The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1954-11-12
Just Among Ourselves
Passing Comment Considered or lneonsidsrsie

ginning to form in our people, it showed itself
in the resolution to put trained soldiers in the field
Won Steuben made Inspector General of our
troops This year 1777 the beginning of that
season of agony and desperation forever to be
recalled with the mention of Valley Forge.
But across the sea- in the land of the enemy which
still referred to as the Neither Country, things
pleasant enough in that fatefu year. AT least
trials of war distressed the great Doctor Johnson
and his friend James Boswell as they set ou. from
London, about midSeptember, to visit Johnsons
old friend, DR. Taylor of Ashbourne dhe parson-
fsrmersquire whose talk was of bullocks'O and
to do incidental trip to the town of Derby.
1t pleasant trip in pleasing season
of the year, and far from any hint of or suf-
fering the peaceful topics of conversation
raised between the learned gentlemen along the
roads and in the homes of DerbyShire. But stay!
There was talk Of suffering, after ALL James Bos-
we'll spoke eelingly Of the great pain and distress
he experienced each morning in having to turn out
of bed.
81 talked" said Boswell, sitting at tea Nth John
son and the Butter family in Derby of the Difficult
ty of rising in the morning" And then Doctor
Johnson spoke up, in one Of the most awkwardlY
constructed sentences of his career, to describe
primitive alarmclock
"The learned Mrs. Carter" said the Doctor, "at
that period when she eager TO study, did not
awake early as she wished and she therefore
had contrivance, that, at a certain hour. her
chamberlight should bern string to which heavy
weight was suspended which then fell with a strong
sudden noise; this reused her from sleep, and then
she had no difficulty in getting up"
You who rise to the iangle of 98c clock; you
who wake to the competent call of the Bens large
or small; you who greet the day gently with the
music OF Swiss bells under glass, you plutocras
who are aroused by radio (eost S3995 plus tax
which also prepares your coffee and toast lets in
the cat, and picks up milk-botte and morning
paper from the porch-you modern Americans,
glamorous with gadgetry, who rise to each
day In the most scientific manner, consider the
rude conrivance" which poor literary lady of the
eighteenth century had to employ to get her out
of bed
But the learned Doctor Johnson has not ex-
planned for our wonderment and admiration the
precise manner in which the learned Mrs Carter
managed to have that string take fire at "a certain
hour" And what a tiresome business il must have
been to set that cumbersome alarm It was a fire
hazard too, for strings have way of smouldering,
even after they burn apart and drop a heavy weight
which falls with strong sudden noise.
Boswell was not diverted by the story of the in
genous Mrs Carter. He harped away on his own
trouble, and said, 81 wished there could be
medicine invented which would make one
lying in bed very long time. Perhaps there may
be something in the stores of Nature which could
do this, | have thought of a pulley to raise me
gradually; but that would give me pain, as it
would counteract my internal inclination. / would
have something that disspate the us inertde
ard give elasticity TO the muscles"
Poor Jamie Boswelll What dear martyr he was
to the terrible necessity of crawling out of a morn
ngl His wonderful notion of being aroused by
hfnp hat
inclination" Is described in some further remarks
that too priceless to omit LAS | imagine that
the human body may be put, by the operation of
other substances into any state in which Ii has
ever been, and have experienced a state in which
rising from bed was not disagreeabe but easy nav
sometimes agreeable, suppose that this state may
be produced if we knew by what. We can heat the
body we can cool II; we give ii tension or re-
Taxation; and surely il is possible to bring it into
state in which rising from bed will not be
pain"
Doctor Johnson not deeply concerned over
RosWell's personal problem turned to generality
and remarked. "A man should take sufficient quan-
tlty Of sleep which DR. Mead says is between seven
and nine hours" Boswell replied, quoting DR..
Cullen authority that a man should not take
more sleep than he can take at once Said Johnson
This rule, Sir cannot hold in all eases for many
people have their sleep broken by sickness; and
surely Cullen would not have a man get up after
having slept but an hour Such regimen would
soon end in long sleep"
Then we have the opinion of DR. TAYLOR, the
AShbourne host, who remarked-ve Justly in
Boswells vew,-that "a man who does not feel an
inclination to sleep at the ordinary times, instead
of being stronger than other people. must not be
well; for man in health has all the natural in
eiination to eat drink and sleep, in strong de-
gree"
And there we have the placid discussion of
sleep and alarms conducted in the autumn of
the year f777, in the quiet English countryside,
by the Great Cham of English literature, the Laird
and lawyer from Auehnleek, and the parsonfarmer
of Ashhourne Johnson, Boswell, and Taylor touch
ed lightly upon the subject of sleeping and waking,
flashing enough facets of the topic to start dozen
modern doctoral theses
There Is something grimy amusing in the con
trast presented by this somnolent conversation
piece in one of two warning countries with the con
temporary dStresses and fears almost universally
prevalent in the other. Jamie Boswell cries out as
tortured by the pain of rising from bed At the
same hour. overseas twenty-four miles west ri