SLEEP—QUANTITY OR QUALITY?

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2452, 17 March 1909, Page 6

SLEEP—QUANTITY OR QUALITY?

From a grand symposium on sleep ■which, is presented in the Review of Reviews (observes St. James’s Budget) it would be too much to say that ordinary men get much help or encouragement. It is difficult to grasp the position ot ouch men as Mr. George Sims or Sir William Ramsay, who find three or foiir hours of sleep enough to 'keep, their faculties at their best. Mediocrity understands how and why men to whom such a gift is given rise to distinguished eminence. For we all protest that if wc could work twenty hours a day without dying in the process we could witch and dominate the world. Alter all, Mr, Hall Caine put his finger on the true problem when he remarked that too quality was more important than the quantity of sleep. Not long ago wc got. into sad trouble with an angry correspondent who, misquoting Shakespoaie for his purpose, accused us of all manner of indigestible wickedness because ->ve sadly confessed to being plagued with an ineradicable habit of dreaming. So that we follow Mr. Caine s hno oi argument with a natural .hesitation. But if wc may say so without incurring uniust suspicions, we would put it that the six hours which aro supposed to be enough for a man niust bo sound unbroken sleep. And the majority of us. who are driven to the fools allowance of ehdifc hours, or something more, arc. dri-ve-a by the dreams that turn ingot into the • semblance of fantastic day. One cannot lay down rules .of s.ccp~beyond tro rule of its necessity, winch not even Napoleon could defy.