e bequeaths the legacy of all that he has not accomplished, a
negative munificence which may well be followed by all those who may be
troubled by an overplus of ideas.

The theory of the bed presents questions much more important than those
put forth by our neighbors with regard to castors and the murmurs of
criminal conversation.

We know only three ways in which a bed (in the general sense of this
term) may be arranged among civilized nations, and particularly among
the privileged classes to whom this book is addressed. These three ways
are as follows:

1. TWIN BEDS.
2. SEPARATE ROOMS.
3. ONE BED FOR BOTH.

Before applying ourselves to the examination of these three methods of
living together, which must necessarily have different influences upon
the happiness of husbands and wives, we must take a rapid survey of
the practical object served by the bed and the part it plays in the
political economy of human existence.

The most incontrovertible principle which can be laid down in this
matter is, _that the bed was made to sleep upon_.

It would be easy to prove that the practice of sleeping together was
established between married people but recently, in comparison with the
antiquity of marriage.

By what reasonings has man arrived at that point in which he brought
in vogue a practice so fatal to happiness, to health, even to
_amour-propre_? Here we have a subject which it would be curious to
investigate.

If you knew one of your rivals who had discovered a method of placing
you in a position of extreme absurdity before the eyes of those who were
dearest to you--for instance, while you had your mouth crooked like
that of a theatrical mask, or while your eloquent lips, like the copper
faucet of a scanty fountain, dripped pure water--you would probably stab
him. This rival is sleep. Is there a man in the world who knows how he
appears to others, and what he does when he is asleep?

In sleep we are living corpses, we are the prey of an unknown power
which seizes us in spite of ourselves, and shows itself in the oddest
shapes; some have a sleep which is intellectual, while the sleep of
others is mere stupor.

There are some people who slumber with their mouths open in the silliest
fashion.

There are others who snore loud enough to make the timbers shake.

Most people look like the impish devils that Michael Angelo sculptured,
putting out their tongues in silent mockery of the passers-by.

The o