60 HOW TO PROCURE SLEEP, 



were meant to derive from observation, and espe- 

 cially from the observation of nature. All of us, 

 too, may find practical proofs more convincing than 

 even these. A sleepless night, even when the couch 

 is soft, and the body free from pain, is one of " the 

 miseries of human life.' 1 How long and how lonely 

 it feels ! The clock beats hours 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 break, 

 and the sun to arise and reveal the world to our ob- 

 servation before the clock shall number another. 

 But even then we have feeling, and the very dark- 

 ness makes 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 our 

 connexion with nature, even that little of obser- 

 vation dispels the revery of the night, our minds 

 are tranquillized, we return to bed renovated in 

 our minds, and refreshed in our bodies ; and that 

 sleep which fled us when we before sought it with 

 diligence now comes unbidden, because we have 

 wooed it in the right way by the observation of 

 'nature. 



If we loiter on the sleepless pillow, and have not 

 resolution enough to get up, then our torment lasts 

 till the dawn has so far advanced as that we can see 

 distinctly, or till the beams of the early sun are 

 breaking in through the chink of the shutters, or the 

 opening of the curtains ; but soon after even the 

 articles of the room are revealed to our observation, 

 our minds are tranquillized, and we glide into dozing 

 slumber. 



