FAMOUS DAYLIGHT SAVERS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 201, 18 August 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

FAMOUS DAYLIGHT SAVERS.

MEN WHO NEEDED NO ACT OF PARLIAMENT.

Tho robust William Cobbett in his advice to Young Men, says:—"To obtain respect worth possessing you must do more than the common run of men in your state of life; and, to bo enabled to do this, you must manage well your time; and, to manage it well, you must have as much of the daylight and as little of the candle-light as;is consistent with the due discharge of your duties." Lord Carlisle of the same generation writes to his friend Selwyn:—"l rise at six, am on horseoack till breakfast; play at cricket till dinner; and dance in the evening till I can scarce crawl into bed at eleven. You get up at nine ; sit till twelve in your ttight-gown; creep down to White's, and spend five hours at table; sleep jll you can escape your supper reckoning; and tlien make twu wretches carry you in a chair with three pints of claret in you, three miles for a shilling." A BOSWELL-JOHNSON QUOTATION. In Boswcll's life of the tavern Jupitet he writes:—"! mentioned that Lord Monboddo told mo he awakened every morning at four, and then for his health got up and walked :n his room naked, with the window open, which he called taking an air bath; after which he went to bed again, and slept two hours more. Johnson, who was always ready to teat down anything that seemed to ho exhibited with disproprotionate importance thus observed:—'l suppose, sir, there is no more jn it than this, he wakes at four, and cannot sleep till he chills himself, and makes the warmth of the bed a grateful sensation .' I talked of the difficulty of rising ; n tho mornmg. Dr. Johnson told me 'that he learned Mrs. Carter, at that period when she was eager at study, dd not awake as early as shi wished, and she therefore had a contrivance, that at a certain hour, her chamber-lignt should burn a string to which a heavy weight was suspended, which then fell with a strong sudden no : se; this roused her from her sleep and then she had no difficulty iln getting up.' But I said that was my difficulty : and wished there could be some medicine invented that would make one rise without pain, which I never dr. I, unless after lying in bed a very long time. I have thought of a pulley t;> raise me gradually; but- that won 1 1 give me pnin as it would counteract mv internal .inclination." , ""Dr. Johnson observed that a miiv should take a sufficient quantity of sleep, which Dr. Mead says :s between seven and rt'ne hours." Tins judgraei:t did not coincide with Johnson's famous contemporary John Wesley. When the irreat evangelist entered on his eightyfifth year he attributed his marvellous health and rigour mainly "Ta my haling sleep at command; so that whenever I feel myself worn out I call it. and it comes," day or night. To my having constantly, for about sixty years, risen at four in the morning. Io my constant preaching at five in the morning for above fifty years."

SIR WALTER SCOTT. It is well known that Sir Waler Scott wrote his romances in the early mornmi' before entering upon his official tasks for the day. His friend, the Ettrick Shepherd, seems strangely enough to be ignorant of this, for he writes of Scott:—"He was a most remarkable being. How or where he composed his voluminous iworks no man could tell. When in Edinhurgh he was bound to the Parliament House all the forenoon. When at Abbotsford, for a number of years h's house was almost constantly filled with company. It was impossible not to be sorry for the time of such a man being thus broken in upon. I felt it exceedingly, and once when I went down by particular invitation to stay a fortn-ght, I had not the heart to staylonger than three days. But Sir Walter was never discomposed. Ho was readyas soon as breakfast was over, to accompany his guests wherever they fhose, to stroll tn the wood, or take a drive up the farrow or down to Melrose or Dryburgh, where his revered ashes now reoose." Sir Walter'tells us in Ill's autobiography that he early had the power of i-arly rsing. He says, " Let me do justice to the only years' in my life in which I applied to learning with stern, steady, and undeviating industry. The rule of mv friend Clark and myself was that we should mutually qualify ourselves lor undergoing an examination upon certain points of law every morning 'n the week, Sundays excepted. This was at first to have taken place at each other's housese, but we soon discovered that my friend's resolution was inadequate to severing him from his couch at the early hour fixed for this exercitation. Accordingly I agreed to go •very morning to his house, which being at the extremity of Princes Street Now Town, was a walk of two miles. With great punctuality, however, 1 b.-at him up to his task every morning before seven o'clock, and in the course of two summers we went, by way of question and answer, through the whole of Heineccuis's Analysis of the Institutes and Pandects, as well as through the smaller copy of Eskme's Institutes of the Law of Scotland

JULES YERXE. Barne's voluminous commentaries am said ta have been written before I breakfast, and that is the reason they are so dry. But dryness c>annot be essential to pre-bieakfast labours, as novelists l : ke Sir Walter Scott, Jules Verne, and VV. S Crockett wrote their refreshing fiction at very early hours. J ides Verne's habit was to rise at dawn in summer and at six o'clock n winter. Alter a light breakfast he wrote industriously until eleven o' clock, when his day's work was com plete. and he could devote himself to recreation. "If 1 had not been an early riser," he used to say, " I should neve have written more books than I have lived years." Crockett tumbled out of bed. w'nteand summer alike, at five o'clock. Long 1,,-lore -x he was hard at work, and bv breakfast-time had written three or lour thousand words, leaving, if Inwished it, the rest of the day "to plav m." Antony Trollope was a!>o an invelei ate early riser, though he did not form the habit early. He was twenty-nine veais of age, married, wind in Post Office service, when he buckled down to authorship. Ho says:—"The vigour necessary to prosecute two profession* at the same t-jno : s not given to everyone, and it was only lately that T had found the necessary vigour for on*. There must be early hours, and I had not ret learned to love early hours, f was'still, indeed, a young man, b it » hardlv voting enough to trust mysol* to find the power lo niter (Ik hab:ts m ln v life." In his bi..g. -a I hackerav, when lie deal* w;lli¥H ad< ray s attempt to pet a post in i\k ""ml (service, he affords n* a g! to <>■ «hatnlt'mntclv Ixieami his on iWnetho I of wonc. "He might have done so - 011UI he have risen at fiv*, and ha v. -at ai his private desk for three hour- Vfi re he began bis official routine at li public one. A capability for grinding an aptitude lor

continuous desk work, a disposition io sit in one's chair as though fixed to it by cobbler's wax, will enable a man in the prime of life to go through the tedium of a second day's work every day; but of all men Thackeray was the last to bear the wearisome perseverance of such a life." In his autobiography Trollope explains that h.o engaged a man to awaken him every day and compel him to get up at five o' clock. EARLY WORM-CATCHERS. Alexander von Humboldt, the great German philosopher and traveller, rarely spent more than four hours in bed, and was frequently content with two Michael Angelo often slept in his clothes, and frequently rose in the middle of the night to continue his labours. Edison's advice is ''Don't look at the clock.'' He has been known hi work thirty-six hours continuously at a single problem, and on many occasions he has spent a whole week "in Ins clothes," snatching a few minutes' sleep when exhausted Nature proved too strong for him. Some celebrated Frenchmen deserre mention for their capacity to catch "tho early worm." Proa dent Fa lire was rarely in bed after five o'clock in the morning. A\ hen he held the proud, est position in France he had had his cold bath and was immersed! in his books by six o'clock. To tnis habit of carry rising the " tanner President'' attributed much of his success in life. M. Thiers prided himself on never being found in bed after five o'clock in the morning, and was drinking his early cup of coffee and eating his roll shortly after four, preparatory to beginning eight hours 01 unbroken work, which ended with the 'dejeuner' proper at noon. L'-ttrc, who lived to be eighty, thought that to spend more than five hours a day in bed was shameful sc'lfndulgenee. But he can hardly be called a daylight saver, as he went to bed at throe in the morning, and got up at eight. THE G.O.M.'S GRANDDAUGHTER. Owing to House of Commons hours, Mr. Gladstone could not be called -a daylight saver either, though he limited his sleeping hours strictly to seven. He often wanted more, but he denied himself. Everybody has heard what a great favourite of his was his little grandaughter Dorothy Drew. One mornmg word was brought, that sin' would not get up. No entreaties had any effect upon her. The G.O.M. had to interview the little mffiden. She surprised him by stating that the Bible did not favour early rising. When he demanded evidence she quoted from the Psalms—"lt is vain for you to rise up early." While the heroic Don Quixotes wili always be ready to greet the dawn of day in full armour prepared for the. fray the majority will say with Sancho Panza, "Blessed be the man who invented sleep."