SLEEPING OUT OF DOORS 



is Death, then the next is certainly its sister Sleep, 

 and after that is Stillness. That blessed quiet in which 

 we may draw long breaths of appreciation, that quiet 

 which calms the spirit and refreshes the physical body, 

 that quiet which leads us to contemplation and to 

 work. For few of us can be happy anywhere in utter 

 idleness, and the seeker after occupation rarely seeks 

 in vain. 



Arnold Bennett has conceived a heaven of miraculous 

 light and penned so exquisite a picture that any finite 

 mind must respond to it; but his heaven is for infinite 

 beings of airy nothingness, a spiritual manifestation of 

 will. Here on this earth we need the darkness, we 

 need clouds, both literally and figuratively. Can we 

 spare the fleecy grandeur of the thunder-caps or the 

 weird beauty of the moon in a mackerel sky? 



And that other edge of night which we call dawn, 

 when the sky is pale gray flecked with small darker 

 clouds; when the sun rises and the cool background 

 turns to delicate blue and each gray cloud changes to 

 rose, until the heavens are alive with color, deepening 



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