ears, closing the eyes, and lowering the sensibilities generally, is in itself a frequently recognizable and always possible cause of persistent wakefulness. The effort to compose the mind (after lying down) and subdue the activity of the senses is made by the higher mental faculty, a part or function of the organism which, of all others, needs to be itself restful in order that the physico-mental being may sleep. It is, therefore, obvious that an _endeavor_ to go to sleep is a mistake.”[50] [Footnote 50: J. Mortimore Granville, M.D., in _Good Words_.] Rather let me, when staring out into the darkness,——for to attempt to shut out the sense of sight by closing the eyes is always to render the inner-mental sense increasingly acute: “the field of sight is soon crowded with grotesque and rapidly changing images——a phantasmagoria, the worrying effect of which is only a too familiar experience of the sleep waiter,” and all the mental senses are in like manner stimulated, and their acuteness intensified, by the endeavor to lower the sensibility of the sense organs; and, worst of all, to narcotize them with drugs or sleeping-draughts is irrational and its effects injurious, and if long continued, fatal;——rather, I repeat, having ears to hear, let me hear, and eyes to see, see; and a brain, let me think. Let the brain, the ears, and the eyes “forget their cunning,” only when the eyelids droop in sleep because I am sleepy. Meantime, not self-abasingly, but calmly and dispassionately, would I philosophize thus: Well, I am in for it again! I would like to sleep promptly, soundly, and long; why do I not? I suspect that I am not running this physico-mental machine even in a fairly physiological manner; I cause it to run at an abnormal rate during the day, and keep up intense mental excitement through stimulation of one sort or another, prolonging excessive mental activity too far on toward the night; and because of this, and the lack of a fair degree of muscular exercise, I only half breathe; of my fifteen or sixteen inspirations per minute, not one distends the air cells of my lungs to half their capacity. [Thus it transpires that the organism suffers in two ways, viz.: (1) the circulation is not sufficiently oxygenated for its general purposes; and (2) the waste matters are not “_pumped out_” of the substance of the brain,[51] as effectually as need be]. My coffee was strong and nice this morning; it stimulated me very satisfactorily throughout the day; and, what I had not bargained for, I am still feeling the spur (see article on Coffee). That new brand of cigars is exquisitely flavored; but, upon the whole, a perfect night’s sleep would be far more exquisite; at least, just now I am in the mood to think so. I sneered at that food-reformer who told me he was never a good sleeper until his present simple, natural habits made him so; but now, just at this moment, it seems as if it would be a