ting
sleep may not be expected until the night is far spent, for the
increased action of the brain which always accompanies activity of mind
requires a long time to subside. Persons who practice night study, if
they be at all of an irritable habit of body, will be sleepless for
hours after going to bed, and be tormented perhaps by unpleasant dreams,
which will render their sleep unrefreshing. If this practice be long
continued, the want of refreshing repose will ultimately induce a state
of morbid irritability of the nervous system bordering on insanity. It
is therefore of great advantage to engage in severer studies early in
the day, and to devote the after part of the day and the evening to
less intense application. It will be well to devote a portion of the
evening, and especially the latter part of it, to light reading, music,
or cheerful and amusing conversation. The excitement induced in the
brain by previous study will be soothed by these influences, and will
more readily subside, and sound and refreshing sleep will be much more
likely to follow. This rule is of the utmost importance to those who are
obliged to perform a great amount of mental labor. It is only by
conforming to it, and devoting their mornings to study and their
evenings to relaxation, that many of our most prolific writers have been
enabled to preserve their health. By neglecting this rule, others of the
fairest promise have been cut down in the midst of their usefulness.

Regularity is of great importance in the development and culture of the
moral and intellectual powers, the tendency to resume the same mode of
action at stated times being peculiarly the characteristic of the
nervous system. It is this principle of our nature which promotes the
formation of what are called habits. By repeating any kind of mental
effort every day at the same hour, we at length find ourselves entering
upon it, without premeditation, when the time approaches. In like
manner, by arranging our studies in accordance with this law, and taking
up each regularly in the same order, a natural aptitude is soon
produced, which renders application more easy than it would be were we
to take up the subjects as accident might dictate. The tendency to
periodical and associated activity sometimes becomes so strong, that the
faculties seem to go through their operations almost without conscious
effort, while their facility of action becomes so much increased as
ultimately to give