There is no period of the year when my spirit is so much at war with
the flesh as this. For the winter is over, and the woods are browning
and the choristers of the fields are calling me to matins--and I do not
go. Spiritually I am an early riser. I have a passion for the dawn
and the dew on the grass, and the "early pipe of half-awakened birds."
On the rare occasions on which I have gone out to meet the sun upon the
upland lawn or on the mountain tops I have experienced an emotion that
perhaps no other experience can give. I remember a morning in the
Tyrol when I had climbed Kitzbulhorn to see the sun rise. I saw the
darkness changing to chill grey, but no beam of sunlight came through
the massed clouds that barred the east. Feeling that my night climb
had been in vain, I turned round to the west, and there, by a sort of
magical reflection, I saw the sunrise. A beam of light, invisible to
the east, had pierced the clouds and struck the mountains in the west.
It seemed to turn them to molten gold, and as it moved along the black
mass it was as though a vast torch was setting the world aflame. And I
remembered that fine stanza of Clough's:
And not through eastern windows only,
When morning comes, comes in the light.
In front the dawn breaks slow, how slowly.
But westward, look, the land is bright.
And there was that other dawn which I saw, from the icy ridge of the
Petersgrat, turning the snow-clad summits of the Matterhorn, the
Weisshorn, and Mont Blanc to a magic realm of rose-tinted battlements.
And there are others. But they are few, for though I am spiritually a
son of the morning, I am physically a sluggard. There are some people
who are born with a gift for early rising. I was born with a genius
for lying in bed. I can go to bed as late as anybody, and have no joy
in a company that begins to yawn and grow drowsy about ten o'clock.
But in the early rising handicap I am not a starter. A merciful
providence has given me a task that keeps me working far into the night
and makes breakfast and the newspaper in bed a matter of duty. No
words can express the sense of secret satisfaction with which I wake
and realise that I haven't to get up, that stern duty bids me lie a
little longer, listening to the comfortable household noises down below
and the cheerful songs outside, studying anew the pattern of the
wall-paper and taking the problems of life "lying-down" in no craven
sense.
I know there are many people who have to catch early morning buses and
trams who would envy me if they knew my luck. For the ignoble family
of sluggards is numerous. It includes many distinguished men. It
includes saints as well as sages. That moral paragon, Dr. Arnold, was
one of them; Thomson, the author of "The City of Dreadful Night," was
another. Bishop Selwyn even put the duty of lying in bed on a moral
plane. "I did once rise early," he said, "but I felt so vain all the
morning and so sleepy all the afternoon that I determined not to do it
again." He stayed in bed to mortify his pride, to make himself humble.
And is not humility one of the cardinal virtues of a good Christian? I
have fancied myself that people who rise early are slightly
self-righteous. They can't help feeling a little scornful of us
sluggards. And we know it. Humility is the badge of all our tribe.
We are not proud of lying in bed. We are ashamed--and happy. The
noblest sluggard of us all has stated our case for us. "No man
practises so well as he writes," said Dr. Johnson. "I have all my life
been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with
great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any
good."
Of course we pay the penalty. We do not catch the early worm. When we
turn out all the bargains have gone, and we are left only with the odds
and ends. From a practical point of view, we have no defence. We know
that an early start is the secret of success. It used to be said of
the Duke of Newcastle that he always went about as though he had got up
half an hour late, and was trying all day to catch it up. And history
has recorded what a grotesque failure he was in politics. When someone
asked Nelson for the secret of his success he replied: "Well, you see,
I always manage to be a quarter of an hour in front of the other
fellow." And the recipe holds good to-day. When the inner history of
the battle of the Falkland Islands is told in detail it will be found
that it was the early start insisted on by the one man of military
genius and vision we have produced in this war that gave us that
priceless victory.
And if you have ever been on a walking tour or a cycling tour you know
that early rising is the key of the business. Start early and you are
master of your programme and your fate. You can linger by the way,
take a dip in the mountain tarn, lie under the shadow of a great rock
in the hot afternoon, and arrive at the valley inn in comfortable time
for the evening meal. Start late and you are the slave of the hours.
You chase them with weary feet, pass the tarn with the haste of a
dispatch bearer though you are dying for a bathe, and arrive when the
roast and boiled are cleared away and the merry company are doing a
"traverse" around the skirting board of the billiard room. Happy
reader, if you know the inn I mean--the jolly inn at Wasdale Head.
No, whether from the point of view of business or pleasure, worldly
wisdom or spiritual satisfaction, there is nothing to be said in our
defence. All that we can say for lying in bed is what Foote--I think
it was Foote--said about the rum. "I went into a public-house," he
said, "and heard one man call for some rum because he was hot, and
another call for some rum because he was cold. Then I called for some
rum because I liked it." We sluggards had better make the same clean
breast of the business. We lie in bed because we like it. Just that.
Nothing more. We like it. We claim no virtue, ask no indulgence,
accept with humility the rebukes of the strenuous.
As for me, I have a licence--nay, I have more; I have a duty. It is my
duty to lie in bed o' mornings until the day is well aired. For I burn
the midnight oil, and the early blackbird--the first of our choir to
awake--has often saluted me on my way home. Therefore I lie in bed in
the morning looking at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the
busy world without a twinge of conscience. If you were listening, you
would hear me laugh softly to myself as I give the pillow another shake
and thank providence for having given me a job that enables me to enjoy
the privileges of the sluggard without incurring the odium that he so
richly deserves.