The salutary regimen of retiring and rising early is very precious for the soul, and the duties of life much better fulfilled. The soul is calmer at night, calm as everything that is regular and not troubled and turned topsy-turvy by the thousand preoccupations of a too worldly life. In the evening, before going to sleep, we can fix our attention on ourselves, analyze the day, its thoughts, desires, and actions, praise, blame, or correct, and, as a skilful merchant, make an account of our losses and gains. Do not imagine such a practice is confined to narrow minds; it is the usage of reason and sound philosophy, as are all other practices of an enlightened devotion. Pagans as well as Christians have given us a lesson on this subject. Listen to Pythagoras: "Never allow sleep to close thine eyes before having examined every action of the day. In what have I failed? What have I done? What duty have I forgotten? Commence by the first of thy actions, run over the others; in fine, reproach thyself with what thou hast done ill, and rejoice in what thou hast done well." "What can be more beautiful," said Seneca, "than this habit of inquiring into a whole day? What sleep succeeds to such a review of one's actions! How calm, deep, and free it is when the soul has received its share of praise or blame, and, submitting to its own control, its own censure, it secretly tries its own conduct! For me, I have taken this authority on myself, and every day I cite myself to appear before the tribunal of my conscience. So soon as the light has gone, I scan my day entirely, weigh anew my acts and my words, dissemble nothing, and omit nothing." [Footnote 257] Adopt this habit, everything in you will gain by it—reason and piety; a sweet serenity will be diffused around your soul, and you will sleep in angelic peace somnus sanitatis in homine. [Footnote 258] You have sometimes seen children sleep. What calm! What sweetness of expression! What kindness of feature! What living and silent rest! This will be the image of your sleep.
[Footnote 257: Da la Colere, 1. 3. c. 36.]
[Footnote 258: Ecclus. xxxi.]
But—and now we touch a delicate point—it is the result of life's organization that you ought to get up in the morning. I hear already a deep sigh of fear from your trembling couch. First, then, let us understand the value of the words, Get up in the morning. I do not exhort you to imitate a very delicate lady, who said, during her sojourn at Vichy, "I commence my day at four o'clock in the morning, in order that my body may not take off too much from my soul." [Footnote 259]
[Footnote 259: Lettres de Madame Swetchine. t. ii. p. 111.]
I do not propose you this model, for I am very sure, if I opened a register, I should find very few members for the confraternity of Madame Swetchine. Let us leave, then, the value of the expression slightly undecided. Get up in the morning; let it only be the earliest hour possible, and this, perhaps may be too late. Once, however, the hour of your rising determined, hold to it, with a firmness proportioned to the difficulty of the step, and let the unfortunate bed shut up again the magnetic fluid whereby one is drawn to it, I do not say in spite of one's self, but with a sweetness of violence which nails one to the post. I avow we are here in face of one of the most terrible of enemies, and this enemy the pillow. When we want to leave it in the morning, it assumes the artificial language of the siren, and caresses us with tender precaution. It seems to say: Why do you leave me? are you not better here? what a sweet temperature! what inappreciable well-being! don't you see it is too soon? do you not feel your limbs too tired, and as yet enjoying a very incomplete repose? Touch your forehead and you will see you begin to have headache; a few quarters of an hour more will dissipate it; to-morrow you will rise earlier! Then it's so cold out of bed: why brave the inclemency of the seasons? The day is long enough; you will have time enough for everything; in truth, do not be so severe with yourself. After such eloquent language the dear pillow extends its two arms to entangle you, and soon the victory is consummated; true, it was easy, none are so happy as the vanquished; and behold you fallen again and buried for several hours more.
I speak very seriously in telling you that one of the most difficult enemies to vanquish is this pillow of the morning; and there is but one way to conquer it: it is a prompt and decisive blow, a military charge, a jump out of bed: charge the enemy by a vigorous sally, and the victory is yours. An old Capuchin said that, after long years of a religious life, what cost him most was to rise at four o'clock in the morning. It is true there is a sacrifice to make, a real sacrifice, incontestable; but here life is full of sacrifices, and each one is followed by a sentiment of true happiness, and each victory gives to man an astonishing power. When I see a person who has the courage to get up in the morning, I have immediately a high opinion of his firmness of character, and I say to myself: This person, when occasion demands it, will know how to develop extraordinary energy; each morning his nature is tempered again in the struggle against his pillow, and this combat is often more difficult, especially on account of its continuity, than that of the soldier on the field of battle. Besides, wait as long as you will, even if you sleep until mid-day, you will have to make a sacrifice on leaving your bed. Sometimes the more you think of it, the sacrifice will be greater, and increased by the sad perspective of the approaching effort; so with one minute of decision, prompt and generous, all is over, and the enjoyment of the active day has commenced. Long waiting in bed when one is awake makes serious detriment to the soul; the whole being is softened, and plunged into a sort of reverie, more or less sensual, which may lead to the brink of certain abysses. Take care, the butterfly flutters on its golden wings, then goes to burn itself in the light which shines for it so treacherously; image of those aerial promenades where, by dint of approaching certain deceitful lights, one ends by damaging the wings of the soul, or, at least, rubbing off the velvet nap of a pure conscience. "It is dangerous," said St. Ambrose, "for the sun to come and trouble with its indiscreet rays the dreams of a lazy mind in its bed." [Footnote 260]
[Footnote 260: In Ps. 118, s. 19, No. 22, t. ii. p. 1476.]
The Italian poet, speaking of morning, says: "At the hour when one's mind is greatest stranger to the flesh, and less near terrestrial thoughts, then is it almost divine in its visions." [Footnote 261]
[Footnote 261: Dante, Purgat. c. 9, v. 16-19.]