th so lusty a cheer,
that its clarion reaches even to the ear of the body, and we are
unconsciously murmuring the echoes of that joyous salute while yet the
iris-hued fragments of our dreams linger about us. The poet in the
morning, if true divine slumber have been vouchsafed him, finds his
mind enriched with sweeter imaginations, the thinker with profounder
principles and wider categories: neither begins the new day where
he left the old, but each during his rest has silently, wondrously,
advanced to fresh positions, commanding the world now from nobler
summits, and beholding around him an horizon beyond that over which
yesterday's sun rose and set. Milton gives us testimony very much in
point:--

"My celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplored,
And dictates to me slumb'ring."

Thus, in one important sense, is day the servant of night, action the
minister of rest. I fancy, accordingly, that Marcus Antoninus may give
Heraclitus credit for less than his full meaning in saying that "men
asleep are then also laboring"; for he understands him to signify only
that through such the universe is still accomplishing its ends. Perhaps
he meant to indicate what has been here affirmed,--that in sleep one's
personal destiny is still ripening, his true life proceeding.

But if, as the instance which has been under consideration suggests,
these two principles are of equal dignity, it will follow that the
ability to rest profoundly is of no less estimation than the ability to
work powerfully. Indeed, is it not often the condition upon which great
and sustained power of action depends? The medal must have two sides.
"Danton," says Carlyle, "was a great nature that could rest." Were not
the force and terror of his performance the obverse fact? I do not
now mean, however true it would be, to say that without rest physical
resources would fail, and action be enfeebled in consequence; I mean
that the soul which wants the attitude of repose wants the condition of
power. There is a petulant and meddlesome industry which proceeds from
spiritual debility, and causes more; it is like the sleeplessness and
tossing of exhausted nervous patients, which arises from weakness, and
aggravates its occasion. As few things are equally wearisome, so few are
equally wasteful, with a perpetual indistinct sputter of action, whereby
nothing is done and nothing let alone. Half the world _breaks_ out with
action; its performance i