129. Some persons, accustomed all their lives to sleep in a close, foul room—in a room contaminated with carbonic acid gas—cannot sleep in a fresh, well-ventilated chamber, in a chamber with either door or window open: they seem to require the stupefying effects of the carbonic acid gas, and cannot sleep without it! If such be the case, and as sleep is of such vital importance to the human economy, let both window and door be closed, but do not, on any account, let the chimney be stopped, as there must be, in a bedroom, ventilation of some kind or another, or ill health will inevitably ensue.
130. It is madness to sleep in a room without ventilation—it is inhaling poison; for the carbonic acid gas, the refuse of respiration, which the lungs are constantly throwing off, is a poison—a deadly poison—and, of course, if there be no ventilation, a person must breathe this carbonic acid gas mixed with the atmospheric air. Hence the importance, the vital importance, of either an open chimney or of an open window, or of both. The chimney, then, even if the window be closed, ought never to be stopped; and the window, either of the bedroom or of the dressing-room, should not be closed, even in the night, unless the weather be either very wet or bitterly cold. I should strongly recommend my fair reader, and, indeed, every one else, to peruse the good and talented Florence Nightingale’s Notes on Nursing. They ought to be written in letters of gold, and should be indelibly impressed on the memory of every one who has the interest of human life and happiness at heart. Florence Nightingale declares that no one, while in bed, ever catches cold from proper ventilation. I believe her; and I need not say that no one has had more experience and better opportunities of judging about what she writes than this accomplished authoress.
131. I fearlessly assert that no one can sleep sweetly and refreshingly unless there be thorough ventilation of the chamber. She may have, in an unventilated apartment, heavy, drowsy, deathlike sleep, and well she might! She is under the stupefying effects of poison; the carbonic acid gas, which is constantly being evolved from the lungs, and which wants a vent, but cannot obtain it, is, as I have before remarked, a deadly poison! She may as well take every night a stupefying opiate, as breathe nightly a bedroom charged with carbonic acid gas; the one would, in the long run, be as pernicious as the other. To show the power of carbonic acid gas in sending people to sleep, we have only to notice a crowded church of an evening; when, even if the preacher be an eloquent man, the majority of the congregation is fast asleep,—is, in point of fact, under the soporific influence of the carbonic acid gas, the church being at the time full of it. Carbonic acid gas is as certain, if not more certain, to produce a heavy deathlike slumber as either numbing opium or drowsy poppy.
132. I moreover declare that she cannot have sweet refreshing sleep at night unless during the day she take plenty of exercise, and unless she has an abundance of active, useful occupation.
133. Occupation—active, useful occupation—is the best composing medicine in the world; and the misfortune of it is that the wealthy have little or no occupation to cause them to sleep. Pleasure they have in abundance, but little or no real occupation. “The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer them to sleep.”[[27]]
134. Sleep is of more consequence to the human economy than food. Nothing should therefore be allowed by a young wife to interfere with sleep. And as the attendance on large assemblies, balls, and concerts sadly, in every way, interfere with sleep, they ought, one and all, to be sedulously avoided.
135. As exercise is very conducive and provocative of sleep—sound, sweet, childlike sleep—exercise must be practiced, and that not by fits and starts, but regularly and systematically. She ought, then, during the day, with exercise and with occupation, to tire herself, and she will then have sweet and refreshing sleep. But some ladies never do tire themselves except with excitement; they do not know what it is to be tired either by a long walk or by household work. They can tire themselves with dancing at a ball; poor fragile creatures can remain up the whole night waltzing, quadrilling, and galloping, but would be shocked at the idea and at the vulgarity of walking a mile at a stretch! Poor creatures, they are to be pitied; and, if they ever marry, so are their husbands. Are such wives as these likely to be mothers, and if they are, are their offspring likely to be strong? Are such wives as these likely to be the mothers of our future warriors, of our future statesmen, and of our other worthies—men of mark, who,
“Departing, leave behind them
Footprints on the sands of time!”
136. Sleep is the choicest gift of God. Sleep is a comforter, a solace, a boon, a nourisher, a friend. Happy, thrice happy, is a wife who can sleep like unto a little child! When she is well, what a comfort is sleep; when she is ill, what a soother of pain is sleep; when she is in trouble, what a precious balm is sleep!