“——Sleep, gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse.”
HENRY IV. Part ii.
IDA. I begin to perceive the importance of this digression on the nature
of mind. You wish us to believe, there is a temporary desertion of the
spirit from the body, and _therefore_ the body sleeps?
EV. Not absolute desertion, but a limit to its influence. Many have
thought in conformity to your question; and indeed, Ida, it is a belief
so holy, that I may feel it to be almost an impiety to differ.
From the time of Aristotle to Haller, the term “Sleep” expresses that
condition which is marked by a cessation of certain mental
manifestations, coincident with the degree of oppression; for it is an
error to say that the _body_ sleeps,—it is the _brain_ only, perhaps I
may say, the _cerebrum_, or the _fore_ lobes; for I believe the lower
part of it (that which imparts an energy to the process of breathing and
of blood circulation) is never in a complete sleep, but merely in a
state of languor, or rather of repose, sufficient for its
restoration,—if it were to sleep, _death_ would be the result.
This repose is in contrast with a state of _waking_, that activity of
mind in which ideas are constantly chasing each other like the waves of
ocean; the mode of displacing one idea being by the excitement of
another in its place.
In that state of sound sleep which overcomes children, whose tender
brains are soon tired, or old persons whose brains are _worn_, and in
persons of little reflection,—the mind is perfectly passive, and its
manifestations cease.
So writes Professor Stewart,—that there was a total suspension of
volition during sleep, as regards its influence over mental or corporeal
faculties; and I may even adduce a scrap from Burton, although I am an
admirer of the quaint old compiler for little else than his measureless
industry:—
“Sleep is a rest or binding of the outward senses, and of the common
sense, for the preservation of body and soul. Illigation of senses
proceeds from an inhibition of spirits, the way being stopped by which
they should come; this stopping is caused by vapours arising out of the
stomach, filling the nerves by which the spirits should be conveyed.
When these vapours are spent, the passage is open, and the spirits
perform their accustomed duties: so that _waking_ is the _action_ and
_motion_ of the senses, which the spirits, dispersed over all parts,
cause.”
ASTR. But is volition always suspended even in sound sleep? Was it not
the opinion of Berkley, that the mind even then was _percipient_? How
else can we account for the waking exactly at one predetermined hour? If
we retire to sleep at the latest hour, or oppressed with fatigue, so
strong an impression is produced in our mind, that the breaking of our
sleep is almost at the given moment.
EV. I will answer you at present, Astrophel, only by analysis; it is not
yet time to _explain_.
I may grant that there is some _latent_ effect,—_passive_ memory, if
you will,—for we do not _count_ the hours in sleep, and calculate our
time _by the clock_; but we wake, and soon the bell strikes.
We have on record some very curious instances of the periodical
recurrence of ideas in a waking state, the measurement of time being
referrible to mental impression, mechanically established by constant
habit.
There was an idiot once, who was in the habit of amusing himself
constantly by counting the hours as they were struck on the clock. It
chanced, after some time, that the works of the clock were injured, so
that the striking for a time had ceased. The idiot, notwithstanding,
continued to measure the day with perfect correctness, by counting and
beating the hour. This is a story of Dr. Plott’s, in his History of
Staffordshire.
There is one of more modern date, somewhat analogous to this.
I may quote Holy Writ in support of this passive condition of true
sleep; nay, even its similitude to death. How often do we find allusions
to sleep and death as synonymous! Sir Thomas Brown was impressed so
deeply with this _likeness_, that he “did not dare to trust it without
his prayers.” And the Macedonian, who wished for more worlds to conquer,
confessed his sleep proved to him his mortality. I may quote ancient
poetry also in my support. Homer and Virgil describe sleep as the
“Brother of Death;” and, among the profane poets of later times, the
same sublime association is traced of this
“Mortis imago—et simulacrum.”
Among the ancient allegories, sleep is portrayed as a female, with black
unfolded wings,—in her left hand, a white child, the image of Sleep; in
her right, a black child, the image of Death.
On the tomb of Cypselus, according to Pausanias, _night_ is thus
personified.
CAST. How true, then, was the thought of the first deep sleeper, on the
sensation of slumber:—
“——There gentle sleep
First found me, and with soft oppression seiz’d
My drownéd sense, untroubled; tho’ I thought
I then was passing to my former state,
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve.”
But how fearful is this resemblance which changes “tir’d nature’s sweet
restorer” into a type of death! Pr’ythee, Evelyn, do not affright me
thus, by clothing sleep with terror, as if it were disease and danger.
EV. Why tremble for the mortal sleep of the just and good, who will
feel, with William Hunter, on their death-bed, “how _pleasant_ and easy
it is to die;” and with another moralist,—
“Oh what a wonder seems the fear of death,
Seeing how gladly we all sink to sleep;
Night following night!”
Fear not, Castaly; I do not term _slumber_ and _gentle_ sleep disease,
but signs of health. Not so, however, many a _profound_ sleep, and its
advances towards _coma_; those results of exhaustion from excess, or
from intense and direct narcotics, as opium sleep, and the paralyzing
senselessness from extreme cold, as in the story of Sir Joseph Banks and
Dr. Solander in the antarctic regions.
You are aware that many _remedies_ in medicine may be so intense as to
cause fatality: inflammation, too, is the restorative process of wounds,
but if in _excess_ it is fatal. Appetite also, to a certain degree, is
healthy; but craving and thirst, its extremes, are proved, by
_suffering_, to be morbid.
If the mind is composed to perfect rest, it is lulled to senselessness;
then metaphysically we are said to sleep: the mind is not excited by
thought, and, in consequence, its supply of _arterial_ blood is less,
the more _rapid_ flow of which would be the cause of waking.
Within certain limits sleep is a _remedy_; but it becomes perilous when
intense, or too much indulged. One eccentric physician, as we read in
the learned Boërhave, even fancied sleep the _natural_ condition of man,
and was wont to yield to its influence during eighteen of the
twenty-four hours; but apoplexy soon finished his experiment.
This _negative_ quiescence (for sleep is not a _positive_ state) allows
the restoration of energy, and then we wake. Even the senses accumulate
their power in sleep; the eye is dazzled by the light when we wake, from
the sensitiveness imparted by this accumulation.
The conceits regarding the cause of sleep are so various, that if I were
to discuss their merits I should only weary your patience, as I perceive
I have already done.
Some have thought that sleep arose from certain conditions of the blood
in the vessels and nerves of the brain; its congestion in the _sinuses_;
or a _reflux_ of a great portion of it towards the heart: the result of
depressed nervous energy—exhaustion, fatigue, cold, and the influence
of powerful narcotics, or the combustion of charcoal. Others, that sleep
arises from the deposition of fresh matter on the brain, and its sudden
pressure. Then we have the cerebral collapse of Cullen, and of
Richerand; the deficiency of animal spirits of Haller; the diminished
afflux of blood to the brain of Blumenbach; and the exhausted
irritability of the Brunonian theory adopted by Darwin.
Where the truth lies I presume not to decide, but it is clear there is a
necessity for the occasional repose of the mental organ:
“Non semper arcum
Tendit Apollo.”
Watchfulness invariably reduces, even in the brute: the wild elephant is
tamed by the perseverance of the hunter in keeping it constantly awake.
The mind, then, as it is manifested to us (for deeply important is it
that we confound not the perfect and pure, because unembodied essence of
the soul, with its _combined_ existence in the brain—that union from
which a _thought is born_), the mind cannot exert itself beyond a
certain period without a sensation of fatigue in the brain, as palpable
as the exhaustion from excessive muscular exertion. And this depends on
a natural law, that organs after acting a certain given period, flag and
lose their energy. Thus the first harbinger of sleep is the _closing of
the lids_ from languor, and relaxation of the muscles. Muscular fibre
will, however, regain its expenditure by simple rest, requiring a
certain period for this re-accumulation, like the charging of an
electrical jar. Sleep, however, is not always a sequence of exhausted
irritability of muscle; we may be _too tired_ to sleep; and thought and
memory also will keep the mind awake, and prevent nervous energy from
renewing corporeal vigour.
The excitement of thought beyond certain limits is both painful and
destructive, evincing its effects by various grades of mental disorder,
from simple headache to confirmed mania. Our first ray of hope, in
fever, is often the coming on of a quiet sleep, and in the sad cases of
_delirium tremens_ we must either _sleep or die_; the effort of
philosophical determination to overcome the depression only adding to
its intensity, as in the case of a person worn out by labour, in
attempting to labour on. This conflict cannot be more pertinently
exemplified than by some passages in the life of Collins, by one who
knew him well:—
“He languished some years under that depression of mind which unchains
the faculties without destroying them, and leaves reason the knowledge
of right without the power of pursuing it. These clouds which he
perceived gathering on his intellects, he endeavoured to disperse by
travel, and passed into France; but found himself constrained to yield
to his malady, and returned. His disorder was no alienation of mind, but
general laxity and feebleness, a deficiency rather of his vital than
intellectual powers. What he spoke wanted neither judgment nor spirit,
but a few minutes exhausted him, so that he was forced to rest upon the
couch, till a short cessation restored his powers, and he was again able
to talk with his former vigour.”
I believe that sensibility and fatigue of mind, by inducing
sleeplessness, may often be the source even of mania.
The sleep of animals is usually _light_, especially that of birds, and
they are easily startled when at roost. The cackling of the geese on
their awaking, you know, saved the Roman capitol. Yet sleep is
altogether very nearly balanced with waking. Some animals sleep often,
like the cats, but they are long awake, and prowling in the night. The
python and the boa are also long awake, and then sleep for many days
during the process of digestion. Indeed, all the _feræ_ fall into sound
sleep after feeding; while the ruminants scarcely sleep at all; nor do
they crouch like the _feræ_, with the head between the legs: but then
their whole life is one scene of quiet; rumination is a mindless
reverie. The West Indian slaves and the Hottentots, or woolly bipeds,
resemble the brute animal in this, that they fall asleep as soon as
their labour is concluded.
That activity of mind in excess may induce even mania, I may offer two
impressive, although negative, proofs, from the records of Dr.
Rush.—“In despotic countries, and where the public passions are torpid,
and where life and property are secured only by the extinction of
domestic affections, madness is a rare disease. Dr. Scott informed me
that he heard of but one single instance of madness in China.”
“After much inquiry, I have not been able to find a single instance of
fatuity among the Indians, and but few instances of melancholy and
madness.”
I may add, that Baron Humboldt assures us of this immunity among the
wild Indians of South America.
IDA. And may not this melancholy effect be averted by caution and rule?
We have a saying in Herefordshire, that “Six hours are enough for a man,
seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.”
EV. There cannot be a fixed rule on that point, except the prevailing
law of nature,—the feeling of necessity; but this may often lead
astray.
It is calculated that one half of a child’s life is passed in sleep, and
one quarter to one sixth of the adult existence; but for old age there
is no essential period or limit. Old Parr slept almost constantly about
the close of his life; while Dr. Gooch records the case of one whose
period of sleep was only one quarter of an hour in the twenty-four. It
is well to inure an infant to a _gradual_ diminution of its time of
sleep, so that at ten years old its period should be about eight hours.
The strength or energy of brain will, when aided by custom, modify the
faculty of controlling the disposition to slumber. Frederick the Great,
and our own Hunter, slept only five hours in the twenty-four; while
Napoleon seemed to exert a despotic power over sleep and waking, even
amid the roaring of artillery. Sir J. Sinclair slept eight hours, and
Jeremy Taylor three. As a general precept, however, for the regulation
of sleep in energetic constitutions, I might propose the wise
distribution which Alfred made of his own time into three equal
periods,—one being passed in sleep, diet, and exercise, one in despatch
of business, and one in study and devotion. Careful habit will often
produce sleep at regular and stated periods, as it will render the
sleeper insensible or undisturbed by loud noises; the gunner will fall
asleep on the carriage amid the incessant discharge of the cannon; and,
if I remember right, the slumbers of the bell-ringer of Notre Dame were
not broken by the striking of the quarters and the hour close to his
ear.
IDA. And at what seasons should we wake and sleep? It seems to me, that
the Creator himself has written his precepts in the diurnal changes of
this world, that are still so healthfully observed by the peasant, but
so strangely perverted by the capricious laws of fashion, and even by
the romantic
“sons of night,
And maids that love the moon;”
always excepting Astrophel and Castaly. It moves my wonder that they who
have looked upon the beauty of a sunrise from the mountain, or the main,
can be caught sleeping, when such a flood of glory, beyond all the glare
of peace-rejoicings and birth-lights, bursts upon the world.
EV. The wisest have thought with you, Ida, although there was one idle
poet, even Thomson, who confessed he had “noe motive for rising early.”
It was the custom of Jewel and Burnet to rise at four; and Buffon, we
are told, rewarded his valet with a crown, if he succeeded in getting
him up before six.
It is to slight the creation, not to enjoy the beauties of daylight; and
it is the _natural_ time for sleep, when the dews of night are on the
earth. The proof of this:—There were two French colonels who were
marching their troops, one by day, the other by night; and the loss in
men and horses was very far greater among the night marchers.
CAST. I believe it was Panza, who “never desired a second sleep, because
the first lasted from night till morning,”—that immortal Sancho Panza,
whose quaint rhapsody we must all echo so gratefully,—“Blessed is he
that first _invented_ sleep.” The eulogies of this blissful state, and
the wailings of a sleepless spirit, have ever been a favourite theme of
the poet, and our own ancient dramatists,—as Beaumont and Fletcher, in
the play of “Valentinian,” and Shakspere, from the lips of Henry IV. in
his beautiful invocation, and Young, and many others.
EV. Sleeplessness is one of the severest penalties of our nature. In the
darkness and silence of night the wakeful mind preys on itself; the
pulse is rapid, it is a throb of anguish,—to the wearied thought there
is no conclusion, and the parched tongue prays in vain for the morning
light. In the curse of Kehama, I think the sleepless lid is one of the
most cruel inflictions; and in the severe disorder which we term
_hemicrania_, this curse is to a degree realized.
The sleeplessness of Caligula is related by Suetonius. In Bartholinus,
we read of one who slept not for three months, and he became a
melancholy hypochondriac. And Boërhave, from intense study, was
constantly awake during six weeks.
IDA. We are happy in our quiet minds, are we not, dear Castaly? Yet, if
we are ever summoned to the couch of one wearied by night watching,
Evelyn will tell us how we may soothe the pillow of a sleepless mind, to
which the secret of inducing slumber would be a priceless treasure.
EV. Study the causes of _insomnia_, or sleeplessness, Ida; as those
which excite nervous irritability,—coffee, green tea, _small_ doses of
opium, the protracted use of antimony, &c.; and believe not in the
virtues of vulgar remedies, often as dangerous as they are ridiculous.
There is a batch of these which Burton has gleaned from various authors;
as a sample,—nutmegs, mandrakes, wormwood; and from Cardan and
Miraldus,—the anointing the soles of the feet with the fat of a
dormouse, and the teeth with the ear-wax of a dog, swine’s galls, hares’
ears, &c.
I might offer to you many plain precepts for the alleviation of the
_light_ causes of sleeplessness; and while I dole them out to you in
very dullness, you will fancy my gold-headed cane to my chin, and other
essential symbols of an Esculapius of the olden time. Adopt, then, a
free ventilation in summer, and airing in winter, of the chamber. This
should never be a mere closet, always above the ground floor, neither
very light nor dark, the window not being close to the bed, and, above
all, not in the vicinity of stoves, ovens, and large kitchen fires. Do
not allow the windows to be open throughout the night, to admit the cold
dew or air; and, in winter, the basket-fire should be placed there for
an hour before you enter your chamber. A slight acceleration of the
circulation may be produced by gentle exercise before rest; and two or
three wafer biscuits or spring water, to prevent the wakeful effects of
both chilliness and hunger. A light woollen sock may be worn, which is
unconsciously displaced when sleep comes on, and the night-cap should be
little more than a net, except during the very cold months. The position
of the body should be that which is the easiest, except the supine,
which induces congestion and often “night mare;” and if there be much
sensitiveness of the surface, the hydrostatic bed should be employed,
but that not too long, as it will become heated by protracted pressure.
Children should not be enveloped in clothes, nor crowded in bed; nor
should infants be shaken, or tossed, or patted, as foolish nurses too
often do.
There are many simple modes of inducing slumber: I allude not to poppy
and henbane, nor to the pillow of hops, which, in the case of the third
George, was the charm that sealed up the lids of the king; but to other
modes, such as a tedious recital, (something like my own dull prosing,)
the gentle motion of a swing, a cot or cradle, the ripple of a stream,
and the dashing of a waterfall, the waving of a fan, the caw of rooks,
the hum of bees, the murmur of an Æolian harp—
CAST. So gracefully wound up in that quaint _morceau_, the “Fairy
Queen,” when Archimago sends the spirit to fetch a dream from Morpheus—
“Cynthia still doth steepe
In silver dew his ever-drooping head,
Whiles sad night over him her mantle black doth spred.
And more to lull him in his slumber soft,
A trickling stream, from high rocke tumbling downe,
And ever dringling rain upon the loft,
Mix’d with a murmuring winde, much like the soune
Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swoune.”