Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

any points of discussion. Unfortunately most brain-workers have to talk and think about sleep a good deal ; like the spirits of the vasty deep, it will not always come when they do call for it. Jeremy Taylor may say to them, with characteristic eloquenceLet your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time beyond the needs and conveniencies of nature." But what if they cannot sleep at all? What if they lie restless and disturbed, tossing from one side of the bed to the other, the head aching, the limbs weary, and yet the balm of sleep still denied to them? With what anguish of spirit they recall Leigh Hunt's delightful language:"It is a delicious moment, certainly, that of being well nestled in bed, and feeling that you shall drop gently to sleep. The good is to come, not past; the limbs have just been tired enough to render the remaining in one posture delightful; the labour of the day is gone. A gentle failure of the perceptions creeps over you; the spirit of consciousness disengages itself once more, and with slow and hushing degrees, like a mother detaching her hand from that of a sleeping child, the mind seems to have a balmy lid closing over it; like the eye-it is closed! The mysterious spirit has gone to take its airy rounds." To the restless victim of insomnia, invoking with anguish the sweet repose that still shuns his bed, this reads like bitter mockery. Seriously, when the student finds a difficulty in "getting to sleep," and finds that the slumber, when it comes, is uneasy and broken, it is high time for him to inquire into the cause. For it is during sleep that the brain recuperates the energies it has expended in the hours of wakefulness, and if the recuperation do not equal the expenditure, why, "that way madness lies." To the brain-worker it is even more needful, and more of it is needful, than to the man who lives by the sweat of his brow. He, indeed, seldom finds sleep a reluctant angel; it is to those who want her most she most frequently denies the serene shadow of her wings. What then is to be done? The sufferer must endeavour to find out the cause of his sleeplessness (insomnia), and meanwhile, as a remedy, he may try the effect of a warm bath before retiring to bed, or a brisk walk; even a change of bedroom is occasionally beneficial. What he must not do is-except under medical advice-to take narcotics. Every form and variety of opium, laudanum, morphia, chloral, he must resolutely avoid. Nor must he resort to stimulants or "nightcaps," such as toddy, or gin-and-water; for these, by increasing the pressure of blood towards the brain, prevent sleep. It is now known that sleep results from the emptying of the cerebral blood-vessels, and not, as was formerly supposed, from congestion. The object of the sleepless one, therefore, must be to refrain from any action which will quicken the circulation in the brain. Probably, if he persevere in tracing out the cause of his malaise, he will find that it is overwork, or want of sufficient exercise, or studying too late at night, or sitting in a close and confined room, where the atmosphere is

350

DIVISION OF TIME.

heavily charged with carbonic acid, or his bedroom may be ill ventilated. It will be easy, when the cause is known, to apply a remedy. On the other hand, if the sleeplessness assume considerable proportions, some functional derangement or even organic disease is to be apprehended, and medical skill must be immediately called in. I can here deal only with those common forms of insomnia to which young students are liable. They generally originate in a neglect of the most obvious hygienic rules. To work far into the night, and retire to bed with an excited brain and restless heart, is an ordinary though serious error. So, too, the student is often careless to culpability of the nature of the air he breathes. In winter, to secure warmth, he shuts door and window; and in a room lighted with gas and " stuffy" with minute particles of coal-dust undergoes a sure, if slow, process of blood-poisoning. He will obtain relief in such a case by admitting fresh air into his room in liberal quantities, and sleeping with his bedroom window open for about an inch and a half or two inches from the top. But if he would enjoy a sound and healthy sleep, he must not only ventilate his room, but put himself upon a sanitary régime. He must put aside his books half-an-hour before supper; after supper he may chat with a friend, glance at the day's papers, enjoy a little music, or take a short walk; then, on retiring, sponge his body freely, and, with devout prayer and meditation, commit himself to the care of his Almighty Father.

How many hours should be devoted to sleep? This is a question to which it is difficult to give an answer that will apply in the case of every individual. As some persons can undergo without injury a greater amount of labour than others, so can they be content with fewer hours of sleep. If Nature get fair-play, a man will not wake until he is thoroughly refreshed; but as soon as the process of recuperation is completed he will wake without an alarum. There is a well-known couplet by the great lawyer Sir Edward Coke :

"Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six,
Four spent in prayer, the rest on Nature fix."

This was "capped" by Sir William Jones :

:

"Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,
Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven."

I side with the Orientalist rather than with the lawyer, and venture to say that every student absolutely requires at least seven hours of sleep. These he may balance by seven hours of mental labour. If he retire to bed at eleven, he will, as a rule, be ready, and I hope willing, to rise at six. In winter he may take an extra half-hour's slumber without incurring the sluggard's reproach. We need more sleep in the dark months than in the bright, and

EARLY RISING.

351 for my part I will not quarrel with the student if in mid-winter he do not begin his "tubbing" until seven. Early rising is an excellent institution, but better than early rising is health of mind and body, and this is not to be secured by stinting Nature of its needful rest. Remember it is not the number of hours we give to our work that will make us capable men, but the quantity and quality of the work we do; and the worker who sits down to the day's task fresh and vigorous, with his brain cool and calm, his circulation equally ordered, his nervous system composed, and his whole frame full of energy, will quickly outstrip a weary and jaded competitor, though the latter may have started an hour or two in advance. The quantity and quality of mental work will govern fatigue and the necessity for rest:-go to bed when you are tired, and recover your lost power; you are useless up; and the effort to work when fatigue has commenced, results in utter prostration; appetite for work is as necessary as appetite for food. Some people find in early rising the very secret of success; it makes a man, they tell you, "healthy, wealthy, and wise." But ah! you see, they forget the opening clause of the oldworld saying. Early to rise" has for its natural antithesis "early to bed,"-a bit of proverbial philosophy which deserves commendation. I have no objection to early rising; on the contrary, I believe it to be a healthy and useful habit, if it be not made the excuse for an imprudent shortening of the hours of sleep. The student may rise at five if he will extinguish his lamp at ten. What I do not believe in-and I speak as a hard worker --is "early rising" combined with "burning the midnight oil." At the same time I wholly disagree with the poet when he proposes to "lengthen his days" by "stealing a few hours from the night; early retiring is for the student an indispensable condition of health. Granted that Falstaff could boast, "We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow." Neither Falstaff nor Shallow knew anything of self-culture!

66

[ocr errors]
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Barrow, Dr., 231.

Baths and bathing, 347.

Baxter, Richard, 230.

Beaumont, the dramatist, 117.

Behn, Mrs. Aphra, 186.

Berkeley, Bishop, 238.

Biography, English writers of, 173-184; Sir T. More, Izaak
Walton, Thomas Elwood, Lord Hervey, 174; Gibbon,
Boswell, Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi, 175; Johnson, Coxe, Ros-
coe, Dr. Birch, P. F. Tytler, Mark Napier, 176; Dr.
Hill Burton, Sir W. Napier, Dr. James Currie, W.
Hayley, Southey, 177; M'Crie, Scott, Lockhart, Camp-
bell, Moore, 178; Proctor, Talfourd, the Hares, Carlyle,
Macaulay, Trevelyan, 179; biographers of statesmen,
180; Masson, biographers of poets and seamen, 181;
Dean Stanley, Stopford Brooke, 182; Prescott, Helps,
and others, 183; Strickland, Forster, Sir T. Martin,
Yonge, and others, 184.

Books, choice of, 99; general list of, on various subjects, 259;
scientific, 284.

[ocr errors]
« VorigeDoorgaan »