SLEEP AS AN INVESTMENT.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 439, 11 June 1902, Page 4

SLEEP AS AN INVESTMENT.

(From the Commercial AVest.)

One great secret of Napoleon’s powov was hiS ability to sleep. If he had but au hour for sleep he slept an hour, even though the fato of an army or of an empire hung in the balance while he slept. Gen. Grant was another great example of this ability to lay asido work at a quitting time. Even in the AVilderness campaign, when the responsibility of the movements of the nation’s armies, stretched out in battle line a thousand Amies long, lay on his shoulders ; when his good-night commands involved all-night marching and fighting of his army of the Potomac, ■- and his waking orders might mean victory or defeat, the killing or the saving of a thousand men —under it all ho Jay down and dropped to sound sleep as quickly as you or I when we read ourselves sleepy over an old story book. Grant bad what a great writer has called a “ frictionless mind.” He saved for the wear of work what others throw away on the tear of worry. Here is a sample of the other extreme. Said a Minneapolis lawyer to me: •' AVhen I began the practico of law I always lost two nights before I had a case in court, tossing about and combating every thinkable standpoint of my opponent. And I lost as much sleep afterward upbraiding myself for not having thought of certain points at certain pat occasions in the progress of the case.” Of what value were these night thoughts to this young attorney? About as much value as night sweets to a consumptive! I venture to say that all tho business planning a man does in life while lying on his back at night isn’t worth an hour’s good thinking on his feet on one June morning. As compared with the sleep it displaces, such night thinking isn’t worth forty winks after dinner. Burning the candle at both ends sometimes makes a fine bonfire. But it always makes a bad grease spot of good candle.