, 1888-09-19
ON GOING TO BEE.


Our Gaslight Civilization.
How often do we hear somebody say 81
had to get up early this morning, and I
wondered why VIC don't always do It'll"
But h chances are it was a very made
quate experience. There was some inva-
lid to be tended or some owl train to be
caught. Taken deliberately, and provided
for beforehand by a full nights sleep, the
wonder why we do not always do it would
be vastly increased. Why we do not. how
ever, is plain enough. 1t is because we
cannot afford to urn our candle at both
end Early to bed and early to rise, A"
the whole prescription reads. 1t does not
do to take half of it alone. If we were to
see the morning star properly. the eve,
nlng star must draw on our night cap
with its own.
The dawn then is protected from the
throng of sacrilegious sightseers by a
great barrier. That barrier is the diff
Guilty of going to bed. Our civilization
has become a gaslight civilization. We
try to turn night into day. and only sue
ceeded in turning night wrong side out;
getting the harsh and wiry side that rasps
the Jaded nerves, in place of the gentle
touches of "the welcome, the thrice
prayed for" mantle of peaceful dreams.
For my part, | should be glad if l could
go back and cut away from my life all
that ever occurred in it beyond early bed
time, as the cook goes round a pie plate
and shears off the outlying dough. Mere
ragged and formless shreds of existence
these gaslight hours have been, contain
ing, on the whole, far more evil than
good; far more yawns and the dreadful
pangs of yawns suppressed than refresh
ing eye beams and voices.
Then there is another thing: Could not
the act of going to bed be made, from
hildhoo up, a less depressing operation?
The one daily torture of my own other
wise kindly handled childhood was the
going to bed in the dark. l hated the
dark. and have always hated it. Why
could not some softly shaded light have
been left for me to go to sleep by, and
then withdrawn, instead of crashing down
on my wide awake eyes that horrible club
OF blackness2 Or how much the better to
have "cuddled down" in the stiI family
~glimmering twilight and let the slowly
coming starlight draw the child to sleepi-
ness and softly kiss his eyelids downTf
And why must one assume a garb for
the night that ven the child feels to be
ridiculously unsuitable? To take off ones
warm and comfortably fitting garments,
and barely cover the shrinking pudency
OF the limbs with some brief apology of
tapping inadequateness-it is an insult to
the angel of sleep. They do his better,
l am told, in Japan. There the man has
a night suit of entire and comely gar.
ments. He does not unclothe and then
half clothe himself, and sneak in mortified
helplessness underneath n weight of vein
COMPRISING sheets and blankets and un-
comfortable "c~omfortables," squeezing
him out as if he had covered himself with
the cellar door. He lies down in his com-
plete warm suit, and throws over him
some light affair of gossamer silk. 1t
only needs a sudden cry of fire" in the
house to make us realize the preposterous
condition we are every one of us in.
The time of going to bed ought in some
way to be made the pleasantest and most
d~ecorous, and most digniied, even-if you
keith most picturesque, and certainly
the most comfortable hour of the whole
twenty-four. Then it would need no DO
lite euPhemism of retiring" to veil it's
horrors. Their the child would no longer
hold back from it, as if he were being
thrust into a hideous cave of darkness,
to be seized by all the Nightmares of
dreamdom. And then, best of all, we
should be ready to rise at the whistle of
the first chirping bird, perfectly. rested,
thoroughly refreshed, with the brain vocal
only with light echoes, of the wholesome
day before, instead of still jangiing with
the cultured rumpus of a social evening"
or an evening of amusement" or the un-
canny, fevered visions which are only such
evenings gone to seed.-"Contributors'
Club" in The Atlantic.