HEALTH COLUMN,

Otago Witness, Issue 1932, 30 November 1888, Page 37

HEALTH COLUMN,

Take Plenty of Sleep. There is a notion abroad that the older one grov7s the less one has .need of sleep, but; for mj part every year I take it in larger and larger quantities.

The height* by great men reaohed and kept - Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were tolling upward in the night, is a verse that has led a great many people astray. 1 The poet does not tell ns how these great men felt in the morning. I don't belietfe in' this night work. Arsenins used to say that one hour's sleep at night was- enough for a monk ; but lam not aware thati even as a monk he greatly distinguished himself. Caligula never slept above three hours, and no wonder. The best advice, lam persuaded, that can be given to a brain worker is "go to bed early and sleep for 10 hours." It is true that doctors are addicted to working at night, but they have the honesty to tell their patients, both in this matter and in feasting (for there is nobody so " imprudent " as your doctor), "do as I tell you, not do as I do." The' cutting short of sleep is one of the snares in which we poor literary folks are so often caught and slain. What terrible examples have I not seen of it in the noblest and best of usl Shakespeare understood the value of sleep thoroughly, and has written the noblest praise of it. The worst punishment even his imagination could devise for a' criminal was that he should "sleep no more." This, be it noted/was not because he had murdered his king and guest (though that, of coarse, was reprehensible), bub because he had murdered Sleep itself, a very much more serious matter.— James Payn, in London Illustrated News.