The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-01
SLEEP OF GREAT MEN.
Among Them Were Many Early Riser,
 While Some Did Best Work at Night.


 Night.
 New York Herald.
 Five hours sleep is sufficient for men," declared Napoleon. Seven for women, children and fools"
 History bears out the great Corsii- cans dictum. although there have been some notable advocates among the worlds great men of the theory generally regarded as burning the canoIe at both ends" Men, however, undoubtedly. differ fundamentally in regard to the need of sleep as they do Tn other respects. and. whether great pr httie' each one must work out from experience a schedule of rest. as he must Of diet and exercise. One fact however, may be predicted of almost aiI great persons; whateverstheir hab- i.s as regards retiring. they have been carry rlsers During the years of Dan
 WeDsters greatest Congressional acuVity IL was remarked of him that no one ever saw him reading or nres paring Tor the speeches. This wac aJ, uone. according to his own confessfon ae an hour when other men were st,Ii enoylns the morning slumber weh. , s.er possessed in high degree what t, AnoWn as the morning temperamant :, as olstinguished from the might tan,- peraHent' and he found, conseouentpv oIar,. . ms mind manifested greater cia,lty and productivity during tha carry hours of the day
 balzac, that titan of tbe. n,na..., century, was accustomed reruIarI, ta arse at midnight, and, after an,,s1 .o L; us hinseir In his monks habit to soa. nimseIf at his desk and Snr,o eo seat weary brain to it's task of cre.,,nn Sarlieo .'o away by admiration oS thc nnmhe Theophile Gautier and a tha Seu Q, other ambitious youths of the oay undertook to imitate thi. VI cuiiarity of the father of raaI,sl" pe- ,. With the result that very sae" sn were forced to take to their ha5s ~ earnest 10 make up for the bours s.o, en rom siumber. Doctors 6ouhtIo. would point to the early takins oss n, oaizac' Who died when ffty-one yaar. or age as proof of the deleterious ar' tects or such a regimen. On the otbar hsn ~ may De questioned whether ms exhaustion was not due to tba nr, vations and financial tronhIes s carry years, rather than to wor,, at lli-advised hours. It Is as iIlos,oa, to attribute his early death to tha aonormality of his habits of Iabor as to attribute the long survival of Vol taire and the explorer and trave1er Aiexander Humboldt, to a like causs
 On one occasion Max Muller, as re- .atea Tn ms autobiography. was re- turning from an evening entertain ment in Berlin with Humboldt. who was then eighty years of age, and the con Versation turned upon the lattar,s cosmos Bitterly the savant com plained that he was no longer ahla to accomplish as much as preyiouslv since he now required four hours sleep instead of two, as in earlier years When was your age," he FAmaFkAd nh simply turn down my lamp, and. after a nap of two hours, would be as fresh as ever"
 The sleeping room of Voltaire's sec- retary at Ferney was directly beneath that of the author and at any hour of the day or night. when moved to com position, the great Frenchman was &C., customed to stamp upon the floor of his chamber and summon the unfortun- ate scribe to take down his thoughts When once under way 1t was no un- usual thing for him to continue work ing sixteen hours at a stretch.
 Certainly for the nongenius there can be little doubt as to which of the two "temperaments" it is wise to cul- tivate. Goethe. despite his habit of early rising. was wont to arise in the night to scribble down a poem or song ana EmersonFs wife was subject to the danger of being aroused by the philos- opher in his search for writing mater ials "Only a thought my dear' he would reassure her, as he seized the feeting inspiration. Those of us, how ever. who are not blessed or cursed with genius can echo Sancho Panza's fervent prayer: Blessings on the head of him who invented sleepl''
 During the time when suspicion pointed strongly to Sir Walter Scott as the author of the Waverley Novels, the closest watcFNulness of his guests at Abbotsford failed to detect signs of literary activity on their hosts part, the reason being that his pen had always completed its daily labors by the time the amateur detectives had arisen from their beds.