SLEEP SLEEPLESSNESS. 501 



rhe approach of sleep is characterised by a languor which is agreeable when it 

 can be yielded to, but which, when circumstances prevent this, is far from being 

 pleasant. It is a delicious moment, certainly, that of being well nestled in bed, and 

 feeling that you will soon drop gently to sleep. Many people however, and children 

 especially, are rendered irritable and ill-tempered when they get sleepy. In the 

 majority of cases the senses lose their activity in a certain definite organ. The 

 sight is, of course, the first to be lost, the closure of the eyeballs interposing a 

 physical obstruction to the entrance of light. Even when the eyelids have been 

 removed, or from disease cannot be closed, the sight is still the first of the special 

 senses to be abolished. Moreover, in those animals, the hare for example, which 

 do not shut their eyes during sleep, the ability to see disappears before the action of 

 the other senses is suspended. The taste is the next to fade, and then the smell ; 

 hearing follows, and sensation yields last of all, and is the most readily re-excited. 

 Practically, we know that it is much easier to awake a man by sliaking him than 

 by shouting at him. 



Although during sleep the operations of the senses are entirely suspended as 

 regards the effect of ordinary impressions, the purely animal functions of the body 

 continue in action. The heart beats, the lungs respire, the stomach digests, the 

 skin exhales vapour, and the kidneys secrete urine. With the brain, however, the 

 case is somewhat different, for while some parts retain the property of receiving im- 

 pressions or developing ideas, others have their actions diminished, exalted, perverted, 

 or altogether arrested. Relative to the different faculties of the mind as affected by 

 sleep, great valuations are observed. It has been supposed that several of them are 

 exalted above the standard attained during wakefulness. Many remarkable stories 

 are related, showing the high degree of activity possessed by the mind during sleep. 

 Thus, it is related of Tartini, a celebrated musician of the eighteenth century, that 

 one night he dreamt that he had made a compact with the devil, and bound him to 

 his service. In order to ascertain the musical abilities of his subordinate, he gave 

 him his violin, and commanded him to play a solo. The devil did so, and performed 

 so admirably that Tartini awoke with the excitement produced, and seizing his violin 

 endeavoured to repeat the enchanting air. Although he was unable to do this with 

 entire success, his efforts were so far effectual that he composed one of the most 

 admired of his pieces, which, in recognition of its source, he called the " devil's 

 sonata." A somewhat similar anecdote has been preserved in a family of rank in 

 Scotland, the descendants of a distinguished lawyer of the last century. This eminent 

 person had been consulted respecting a case of great importance and much difficulty, 

 and he had been studying it with intense anxiety and attention. After several day? 

 had been occupied in this manner, he was observed by his wife to rise from his bed 

 in the night and go* to a writing-desk wjiich stood in the bedroom. He then sat 

 down and wrote a long letter, which he put carefully by in the desk, and returned to 

 bed. The following morning he told his wife that he had dreamed a most interesting 

 dream ; that he had dreamt of delivering a clear and luminous opinion respecting a 

 case which had perplexed him, and that he would give anything to recover the train 

 of thought which had passed before him in his dream. She then directed him to 

 the writing-desk, where he found the opinion clearly and fully written out, and it 



