It was old John Mistletoe, we think, in his "Book of Deplorable Facts,"
discussing the congenial topic of "Going to Bed" (or was it in his essay
on "The Concinnity of Washerwomen?") said something like this:
Life passes by with deplorable rapidity. _Post commutatorem sedet
horologium terrificum_, behind the commuter rideth the alarm
clock, no sooner hath he attained to the office than it is time
for lunch, no sooner hath lunch been dispatched than it is time
to sign those dictated letters, no sooner this accomplished, 'tis
time to hasten trainward. The essential thing, then, is not to
let one's experiences flow irrevocably past like a river, but to
clutch and hold them, thoughtfully, long enough to examine and,
in a manner, sieve them, to halt them in the mind for meditation.
The relentless fluidity of life, the ease with which it vanisheth
down the channel of the days, is the problem the thoughtful man
must deal with. The urgent necessity is to dam the stream here
and there so we can go swimming in it.
Time is a breedy creature: the minutes propagate hours, the hours
beget days, the days raise huge families of months, and before we
know it we are crowded out of this sweet life by mere surplus of
Time's offspring. This is a brutish Malthusianism which must be
adamantly countered. Therefore it is my counsel that every man,
ere he retire for the night and commit his intellect to
inscrutable nothingness, do let it hop abroad for a little
freedom. Life must be taken with a grain of saltation: let the
spirit dance a measure or two ere it collapse. For this purpose
it is my pleasure, about the hour of midnight, to draw a jug of
cider from the keg and a book from the shelf. I choose some
volume ill written and stupidly conceived, to set me in conceit
with myself. I read a few pages, and then apply myself to the
composition of verses. These done, I burn them, and go to bed
with a cheerful spirit.