"Do? Why, then we will sit down and spend our time in peace and comfort."
"Ah, my lord," said the wise Cineas, "what prevents our being in peace and comfort now?"
The time to take a vacation is before one is exhausted. If one is discontented during his vacation, he should take it, none the less, as a matter of duty, not expecting to enjoy every moment of it, but contenting himself with the anticipation of greater pleasure in the resumption of his duties. He should cultivate an interest in out-door occupation or some study that carries him into the fields or woods. Aside from the time on shipboard, the worst possible vacation for the over-worked business or professional man is the trip to Europe, if spent in crowding into the shortest possible time the greatest possible amount of information on matters artistic, architectural, and historic.
No one can acquire the habit of sleep who has not learned the habit of concentration, of devoting himself single-minded to the matter in hand. If we practice devoting our minds, as we do our bodies, to one object at a time, we shall not only accomplish more, but with less exhaustion. Training in this direction will help us, on retiring, to view sleep as our present duty, and a sufficient duty, without taking the opportunity at that time to adjust (or to try to adjust) all our tangles, to review our past sources of discomfort, and to speculate upon the ills of the future.
A walk, a bath, a few gymnastic exercises, will often serve a useful purpose before retiring, but if they are undertaken in a fretful and impatient spirit, and are accompanied by doubts of their effectiveness, and the insistent thought that sleep will not follow these or any other procedure, they are likely to accomplish little.
The best immediate preparation for sleep is the confidence that one will sleep, and indifference if one does not. It is an aid in the adoption of this frame of mind to learn that many have for years slept only a few hours per night, without noticeable impairment of their health or comfort. Neither unbroken nor long-continued sleep, however desirable, is essential to longevity or efficiency. This is illustrated by the following examples:
Joseph A. Willard, for nearly half a century Clerk of the Court in Suffolk County, and a well-known figure on the streets of Boston, died in his eighty-eighth year. He was active and alert in the performance of his daily duties up to their discontinuance shortly before his death. He kept, meantime, records of the temperature, weather, and condition of the streets, at all hours of the night, and every night, for many years before the establishment of the weather bureau. So reliable were these records regarded by the courts that they were often appealed to in the trial of cases, and their accuracy never questioned by either party in the suit. I publish these facts by the permission of his son.
George T. Angell, the well-known humanitarian, than whom few, if any, have led a more busy life, when in his sixty-ninth year wrote as follows:
"For the benefit of those who do not [take narcotics, opiates, anæsthetics] I will say that I suppose there are very few in this country who have slept less than I have; but I have never taken anything to stupefy, while thousands of good sleepers I have known have long since gone to the last sleep that knows no waking here. It was undoubtedly wise to change my professional life from court to office practice: but in other matters I was compelled to choose between living the life of a vegetable, or losing sleep; and I chose the latter."
Mr. Angell is now eighty-four, still actively engaged in affairs, and allows me to add that during the past six years he has gone for a week at a time with no sleep; for three months at a time he has not averaged more than two hours in twenty-four; he does not remember having ever had a good night's sleep. Mrs. Angell states that, with one exception, she has never known him to sleep through the night.