"Now is the time when each one takes again to his mind all the thoughts of his real life. He recalls to memory his intentions, aims, and labours; and thinks of the pleasures and cares that must occur during the new day. And every one at this time eagerly seeks to discover in his mind joyful hopes and sweet thoughts. Few, however, are satisfied in this desire; for all men it is a misfortune to awake. The miserable man is no sooner aroused than he falls again into the clutches of his unhappiness. Very sweet a thing is that sleep induced by joy or hope. These preserve themselves in their entirety until the following morning, when they either vanish or decrease in force. "If the sleep of mortals were continuous and identical with life; if under the star of day all living beings languished on the earth in utter rest, and no work was wrought; if the oxen ceased bellowing in the meadows, the beasts roaring in the forests, the birds singing in the air, the bees buzzing, and the butterflies skimming over the fields; if no voice nor motion except-that of the waters, winds, and tempests anywhere existed, the universe would indeed be useless; but would there be less happiness or more misery than there is to-day? "I ask of thee, O Sun, author of day, and guardian of eve; in the course of the centuries measured out and consummated by thee, thus rising and setting, hast thou ever at any time seen one living being possessed of happiness? Of the numberless works of mortals which hitherto thou hast seen, thinkest thou that a single one was successful in its aim of procuring satisfaction, durable or temporary, for its originator? And seest thou, or hast thou ever seen, happiness within the boundaries of the world? Where does it dwell? In what country, forest, mountain, or valley; in what land, inhabited or uninhabited; in which planet of the many that thy flames illumine and cherish? Does it perchance hide from thee in the bowels of the earth, or the depths of the sea? What living being, what plant, or other thing animated by thee, what vegetable or animal participates in it? And thou thyself, like an indefatigable giant, traversing swiftly, day and night, sleepless and restless, the vast course prescribed to thee; art thou content or happy? "Mortals, arouse yourselves! Not yet are you free from life. The time will come when no eternal force, no internal agitation, shall awaken you from the repose of sleep, in which you shall ever and insatiably rest. For the present, death is not granted to you; only from time to time you are permitted to taste briefly its resemblance, because life would fail were it not often suspended. Too long abstention from this short and fleeting sleep is a fatal evil, and causes eternal sleep. Such thing is life, that to secure its continuance it must from time to time be laid aside; man then in sleep refreshes himself with a taste, and, as it were, a fragment of death.