[XVII]
SLEEP
An enterprising journalist has recently published the replies of a number of well-known men to an inquiry as to how many hours’ sleep they are in the habit of taking, and what they find to be the best remedy for sleeplessness. Such an inquiry naturally leads on to further thoughts about “Sleep.” What a mysterious, yet sweet and lovable thing it is! How strange it is that we all regularly and gladly abandon ourselves to it! How terrible is the state of those who cannot do so! And then one is led to ask, what is it? and why is it? Do all living things sleep for some part of the twenty-four hours? How does it differ from mere resting, and in what does its virtue consist?
Shakespeare has said the most beautiful words that have ever been uttered about sleep, and that because he knew what it was to seek for it in vain—
“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep,’ the innocent sleep;
Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”