Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1870-02-23
On Sleeping.


There are thousands of busy people who
die every year for want of sleep. 1t may be
that too much sleep Injuries some but in
an excitable people, and in our intense bus
mess habits there is far more mischief for
the want of sleep than from too much of it.
Sleeplessness becomes disease. 1t is the
precursor of insanity. When it does not
reach to that sad result, it is still full of per-
| il, as well as suffering. Thousands of men
have been indebted for bad bargains, for lack
of courage, for ineffectiveness, to loss of
sleep.
| 1t is curious that all the popular poetical
representations of sleeping and waking, are
the reverse of truth. We speak of sleep as
the image of death, and of our waking
hours as the image of life. But all activity
| is the result of some form of decomposition
in the body. Every thought, still more, ev
cry emotion, every volition wastes some part
of the nervous substance, precisely as fame
is produced by wasting the fuel. 1t is death
to some part of the physical substance, that
| produces the phenomena of intelligent and
voluntary life.
On the other hand sleep is not like death;
for it is the period in which the waste of
the system ceases, or rs reduced to its mini
num- Sleep repairs the wastes which wax
ing hours have made. 1t rebuilds the sys
tenn. The night is the repair shop of the
body. Every part of the system is silently
overhauled, and all the organs, tissues, and
substances are replenished. Waking con-
sumes, sleep replaces ) waking exhausts,
sleep repairs waking is death, sleep is life.
The man who sleeps little, repairs little (;
if he sleeps poorly, he repairs poorly. If
lie nses up in the day less than he accumu-
| lates at night, he will gain in health and
vigor If he uses up all he gains at night,
he will lust hold his own. If he loses more
| by day than he gathers at night he will lose.
| And if this last process be long continued,
he must succomb. A man who would be
| good worker, must see to it that he is a good
| sleeper Human life is like mill some
times the stream is SO copious that one need
not care but little about the supply. Now,
often, the stream that turns the mill needs
to be economical. A dam is built to hold a
larger supply The mill runs the pond pref
ty low through the day, but by shutting
down the gate, the night reflls the pond,
| and the wheels go merrilly around again the
| next day Once in while, when spring
| rains are copious aud freshets overflow, the
mill may run night and day; but this is rare.
Ordinarily the mill should run by day. and
the pond fill up b. night.
4 man has as much force in him as he has
provided for by sleep. The quality of action,
especially mental activity, depends upon the
quality of sleep. If day time is the loom in
which men weave. their purposes, night Is
the time when the threads are laid in and
the filling prepared.
Men need on an average eight hours of
sleep day, or one-third of their whole time
| A man of Emphatic temperament may re
| quire nine. A nervous temperament may
require but seven, or six, and instances have
been known in which four hours have been
enough. The reason is plain. Alymphatic
man is sluggish in all his functions. He
moves slowly, thinks slowly, digests slowly,
and sleeps slowly; that is, all the restorative
acts of his system go on slowly, in analogy
with his temperament. But nervous man
acts quickly in everything, by night or day.
When awake, he does more in an hour than
sluggish man in two hours; and SO in his
sleep. He sleeps faster, and his system
nimbly repairs in six hours what it would
take another one eight hours to perform.
Every man must sleep according to his
temperament. But eight hours is the ay-
erage II one requires little more or lit
tie less, he will find it out himself Who
ever by work, pleasure, sorrow, or by any
other cause, is regularly diminishing his
sleep, is destroying his life. A man may
hold out for time, but Nature keeps close
accounts, and no man can dodge her settle
ments. We have impoverished railroads
that could not keep the track in order, nor
spare the engines to be thoroughly repaired.
Every year track aud equipment deteriorat-
ed. By and by comes crash, and the road
is in heap of confusion and destruction.
So it is with men. They cannot spare time
to sleep enough They slowly run behind.
Symptoms of general waste appear. Prema-
ture wrinkles, weak eyes, depression of spir-
its, failure of digestion, feebleness in the
morning, and overwhelming melancholy
these and other signs show a general dilapi-
dation. If. now, sudden calamity causes an
extraordinary pressure, they go down under
it. They have no resources to draw upon.
They have been living up to the verge of
their whole vitality every day.
There is great deal of intemperance be-
sides that of tobacco, opium, or brandy.
Men are dissipated, to overtax their system
all day and under sleep every night. Some
men are dissipated by physical stimulents,
and some by social, and some by profession
al aud commercial. But man who dies of
delerium trenaens is no more drunkard and
suicide than the lawyer, the minister, or
the merchant that works excessively all day,
and sleeps but little at night. Ward
Beecher.
A major in the United States army was
crossing from England in one of the Cunara