123. If a mistress rise early the servants are likely to follow suit: a lazy mistress is almost sure to have lazy servants; the house becomes a sluggard’s dwelling! Do not let me be misunderstood; I do not recommend any unreasonable hours for rising in the morning; I do not advise a wife to rise early for the sake of rising early: there would be neither merit nor sense in it; I wish her to have her full complement of sleep—seven or eight hours; but I do advise her to go to bed early, in order that she might be up every morning at six o’clock in the summer, and at seven o’clock in the winter. I maintain that it is the duty of every wife, unless prevented by illness, to be an early riser. This last reason should have greater weight with her than any other that can possibly be brought forward! All things in this world ought to be done from a sense of duty; duty ought to be a wife’s and every other person’s pole-star!
124. There is a wonderful and glorious object in creation which few, very few, ladies, passing strange though it be, have ever seen—the rising of the sun! The few who have seen it are, probably, those who have turned night into day, who are returning home in the early morning, jaded and tired, after dancing the whole of the previous night. These, of course, cannot enjoy, and most likely do not even see, the magnificent spectacle!
125. I am not advising my fair reader to rise every morning with the rising of the sun—certainly not; but if she be an early riser, she might occasionally indulge herself in beholding the glorious sight!
126. “The top of the morning to you” is a favorite Irish salutation, and is very expressive and complimentary. “The top of the morning”—the early morning, the time when the sun first rises in his majesty and splendor—is the most glorious, and health-giving, and best part of the whole day; when nature and all created beings rejoice and are glad:
“But mighty Nature bounds as from her birth,
The sun is in the heavens, and life on earth;
Flowers in the valley, splendor in the beam,
Health in the gale, and freshness in the stream.”[[25]]
127. Let a young wife, if she be anxious to have a family and healthy progeny, be in bed betimes. It is impossible that she can rise early in the morning unless she retire early at night. “One hour’s sleep before midnight is worth three after.” Sleep before midnight is most essential to health, and if to health, to beauty; hence, sleep before midnight is called beauty-sleep. The finest cosmetic is health!
128. She ought to pay particular attention to the ventilation of her sleeping apartment, and she herself, before leaving the chamber in the morning, ought never to omit to open the windows; and in the summer, if the room be large, she should during the night leave, for about six or eight inches, the window-sash open. If the room be small it will be desirable to have, instead of the window, the door (secured from intrusion by a door-chain) unclosed; and to have, as well, either the skylight or the landing window open. There ought by some means or other, if the inmates of the room are to have sweet and refreshing sleep, to be thorough ventilation of the sleeping apartment. I have no patience to hear some men assert that it is better to sleep in a close room—in a foul room! They might, with equal truth, declare that it is desirable for a healthy person to swallow every night a dose of arsenic in order to prolong his life! Carbonic acid gas is as truly a poison as arsenic! If there be a dressing-room next to the bedroom, it will be well to have the dressing-room window, instead of the bedroom window, open at night. The dressing-room door will regulate the quantity of air to be admitted into the bedroom, opening it either little or much as the weather might be cold or otherwise.[[26]] The idea that it will give cold is erroneous; it will be more likely, by strengthening the system and by carrying off the impurities of the lungs and skin, to prevent cold.