To see woman denied, daily, by Fashion's nonsensical decrees, the pleasure which every healthy person feels in the use of his limbs, with their hundreds of muscles and tendons, and kept not only inactive, but almost secluded from air and light—who is not almost ashamed that he belongs to the same species? Yet such things are quite common among as, and they are constantly becoming more so.
CHAPTER XXI.
REST AND SLEEP.
Why rest and sleep are needed. Sleep a condition. We should sleep in the night. Moral tendency of not doing so. Is there any moral character in such things? Of rest without sleep. Good habits in regard to sleep. Apartments for sleep. Air. Bed. Covering. Temperature. Night clothing. Advice of Macnish on the number of persons to a bed. Preparation for sleep. Suppers. The more we indulge in sleep, the more sleep we seem to require. The reader indulged to study laws of rest and sleep. An appeal.
The moving powers of the human body are so constructed by the grand Mover of all things, that they require rest as well as action. And of the many hundreds of muscles and tendons in the living system, it is not known that there is one which could continue its action, uninterruptedly, for any considerable time, without serious injury. Even the muscular fibres of the heart rest a part of the time, between the beats and pulsations. Whether the brain—which is of course without muscular fibres—can act incessantly in the production of thought, is a question which I believe is not yet settled by meta-physicians. One thing we do know, however, which is, that if the other organs suffer for want of rest, we soon find that by the law of sympathy and otherwise, the brain and nervous system suffer along with them; and if our wakefulness is greatly protracted, they sometimes suffer very severely.
I have said that all the moving powers of the body require rest. They do; and in the young, a good deal of it. It is in vain for mankind—the young especially—to abridge their hours of sleep, whether for selfish or benevolent purposes. Sleep is made by the Creator a condition of our being and happiness; and he who complies not with this condition, is unworthy of the boon.
Sleep, moreover, should be had at the right season. It is useless to think of sleeping during the day-time, and keeping awake during the night, with impunity. For many facts are on record, showing in vivid colors the mischiefs which result, sooner or later, from thus turning day into night, and night into day. Need I present these facts? They are found, in greater or less numbers, in almost every work on health or physiology. I will present but one. It is from Valangin.
Two colonels in the French army, sometime ago, had a dispute whether it was most safe to march in the heat of the day, or in the evening. To ascertain this point, they obtained permission of the commanding officer to put their respective plans into execution. Accordingly, the one with his division marched during the day, although it was in the heat of summer, and rested all night. The other, with his men, slept in the day-time, and marched during the evening and part of the night. The result was, that the first performed a journey of six hundred miles without losing a single man or horse; while the latter lost most of his horses, and several of his men.
Of course, the inference from this, and other similar facts, is, that night is the time for sleep, and not day. Is it said that every person knows this? But every person does not practise accordingly. There are those who either do not know the fact—and not a few young women, too; may be found among the number—or who, knowing it, do not act according to their knowledge. Is it not more charitable to conclude they do not know the fact?
Franklin, indeed, once undertook to show, in his humorous way, that the inhabitants of Paris did not know that the sun gave light at its first rising. Whether they did know it or not—or whether or not they were culpable for their ignorance, provided it was voluntary—shall hold my readers to be as truly guilty of doing that wrong which is the result of their own voluntary ignorance, as if their minds were really enlightened. The young woman who goes to bed so late that she cannot wake till it has been day for some time—or who darkens her room on purpose that the day-light may not interrupt her repose when it comes—and who knows, at the same time, that it is wrong to sleep by day-light, except from the most absolute necessity—is as truly guilty, as if she slept by day-light with her windows open.