length of the months, and consider the average daily consumption per month, the supremacy of March at once vanishes. February is really the month during which most novels were read during the first quarter of 1898, except at two libraries, where February and March are equal. The result is similar if we ascertain the daily averages for the first quarter in 1897, while, in 1896 (which, however, as I have already remarked, is a rather abnormal year), the daily average for March in many of the libraries falls below that for January, as well as for February. Again, when we turn to the other classes of books, we find that this predominance which February possesses, and to some extent shares with March and January, by no means exclusively applies to novels. It is not only shared by both music and poetry—which would fit in well with the assumption of a sexual nisus—but the department of "history, biography, voyages, and travels" shares it also with considerable regularity; so, also, does that of "arts, sciences, and natural history," and it is quite well marked in "theology, moral philosophy, etc.," and in "juvenile literature." We even have to admit that the promptings of the sexual instinct bring an increased body of visitors to the reference library (where there are no novels), for here, also, both the spring and autumnal climaxes are quite distinct. Certainly this theory carries us a little too far.
The main factor in producing this very marked annual periodicity seems to me to be wholly unconnected with the sexual impulse. The winter half of the year (from the beginning of October to the end of March), when outdoor life has lost its attractions, and much time must be spent in the house, is naturally the season for reading. But during the two central months of winter, December and January, the attraction of reading meets with a powerful counter-attraction in the excitement produced by the approach of Christmas, and the increased activity of social life which accompanies and for several weeks follows Christmas. In this way the other four winter months—October and November at the autumnal end, and February and March at the spring end—must inevitably present the two chief reading climaxes of the year; and so the reports of lending libraries present us with figures which show a striking, but fallacious, resemblance to the curves which are probably produced by more organic causes.
I am far from wishing to deny that the impulse which draws young men and women to imaginative literature is unconnected with the obscure promptings of the sexual instinct. But, until the disturbing influence I have just pointed out is eliminated, I see no evidence here for any true seasonal periodicity. Possibly in prisons—the value of which, as laboratories of experimental psychology we have scarcely yet begun to realize—more reliable evidence might be obtained; and those French and other prisons where novels are freely allowed to the prisoners might yield evidence as regards the consumption of fiction as instructive as that yielded at Clermont concerning the consumption of bread.
Certain diseases show a very regular annual curve. This is notably the case with scarlet fever. Caiger found in a London fever hospital a marked seasonal prevalence: there was a minor climax in May (repeated in July), and a great autumnal climax in October, falling to a minimum in December and January. This curve corresponds closely to that usually observed in London.[170] It is not peculiar to London, or to urban districts, for in rural districts we find nearly the same spring minor maximum and major autumnal maximum. In Russia it is precisely the same. Many other epidemic diseases show very similar curves.
An annual curve may be found in the expulsive force of the bladder as measured by the distance to which the urinary stream can be projected. This curve, as ascertained for one case, is interesting on account of the close relationship between sexual and vesical activity. After a minimum point in autumn there is a rise through the early part of the year to a height maintained through spring and summer, and reaching its maximum in August.[171] This may be said to correspond with the general tendency found in some cases of nocturnal seminal emissions from a winter minimum to an autumn maximum.
There is an annual curve in voluntary muscle strength. Thus in Antwerp, where the scientific study of children is systematically carried out by a Pedological Bureau, Schuyten found that, measured by the dynamometer, both at the ages of 8 and 9, both boys and girls showed a gradual increase of strength from October to January, a fall from January to March and a rise to June or July. March was the weakest month, June and July the strongest.[172]
Schuyten also found an annual curve for mental ability, as tested by power of attention, which for much of the year corresponded to the curve of muscular strength, being high during the cold winter months. Lobsien, at Kiel, seeking to test Schuyten's results and adopting a different method so as to gauge memory as well as attention, came to conclusions which confirmed those of Schuyten. He found a very marked increase of ability in December and January, with a fall in April; April and May were the minimum months, while July and October also stood low.[173] The inquiries of Schuyten and Lobsien thus seem to indicate that the voluntary aptitudes of muscular and mental force in children reach their maximum at a time of the year when most of the more or less involuntary activities we have been considering show a minimum of energy. If this conclusion should be confirmed by more extended investigations, it would scarcely be matter for surprise and would involve no true contradiction. It would, indeed, be natural to suppose that the voluntary and regulated activities of the nervous system should work most efficiently at those periods when they are least exposed to organic and emotional disturbance.
So persistent a disturbing element in spring and autumn suggests that some physiological conditions underlie it, and that there is a real metabolic disturbance at these times of the year. So few continuous observations have yet been made on the metabolic processes of the body that it is not easy to verify such a surmise with absolute precision. Edward Smith's investigations, so far as they go, support it, and Perry-Coste's long-continued observations of pulse-frequency seem to show with fair regularity a maximum in early spring and another maximum in late autumn.[174] I may also note that Haig, who has devoted many years of observations to the phenomena of uric-acid excretion, finds that uric acid tends to be highest in the spring months, (March, April, May) and lowest at the first onset of cold in October.[175]
Thus, while the sexual climaxes of spring and autumn are rooted in animal procreative cycles which in man have found expression in primitive festivals—these, again, perhaps, strengthening and developing the sexual rhythm—they yet have a wider significance. They constitute one among many manifestations of spring and autumn physiological disturbance corresponding with fair precision to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. They resemble those periods of atmospheric tension, of storm and wind, which accompany the spring and autumn phases in the earth's rhythm, and they may fairly be regarded as ultimately a physiological reaction to those cosmic influences.
[128] F. Smith, Veterinary Physiology; Dalziel, The Collie.
[129] Mondière, Art "Cambodgiens," Dictionnaire des Sciences Anthropologiques.
[130] This primitive aspect of the festival is well shown by the human sacrifices which the ancient Mexicans offered at this time, in order to enable the sun to recuperate his strength. The custom survives in a symbolical form among the Mokis, who observe the festivals of the winter solstice and the vernal equinox. ("Aspects of Sun-worship among the Moki Indians," Nature, July 28, 1898.) The Walpi, a Tusayan people, hold a similar great sun-festival at the winter solstice, and December is with them a sacred month, in which there is no work and little play. This festival, in which there is a dance dramatizing the fructification of the earth and the imparting of virility to the seeds of corn, is fully described by J. Walter Fewkes (American Anthropologist, March, 1898). That these solemn annual