University of Virginia Library

EVILS OF EARLY RISING.

It seems to be the laudable endeavor of a great
portion of the present generation to prove their forefathers
fools; this being the way in which they
choose to evince their gratitude for the benefits they
have derived from the labors of those who have
gone before them. Accordingly, from the author
of Devereux downwards, they are employed in running
full tilt at what it is their pleasure to term
“popular fallacies.” Now, notwithstanding we
can travel ten miles an hour quicker than those
who lived before us, I, for one, cannot help thinking
that our ancestors knew something; and am
therefore particularly cautious of impugning, or
even entertaining doubts of the soundness of any
good old maxim that may seem to have received
the sanction of wiser heads than I ever expect mine
to become, even in these ready-made-knowledge-days.
But there is one thing which has been much

advocated by doctors and moralists, (not, I suspect,
without sinister motives on the part of the former,)
namely, “early rising,” which I never could see
the utility of, and which has only to be placed in a
proper light to show at once its folly and impropriety.

Let the merits of the case be examined. It is
the custom of those who defend this baneful practice
to appeal rather to the fancy than the reason,
and to sketch a highly romantic and altogether
ideal picture of the pleasures of early rural walks,
&c. They talk of green fields, purling streams,
warbling birds, and healthful breezes, invariably
winding up with a florid description of the glories
of the rising sun. Now I myself, from dear-bought
experience, happen to know something of these
matters; for though, with one exception, I have
not seen the sun rise for many years, yet in early
life, when I “thought as a child and acted as a
child,” I was seduced by empty rhodomontade, to
adopt the pernicious practice of early rising, until a
heavy cold, caught by roaming about the fields at
an unseasonable hour in search of health and
mushrooms, settled upon my lungs, and came
pretty near making my early rising a prelude to an
early grave.—But suppose a man up and dressed
before the sun, (and here I will not dwell upon the

soft, delicious slumbers that have been broken and
frighted away by his harsh and unnatural conduct,)
suppose him up, dressed, out of the house
and away to the fields. When he gets there, these
fields are, to be sure, green enough—rankly green,
but the dares not venture into one of them; or if he
does, especially should the grass be luxuriant, he
might just as well go a bathing with his nether
garments on: he dares not pluck a wild flower
from the hedge-side, for on approaching he finds
that
are pursuing their slimy peregrinations in every
direction; the birds do not warble at that early
hour, but on leaving their warm nests, flit uneasily
from bush to bush, shaking their plumage, and
twittering in a way certainly not calculated to raise
his feelings to any ecstatic pitch. Even the cows,
whose slumbers he has disturbed, arise slowly and
sullenly from their damp couch, look grimly at the
worshipper of nature, and proceed, in a discontented
manner, to slake their thirst by nibbling the grass.
These discomforts probably rather damp his feelings,
and he proceeds forthwith to select a dry spot
on the turnpike-road, where he stands, with his
hands in his pocket, gaping at the sun getting up,
and fancying himself very much delighted; though
everybody knows, that for richness and beauty one
sunset is worth a dozen sunrises. After this he
makes it a point of duty to walk and lounge about
for three or four hours, leaning over some farmer's
gate-way watching the chickens, with their eyes
half open, picking up stray worms, or the ducks
gobbling houseless snails, when he goes home
wet and weary, and finds the sensible part of the
family enjoying themselves with toast and coffee.
As all foolish persons dislike to confess their folly,
he proceeds to state that he has had “such a charming
walk!” thereby not only sinning his miserable
soul before breakfast, and giving the father of lies
a decided advantage for the rest of the day, but
inducing other unsuspicious victims to follow his
scandalous example.

There is more truth than poetry in this plain
statement of the case, which will be found correct
nine times out of ten, even in the most favorable
season of the year—summer; what then must an
early morning's walk be through the chills and
drizzle of spring or the substantial fogs of autumn?
As for winter, the idea of a man leaving his warm
bed, and wading through ice and snow without the
prospect of any thing but a frost-bitten nose, is so

abhorrent to the natural and common feelings of
humanity, that it may well be doubted whether
any one but an hypochondriac or a lunatic could
execute or conceive such a measure.

Can any thing be more preposterous than the
advice not unfrequently given, to “go to bed with
the sun and get up with the sun?” It is clearly
contrary to the visible intentions of Providence.
Before the sun rises, the night dews lie heavy on
field and forest. Nature is drenched: and the sun
is kindly sent forth, as it were, to mop up the world,
and make the earth dry and comfortable before it
is necessary for its tenant, man, to come abroad.
With his warm beams he proceeds in the work of
exsuction, and draws up all the raw and unhealthy
vapors out of our way: and any man who unnecessarily
intrudes himself into his presence when
thus transacting his morning's business, well deserves
what he generally gets, a chilly reception and
an inflammation of the lungs. Yet people will
punish themselves in this way, and bear it all as
if they were suffering in a good cause! If you
remonstrate with them on their folly, they will take
pen, ink, and paper, and prove to you, by the rules
of arithmetic, how many years of active existence
a man adds to his natural life by getting up regularly
four hours before the rest of his fellow-mortals,

only forgetting to deduct the four hours he loses by
going to bed that much sooner, in order to indulge
his strange, out-of-the-way propensities.

If a cause is to be judged by its advocates, few, I
believe, would stand worse than early rising. You
never meet with what is called “a good fellow”
among early risers. It is either your old bachelor,
who is, to be sure, more excusable than any other
class of men; or your morose worldly husband,
who prides himself on his domestic virtues, because
he sleeps over the fire after supper, and goes to bed
at nine o'clock; or your thin, bilious, poetical and
dyspeptic youth, who fancies he is an admirer of
nature, and therefore comes abroad to see her in
her most disagreeable forms, and also to beget an
appetite for an extra egg or an additional muffin at
breakfast. But the most amusing thing is, the
credit such people take to themselves for these departures
from the ordinary regulations of society.
They invariably narrate the history of their morning
exploits to one who loves his bed with an air
of conscious rectitude, and with that

though wherein consists the virtue of one man putting
on his clothes three or four hours before another,
I am utterly unable to conjecture. But so it
is, and they pride themselves upon it, as if it were
one of the cardinal virtues, and like charity, covered
a multitude of sins.

My prejudices against this habit were greatly
augmented by the shock my feelings received from
witnessing it carried into effect on a highly improper
occasion. I was, a summer or two ago, invited
to a wedding, a few miles in the country, having
an off-hand acquaintance with both bride and bridegroom.
The former was very pretty and agreeable,
the latter very pedantic and disagreeable.
Many people thought him a genius, and he himself
inclined to that opinion. He was busy with
an epic poem, was an inflexible early riser, and invariably
ate dyspepsia crackers at breakfast. His
conversation always turned upon one subject, which
was himself. This subject he divided into two parts,
one of which was an unsparing narrative of his
literary labors, and the other, a particular account
of the state of his stomach. How he had contrived
to steer between these two divisions, and carry on
“his whole course of wooing,” I cannot comprehend.
Be that as it might, a set of joyous spirits
were congregated together at the wedding party.
The wine circled gaily, and the song and jest passed
merrily round. At a reasonable hour the ladies

and junior and senior gentlemen retired, leaving
about a dozen of us too well contented with things
as they were to think of leaving them so soon.
Time flew unheeded by, and the bright sun and
four o'clock in the morning found us singing in
full chorus,
when happening to cast my eye into the garden,
judge of my surprise at beholding our friend the
“gay bridegroom,” perambulating the gravel walk
a little way from the house. Struck with astonishment,
I spoke not a word, but rushed from the
room and made towards him, filled with fearful
forebodings of some dire mishap. On my anxiously
inquiring what was the matter, he seemed surprised
at the question, and civilly stated “that nothing
was the matter—that four o'clock was his usual
time for getting up—that he found it conducive to
health—that he had eaten three quarters of an
ounce too much at supper—that the rising sun was
a glorious spectacle, and that nothing aided the
digestive powers so much as an early walk.” As
he proceeded I looked in the reptile's inanimate
face—there was not a spark of fire in his dull gray
eye, his turned-up conceited-looking nose was tipped
with blue, and I thought of the truth of what
the scripture says, “we are but clay.” I remonstrated
with him on the brutality and cruelty of his
conduct; but he seemed to have no notion of endangering
his health for the satisfaction of any
created being; and I left the animal, or rather vegetable,
sticking among the cabbages, admiring the
beauties of nature, while I betook myself to my
alas! solitary pillow.

In the course of time two events occurred, one of
which did not surprise me—the other did. My
friend, the bridegroom's wife, insisted on a separate
maintenance, and my friend, the bridegroom, published
a volume of poems, which, upon opening, to
my utter amazement, I found were almost all on
amatory subjects. He discoursed of “love and
dove,” and “kiss and bliss,” and strolls by moonlight,
(he always went to bed at ten,) and ardent
hopes and fiery passions, in a way that would have
outdone Catullus and Thomas Moore, only that his
were merely words without ideas, which certainly
improved the innocence of the poems, however it
might destroy their effect. There were also two or
three bacchanalian songs, concerning “circling
cups” and “rosy wine,” (he always drank cinnamon
cordial diluted with water,) &c. &c. At the
time of receiving this, I was busy with “an essay
attempting to form a judgment of the characters of

authors from their works.” I read half a dozen of
my friend's poems, after which I folded up my manuscript,
laid it on the fire, and said nothing more
about the matter. Ever since that time I have
entertained a decided abhorrence of early rising in
every shape, and never contract an intimacy with
any man who gets up before six in summer and
seven in winter.