before or after midnight, it is better that it should be before than after, for the following reason: —

The human system is not only debilitated, and more or less irritable, as soon as the darkness of the evening comes on, but it is actually feverish. The pulse is quicker and more frequent, and there is apt to be more heat and thirst, which are indications of fever. Now, there is nothing which will so soon and so happily remove this miniature fever as sleep.

But people take so much comfort, I shall be told, in sitting round a blazing fire and enjoying the evening, especially the long winter's evening, that they will be loath to receive such a doctrine as this. All this may be so; but it does not alter facts. The question is not so much whether the doctrine will be acceptable, as whether it is true.

Permit me, however, to ask whether the evening is any longer than the morning, and whether our social joys would be less in sitting round a blazing fire four hours before the morning light, in winter, than four hours of the evening? Would they not be heightened in the morning, inasmuch as sleep may be supposed to have restored our bodies and minds to their wonted activity and vigor?

"But the eyes are injured by the morning light," I shall be told; and the sentiment will be sustained, perhaps, by the sage remark of some individual who claims the character of a physician. I grant there may be an evil here. I admit, most cheerfully, for it is true, - that if we get up and expose our eyes suddenly to the full glare of the lamp or candle, and the firelight and heat too, it may not be well for us.

But if we come to the injury to the eyes in the cause, like the rest of the

light gradually, there will be less morning than in the evening; besystem, they are strongest in the

morning, and best able to resist injurious impressions; and

as to the glare of a firelight, however pleasant it may be to many on account of early associations, or for other reasons, it ought never to be allowed. If a fireplace or open stove is used, a screen should be interposed whenever we sit long around it, or we should turn our backs to it.

Inquiry is often made about the healthfulness of taking a nap after dinner. There are a few diseased persons who may require this, perhaps also a smaller number who are comparatively healthy. As a general rule, however, it is to be avoided. There are many objections to it. One of the strongest of these is, that our sleep, the following night, will be less natural. He who is up by three or four o'clock, and sufficiently active all day, in body and mind, will be likely, on going to bed at eight or nine o'clock, to be sleepy. He knows not the pleasure of going to bed early, and enjoying the most quiet and happy rest, who does not rise early and keep awake all day.

On the contrary, he will never be likely to form the habit of getting up early, who does not retire early. Thousands who tell us they cannot wake in the morning, or, if they wake, cannot get up, would cease this song, very soon, if they would only go to bed in good season. It cannot be expected that they should rise at four who sit up till midnight. And I have not a doubt that one hour between eleven and twelve, in these cases, is worth two after sunrise next morning.

2. One important condition of sound and good sleep is a healthful supperor third meal. Many persons take no third meal at all. But of these I have told you before.

If supper, or a third meal, is taken at all, it should be very light and dry, and at the distance of three hours, if possible, from the hour of retiring to rest. Thousands and tens of thousands suffer for want of heeding advice like this. "Suppers,"

says an old maxim, "kill more than the greatest doctor ever cured." But it is late suppers and bad suppers that do the mischief.

Even Dr. Dunglison, who in many things pertaining to dict is quite a latitudinarian, goes so far as to say, “A hearty supper, especially if it have consisted of materials difficult of digestion, may occasion a disturbed rest, frightful dreams, and in those who are predisposed to it― somnambulism." And as if to make the sentiment strike deeper still, he adds, that sleep is more frequently broken by internal irritants that is, by something in the stomach which should not be there than by those which are external.

Nay, he even goes much further still, and illustrates his position by accounting for all sorts of frightful dreams on this very principle. Willich, too, in his excellent work on Diet, very justly observes that sleep may be impeded by hot, spicy, and other stimulating drinks.

It would be difficult to say which class of persons injure themselves most, in respect to healthy, quiet sleep- the fashionable in our towns and cities, by their late, hot, stimulating suppers, or the farming community, by their heavy and indigestible ones, at the end, often, of a very hard day's work.

How common is it for laboring men, when they are exceedingly exhausted by the combined powers of heat, long-continued toil, drenching perspiration, and excessive eating and drinking, to sit down to an exceedingly heavy supper of flesh meat and vegetables, covered with mustard, vinegar, and salt, and perhaps blackened with pepper into the bargain!

Nor is this all; for I was brought up among them, and only testify of what I have seen. Some of them eke out their supper with at least a quart of bread and milk, or hasty

pudding and milk, with cheese, and perhaps pie, besides. And if a quantity of green cucumbers and vinegar should be added, it would not be stranger than things that have happened. Some there are, who, not trusting to the mustard and other powerful condiments to sharpen - madden, rather— the appetite, preface the whole with a dram; and I have heard men, who passed for oracles in the neighborhood where they resided, gravely, and indeed eloquently, defend its necessity. This, however, was thirty years ago.

Can we wonder that, despite of their numerous healthy habits tending to counteract it, this late gormandizing should cause a foul mouth or dull headache, and a general feeling of exhaustion on attempting to rise the next morning; and that a dram to cut away the cobwebs was once deemed as necessary as a cup of tea or coffee now is? Can we wonder, moreover, that such persons have distempered and distressing dreams - that a rock detached from a precipice is about to roll on them, or that a monster has them almost in his very jaws, while they have no power to escape? Can

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* The great physiologist Haller considered all dreaming as symptomatic of disease; in which view he is supported by Willich and many others. There is, it must be acknowledged, a wide difference of opinion on this subject. Those who maintain that the soul always thinks will, of course, be likely to deny such a doctrine; while those who hold that the soul, like the body, needs a species of repose, at least while with the body, maintain, almost, of course, that we never dream while we have perfectly sound, healthy sleep. I am compelled to incline to the latter opinion; but the full discussion of the subject would carry us far off into the world of metaphysics. One thing, however, seems to me certain that, if we have dreams, we forget them in exact proportion to our temperance in all things; in other words, just in proportion as we comply in all respects with the moral, social, and physical laws of God, and with the conditions or laws of sleep in particular.

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any body wonder that nightmare should afflict such persons with all its horrors?

With those who place any value on time, there is another circumstance in favor of light suppers, which can hardly fail to have weight, but which has not often been urged. It is the fact that light and plain food, both at suppers and at all other times, require less sleep than that which is more heavy and indigestible.

How much I wish this fact were better understood, by mankind at large, than we have reason to think it is! Although it furnishes an argument which, as I have already said, is seldom, if ever, urged in favor of plain and simple eating and drinking, it is one of immense weight.

There is much of trouble short of nightmare. How many millions wake in the morning with a sort of half consciousness that they must get up, and yet feeling as if they had scarcely slept at all, and must sleep longer! How many raise their heads, to begin; but, O, the bad feelings that crowd upon them, and they lie down! They try again and again; and it is only after many trials that they succeed. Such persons should know the cause.

3. But if plain and cool food and cool blood are so exceedingly important to sound sleep, general tranquillity of body and mind is scarcely less so. The circulation of the blood should be calm and tranquil; the brain and nerves should be tranquil; and all the faculties and functions of the system should be at ease. On this account, it is highly desirable, not only that all excitants should be avoided at supper, but also during the whole evening.

Let us suppose the supper, or third meal, to have been taken at six o'clock, and that the family do not retire till nine o'clock. Now, how is it desirable that the intervening three