Nature wants and calls for physiologi

MORNING WORK. Perhaps, on the whole, | sense. moderately early rising is now a commoner cal rest. Instead of complying with her reapractice in cities than it was forty years ago. sonable demand, the night-worker hails the It seems strange that the habit of lying in bed "feeling" of mental quiescence, mistakes it hours after the sun is up should ever have ob- for clearness and acuteness, and whips the tained a hold on the multitude of brain-work- jaded organism with the will until it goes on ers, as undoubtedly it had in times past. Hour working. What is the result? Immediately, for hour, the intellectual work done in the the accomplishment of a task fairly well, but early morning, when the atmosphere is as yet not half so well as if it had been performed unpoisoned by the breath of myriads of ac- with the vigor of a refreshed brain working in tively moving creatures, must be, and, as a health from proper sleep. Remotely, or later matter of experience, is, incomparably better on, comes the penalty to be paid for unnatural than that done at night. The habit of writing exertion-that is, energy wrung from exand reading late in the day and far into the hausted or weary nerve-centres under pressure. night, "for the sake of quiet," is one of the This penalty takes the form of "nervousness," most mischievous to which a man of mind can perhaps sleeplessness, almost certainly some addict himself. When the body is jaded the loss or depreciation of function in one or more spirit may seem to be at rest, and not so of the great organs concerned in nutrition. easily distracted by the surroundings which To relieve these maladies-springing from we think less obtrusive than in the day; but this unsuspected cause- the brain-worker very this seeming is a snare. When the body is likely has recourse to the use of stimulants, weary, the brain, which is an integral part of possibly alcoholic, or it may be simply tea or the body, and the mind, which is simply brain- coffee. The sequel need not be followed. function, are weary too. If we persist in Nightwork during student life and in after working one part of the system because some years is the fruitful cause of much unexplained, other part is too tired to trouble us, that can- though by no means inexplicable, suffering for not be wise management of self. The feeling which it is difficult if not impossible to find a of tranquillity which comes over the busy and remedy. Surely morning is the time for work, active man about 10.30 or 11 o'clock ought not when the whole body is rested, the brain reto be regarded as an incentive to work. It is, lieved from its tension, and mind-power at its in fact, the effect of a lowering of vitality con- best. sequent on the exhaustion of the physical |

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From The Cornhill Magazine.
CARLYLE'S ETHICS.

to me is one put with characteristic force by Carlyle himself in describing his sight I HAVE Sometimes wondered of late of Charles X. going to see the portrait what would have been the reception ac- of "the child of miracle." "How tragcorded to an autobiographical sketch by ical are men once more; how merciless St. John the Baptist. It would, one may withal to one another! I had not the suppose, have contained some remarks least pity for Charles Dix's pious pilnot very palatable to refined society. The grimage to such an object: the poor scoffers indeed would have covered their mother of it, and her immense hopes and delight in an opportunity for lowering a pains, I did not even think of them." great reputation by a plausible veil of vir- And so, the average criticism of that tuous indignation. The Pharisees would most tragical and pathetic monologuehave taken occasion to dwell upon the im- in reality a soliloquy to which we have moral contempt of the stern old prophet somehow been admitted that prolonged for the maxims of humdrum respectabil- and painful moan of remorse and desolaity. The Sadducees would have aired tion coming from a proud and intensely their orthodoxy by lamenting his open affectionate nature in its direst agonydenunciations of shams, which, in their a record which will be read with keen opinion, were quite as serviceable as real sympathy and interest, when ninety-nine beliefs. Both would have agreed that of a hundred of the best contemporary nothing but a mean personal motive could books have been abandoned to the moths have prompted such an outrageous utter- has been such as would have been apance of discontent. And the good, kind-propriate for the flippant assault of some ly, well-meaning people - for, doubtless, living penny-a-liner upon the celebrities there were some such even at the court of to-day. The critics have had an eye of Herod would have been sincerely for nothing but the harshness and the shocked at the discovery that the vehement denunciations to which they had listened were in good truth the utterance of a tortured and unhappy nature, which took in all sincerity a gloomy view of the prospects of their society and the intrinsic value of its idols, instead of merely Enough of this: though in speaking of getting up indignation for purposes of Carlyle at this time it is impossible to pulpit oratory. They complacent op- pass it over in complete silence. I intend timists, as kindly people are apt to be- only to say something of Carlyle's teachhave made up their minds that a genuine ing, which seems to be as much misunphilosopher is always a benevolent, white-derstood by some critics as his character. haired old gentleman, overflowing with It should require little impartiality or inphilanthropic sentiment, convinced that sight at the present day to do something all is for the best, and that even the "mis- like justice to a teacher who belonged erable sinners" are excellent people at essentially to a past generation. bottom; and are grievously shocked at Carlyle was still preaching upon questhe discovery that anybody can still be- tions of the day, my juvenile sympathies lieve in the existence of the devil as a - such as they were were always on potent agent in human affairs. If we the side of his opponents. But he and have any difficulty in imagining such criti- his opinions have passed into the domain cisms, we may easily realize them by of history, and we can, or at least we reading certain criticisms upon the "Remi- should, judge of them as calmly as we niscences of the last prophet - for we can of Burke and of Milton. In the year may call him a prophet whatever we think 1789 you might have sympathized with of the sources of his inspiration - who Mackintosh, or even with Tom Paine, has passed from among us. The reflec. rather than with the great opponent of tion which has most frequently occurred the Revolution; and you may even now

gloom, and have read without a tear, without even a touch of sympathy, a confession more moving, more vividly reflecting the struggles and the anguish of a great man, than almost anything in our literature.

When