Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-11-28
THE SPIRIT OF SLEEP
POETS AND SCIENTISTS PRAISES
AND WARNINGS.
Number of Necessary Hours-Sleep
That Woos Sunday Afternoon and
That Which Comes Unexpectedly.
From the London Globe.

|
| The praise of sleep has ever been a favor
| lite theme of the poets. ranking with the re-
| turn of spring and the flowers that bloom
/ therein. and many very beautiful and we'll
| deserved things they have written about it.
1 Every young student Of polite learning has
had his. or her. attention called to such
| passages as Macbeths:
Sleep, that knits up the ravelTd sIeave OF care
The The death Of each days life. sore iuiors bath.
| Chief nourisher In LIES feast.
! or to the famous and exquisite opening
| lines of Shelly's '1anthe," or the lines in
| THE Ancient Mariner" And surely he
were rascal. yea, forsooth! knave. to
! quote Sir John. and a monstrous ungrateful
! dog withal, who would think to sneer at the
| poets praises as exaggerated Be such an
! one condemned to insomnia and the drug
| bottle until he mends his manners
But all ,nese abundant poetic phrases
> have for their object we may safely as
! sumo that formal md necessary sleep. and
! noiseless, too, on the sweetness and eff
cacy of which there is no need that we
/ should here enlarge. Put prosaically, their
I theme is the orthodox sleep which is COM
! monty accomplished In ed. Here Ii is.
, then, that our plaguey but welI-meaning
| friend. the man of science steps up. wag-
| ging warn'-g finger. and bidding us not
| to overdo the thing. He is formal and pre-
else himself and would have our sleep
formal and precise. too. He hs~ store
| of wise saws on the subject, usually on
| the lines of that old Latin distich trans
| lated by Sir ,.iIiam Jones. and amended
! by him to the bewilderment OF MT.
| Croker:
r slI hour hour to sleep to laws grave study SIX
Sunday Afternoon.
| Six hours to sleep! Well. well. far be 1t
| from us to dogmatize and lay down the
| law to the number of hours necessary.
But we have a shrewd suspicion that some
! small portion of the time which Sir WILL
! liam assigns to nature would be spent by
the weaker followers Of his plan. as Geo.
| Borrow's publisher spent, unless are
sadly mistaken. his Sunday afternoons
| And now, sir" said THAI eminent and out
spoken gentleman, permit me to inform
you that 1 wish to be alone. This is Sum
| day afternoon. sir; never go to church.
| but am in the habit of spending part of
every Sunday afternoon alone-prof1tably,
hope. sir-in musing on the magnifcence
| of nature and the moral dignity Of man"
Sunday afternoon! Sunday afternoon and
informal sleep! Something Is in the air,
| irresistibly insinuating, wooing you-some-
| thing of the spirit of sleep. privileged to
! work its will between the hours Of lunch
i con and tea. Paterfamilias slips away UNI
| ostentatiously to his study with the cur
rent number of the first review or newspa-
per that comes to his hand: much of IL he
| will read! Materfamilias retires to medi-
! tate on the dear rector's sermon and Nine.
Mantalinis account for the dear girls new
! frocks; peaceful be thy meditations dear
/ lady. One by one the best of the house.
| hold steal silently away to muse on the
! moral dignity of man. Seductive drowsi-
ness turks in every sympathetic chair, and
| against its wiles the lightest of light lit
! erature is vainly pitted- Here in the draw
| ing room two fair daughters of the house
are breathing audibly with closed eyes,
and on the floor by the side of each lies a
work from Mr.. Nudes Let us go hence
| on tiptoe: how beautiful Is sleep! Here in
! the smoking room. deep In one big chair
with legs on another, the gallant son OF
| the house is extended. trumpeting; how
very boisterous is sleepi You will not be
F! one Of the company Of informal sleepers!
Why. then, arise and take hat and stan
. and go a-walking instantly; look not De-
hind thee Out-Of-door and on the move
I: you will be free from tie entertainments OF
4 Dan Morpheus; in the house you VIII be
all resist? His godship Is n right pleas
T! ant fellow in his informal visitations
Stay and be subtly tempted. Here you
| have the chair of chairs for Sunday nedi.
tattons: and here is a pretty volume OF
minor poetry, wherein the lotos blooms
abundantly.
The Week Day Siesta-
/ Well. of course any one can sleep liz
formally on Sunday afternoon. for what
ever be the reason. the day undoubtedly In
vites 1t. Most persons. too of twenty years
old and upward. can easily acquire the
habit of the gentle siesta on weekday
afternoons But surely they are the elect
who can deal with Dan Morpheus as though
he were a Slave of the Lamp. so to speak.
bidding him come for ten or twenty min
utes and then depart: doing this. too. at
any hour OF the day and in practically any
place Was 1t not the great Duke of We'll
ington who once asked how long 1t would
be before the French would appear, and on
hearing that he had half an hour or so to
, spare rolled himself up In his cloak and
then and there took forty winks. The Fat
Boy in ''Pickwick" was the greatest artist
i in this respect Of whom we have any rec
ord at least in that fiction which is less
strange than truth. But in real life there
, are highly gifted persons who are able to
! summon sleep Informally to their aid. By
this means you may see. and hear, them
beguiling the tedium of journey or musi-
cal comedy. Not seldom, too. does some
great mind call in the help of Informal sleep
to deliver him from the tongue of the bah
bier and the wearsome reiteration OF dun
arguments. So II is that great statesmen
have been known to drop off to sleep on the
benches of both houses of parliament, and
great judges close eyes upon their bench.
and county magnates at political meetings.
! nod sapiently white the local member Is ex-
pounding high policy to the yokels- So II
Is too, that sometimes when our good Gu
ra ties sermon is Just the least bit. But no;
that Is not sleep: II is surely no more than
medfta ton: for see the rectors wife herself.
a good lady who Is absolutely above susptc-
ion, has fallen into the same attitude.