Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
The rule of sleep is not the same for all. There are some with whom its requirements are gentle: a few hours will suffice. But such cases are exceptional. The Jesuits have done much for education, but on this question they seem to have failed. In settling the system for their college at Clermont, they followed their physicians in a rigid rule. The latter reported that five hours were sufficient, six abundant, and seven as much as a youthful constitution could bear without injury. On the other hand, Cobbett, whose experience of life was as thorough as his diligence, says expressly: "Young people require more sleep than those that are grown up: there must be the number of hours, and that number cannot well be on an average less than eight; and if it be more in winter-time, it is all the better."[137] George the Third thought otherwise, at least for men. A tradesman, whom he had asked to call on him at eight o'clock in the morning, arriving behind the hour, the King said, "Oh! the great Mr. B.! What sleep do you take, Mr. B.?" "Why, please your Majesty, I am a man of regular habits; I usually take eight hours." "Eight hours!" said the King; "that's too much, too much. Six hours' sleep is enough for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool,—Mr. B., eight for a fool." The opinions of physiologists would probably incline with Mr. B., the tradesman, contrary to this royal authority.
It is impossible to lay down any universal rule with regard to the proper portion of time for sleep. Each constitution of body has its own habits; nor can any rule be drawn from the lives of the most industrious, except of economy of time, according to the capacity of each person. The great German scholar Heyne, who has shed such lustre on classical learning, in the order of his early studies allowed himself, for six months, only two nights' sleep in a week. The eccentric Robert Hill, of England, who passed his life as a tailor, but by persevering labor made rare attainments in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, was accustomed to sit up very late into the night, or else to rise by two or three o'clock in the morning, that he might find time for reading without prejudice to his trade, and although of a weakly constitution, he accustomed himself to do very well with only two or three hours of sleep in the twenty-four, and he lived to be seventy-eight. But this is a curiosity rather than an example. Such also is the story of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who slept only three hours. In the list of men sleeping only four hours is Frederick of Prussia, John Hunter, the surgeon, Napoleon, and Alexander von Humboldt. That gallant cavalier and accomplished historian, renowned for genius and misfortune, Sir Walter Raleigh, was accustomed, even under the pressure of his arduous career, to devote four hours daily to reading and study, while he allowed only five for sleep. Probably all of us, in our own personal experience, have known men of study and labor who, in the ardor of their pursuit, have foregone what is thought the ordinary sleep, being late to bed and early to rise, reducing the night to a narrow isthmus of time. Others there are with a vivacity of industry which acts with intensity and rapidity, requiring long periods of repose. I cannot forget that Judge Story, the person who has accomplished more than any one within the circle of my individual observation, whose life—now, alas! closed by death—was thickly studded with various labors as judge, professor, and author, is a high example of what may be wrought by wakeful diligence, without denying the body any refreshment of repose. His habit, during the years of his greatest intellectual activity, was to retire always at ten o'clock and to rise at seven,—allowing nine hours for sleep. The tradesman of George the Third might have sought shelter with him from the royal raillery.
Pursuing these inquiries as to the arrangement of the day, we find the precept, if not the example, uniform with regard to early rising as propitious to health and intellectual exertion. The old saw, "Early to bed and early to rise," imprints the lesson upon the mind of childhood. The magnificent period of Milton sounds in our ears: "My morning haunts are where they should be, at home,—not sleeping, or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring,—in winter often ere the sound of any bell awake men to labor or to devotion,—in summer as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary or memory have its full fraught,—then with useful and generous labors preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion, and our country's liberty."[138] Sir Walter Scott is less stately in his tribute to the morning, but he agrees with Milton: "The half-hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention. When I got over any knotty difficulty in a story, or have had in former times to fill up a passage in a poem, it was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me. This is so much the case, that I am in the habit of relying upon it, and saying to myself, when I am at a loss, 'Never mind, we shall have it at seven o'clock to-morrow morning.' If I have forgot a circumstance, or a name, or a copy of verses, it is the same thing."[139] In this equal dedication to the morning Milton and Scott are alike, but how unlike in all else! Milton's testimony is like an anthem; Scott's like an affidavit.
Notwithstanding these great examples and the prevailing precept, it may be doubted if the student can be weaned from those habits which lead him to continue his vigils far into the watches of the night. From time immemorial he has been said to "consume the midnight oil," and productions marked by peculiar care are proverbially reputed to "smell of the lamp," never to breathe the odor of the morning. An ingenious inquirer might be inclined to trace in different writers, particularly in poets, the distinctive influence of the hours they devoted to labor, and, perhaps, to find in Milton and Scott the freshness and vivid colors of the rosy-fingered dawn, and in Schiller and Byron the sombre shade and sickly glare of the lamp. Whatever the result of such speculations, which might be moralized by example, the midnight lamp will ever be regarded as the symbol of labor. In the wonders it has wrought it yields only to the far-famed lamp of Aladdin. They who confess themselves among "the slaves of the lamp" say that there is an excitement in study, increasing as the work proceeds, which flames forth with new brightness at the close of the day and in the stillness of those hours when the world is wrapped in sleep and the student is the sole watcher. The heavy clock seems to toll the midnight hour in the church-belfry for him alone, and, as he catches its distant vibrations, he thinks that he hears the iron hoof of Time come sounding by. All interruptions are ended, and he is in closer companionship with his books and studies. He holds converse face to face with the spirits of the mighty dead, while the learned page and glowing verse become vocal with inspiring thought. The poet speaks to him with richer melodies, and the soul responds in new and more generous resolves.
It is not for me on this occasion to interpose any judgment on a question which comes within the precincts of physiology. My present purpose is accomplished, if I teach the husbandry of time. To this end I have adduced authority and example. But there are other considerations which enforce the lesson with persuasive power.
In the employment of time will be found the sure means of happiness. The laborer living by the sweat of his brow, and the youth toiling in perplexities of business or study, sighs for repose, and repines at the law which ordains the seeming hardship of his lot. He seeks happiness as the end and aim of life, but he does not open his mind to the important truth that occupation is indispensable to happiness. He shuns work, but he does not know the precious jewel hidden beneath its rude attire. Others there are who wander over half the globe in pursuit of what is found under the humblest roof of virtuous industry, in the shadow of every tree planted by one's own hand. The poet has said,—
"The best and sweetest far are toil-created gains."