returned from a sojourn of 15 months in sunny Italy, where his brain was in a state of high illumination. An Italian proverb runs thus: “Where comes no sun the doctor comes.” Similarly a German saw: “The funeral coach turns twice as often on the shady side of the street as on the sunny side.” J. Ashby-Sterry has dwelt upon the demoralizing effect of the London fog: “A London fog when it arises All London soon demoralizes.” “It chokes our lungs, Our heads feel queer, We cannot see, we cannot hear! So when this murky pall drops down, Though dearly loving London town, We feel we cannot quite revere A London fog.” Likewise Walter C. Smith: “A grey fog in the early prime, A blue fog by the breakfast hour, A saffron fog at luncheon time, At dinner a persistent shower Of smut, and then a dismal power Of choking darkness and despair, Thickening and saddening all the air.”