Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1909-10-29
THE RIDDLE Of SLEEP
A Mystery That the Mind Of Man
Is Unable to Penetrate.
THE CAVERN OF MORPHEUS.
II Is Pitch Black as Far as Human
Understanding Goes, For We Know
No More About It Than We Do About
Its Twin Mystery. Death.

tS Twin mystery, Oeatn.
When all is written, how little we
know of sleep. 1t Is a closing of the
eyes, a disappearance. wondering re-
turn. In uneasy slumber In dreamless
dead rest. in horrid nightmare or In
ecstasies of somnolent fancies the eyes
are blinded. the body is abandoned.
while the inner essence is we know not
where. We have no other knowledge
of sleep than we have of death In de-
lirium or coma or trance, no less than
in normal sleep and In dissolution. the
soul is gone. In these 1t returns, In
that 1t does not come again, or so we
ignorantly think.
Yet when reflect on my death for
get that | have encountered 1t many
times already and find myself none
the worse. | forget that l sleep. The
fly has no shorter existence than
mans. We hustle about for few
years with ludicrous Importance as
bottleflies buzz at the window panes
They. too, may imagine themselves of
infinite moment in this universe we
share with them. But this is to take
no account of the .prognostics of sleep
There is something hidden. something
secret, some unfathomed> mystery
whose presence we feel. but cannot
verify; some permeative thought in
sistently moving in our hearts, some
rtN
not whence through our shadowy at
Oms.
Neither sleep itself nor half its prom
ises nor mysteries have been plumbed
1t is the mother of superstitions and
of miracles. In dreams we may search
the surface powers Of the freed soul.
Visions In the night are not all hallu-
cinations: voices In the night are not
all hooking. There is prophet dwells
within the mind-not of the mind, but
deeper throned in obscurity.
The brain cannot know Of this holy
presence nor of its life In sleep The
brain is mortal and untrust worthy, a
photograph and camera for audible
and palpable existence Strike 1t a
blow in childhood so that 1t ceases its
labors and awake 1t by surgery after
forty years and it will repeat the in.
fantile action or word it last recorded
and will take up its task on the in
slant. making no account of the inter
mediate years. They are nonexistent
to it. Yet to that hidden memory those
diseased years are not blank. 1t knows.
1t has recorded, though the brain has
slept. And in hypnotic or psychic
trance. when that wonderful ruler is
released from the prison Of the body, II
can speak through the atom blent ma
chinery of the flesh and tell of things
man himself could not know because
of his paralyzed brain. This ruler Is
not asleep in sleep, nor in delirium is
1t delirious, and in death is it dead
Through all the ages it has been our
sphinx. which we have Intercepted in
vain. 1t joins not'in our laughter nor
our tears. We have fancied it with i'm
mobile, brooding features of utmost
knowledge and wisdom and sorrow. II
has asked us but one question, nor
from the day of Oedipus unto today
have we answered rightly, so that we
die Of our ignorance. 1t is Osiris liv-
ing In us. 1t is the unknown God to
whom we erect our affairs, the fire IN
the tabernacle. the presence behind the
veil. Not in normal wakefulness at
least Will 1t answer our queries, but In
sleep sometimes it will speak. And IT
may possibly be that at last, after all