Perhaps ‘tyranny’ is too strong a word for the gentle ebb and flow described here, which carries us all our days from one kind of activity to its opposite, and back again. The description is pleasing, with its varieties of mood and action and its hints of different rhythms in our affairs. Rhythm itself appeals to us, for who would wish for perpetual spring—‘a time to plant’ but never to pick—or envy the sleepless businessman who met us in the last chapter? Yet in the context of a quest for finality,