OCR Text |
Show 60 HOW TO PROCURE SLEEP, ~ere meant to derive from observation, and espe• c1ally from the observation of nature. All of nsf too, may find practical proofs more convincing than even these. A sleepless night, even when the couch IS .soff:, and the body free from pain, is one of "the ~msenes of human life.'' How long and how lonely It feels! The clock beat.3 hc,urs instead of seconds; and. it seems an age before it will count to us that hour which is a pledge that the dawn is to break1 and the sun to arise and reveal the world to our ob· servation before the clock shall number another. But evt\n then we have fee1ing-, and the very dark-. ness m~kes sound more audible. Yet still our sit .. uation is painful, and though we are fatigued and exhausted, we want something; and cannot, on that account, find repose. If we rise, and open the case .. ment, and see the moon among the light clouds in the west, or the stars and planets in the clear sky, or the summer lightning playing from cloud to cloud; or if we even see the lamps in the street, or the outlines of the buildings, or of trees and hills how dimly soever, against the sky; we feel ou; connexion with nature,~even that little of observation dispel.s the revery of the night,-our minds are tranqmlhzed, we return to bed renovated in our minds, and refreshed in our bodies · and that s~e.ep which fled us when we before sought it with d.iltgence now comes unbidden, because we have wooed it in the right way--.by the observation of nature. If w~ loiter on the sleepless pillow, and have not r~~r:>lutwn enoug-h to get up, then our torment lasts till the dawn has so far advanced as that we can see distin~tly? or till the beams of the early sun are breakmg m through the chink of the shutters or the opening of the curtains; but soon after ev'en the articles of the room are revealed to our observation our minds are tranquillized, and we glide into dozing slumber. THE 1\'IIND's TRUE SOLACE. 61 Even those contrivances to which we re~ort for the purpose of procuring sleep, are proofs that observation is the means by which we obtain that refreshment. When the mother stills her infant to repose, it is not by silence, which, as it is the accompaniment, we would naturally think should be the best means of procuring sleep. She sings her lullaby; and it is well worthy of remark that the sweeter her voice is, and the more musical and modulated its tones, the sooner does her smiling charge sink into that balmy rest which is so essential to its present health and its future growth. The ticking of the clock too, the slow dropping of water from the eaves of the house, the chirping of the cricket at the hearth, and the booming of the wind, and especially its soft music in the chinks and crannies, where it is murmuring in promise of rain, all !ead us to that comfortable state of tranquillity which IS the preface to balmy sleep. In all these cases, it is really observation which is th~ solace of the mind-the all-healthful medicine which drugs the body to a state of wholesome and invigorating repose ; so also, in the contrivances to which we have recourse in order to procure sleep, if it is not direct observation, it is something very much resembling it, which is the real cause why we obtain that refreshing sleep which mere quietude will not bring us. Ordinary people have recipes for ~leep, which are all but infallible, in slowly repeatmg the letters of the alphabet, or counting the numbers upwards fi·om one, until sleep puts an end to the monotonous repetition. Those who know a little more may be proof against these very simple contrivances; but they, too, have their resources, and they all . in so far resemble observation,-they are all operatwns of the mind, upon something which stands out clear and graphic, as if there were a picture of it before the eyes, and only one step removed from actual observation. The multiplication of two |