〈Getting Up on Cold Mornings〉

...(Good creature! There is not a better, or more truth-telling servant going.) "I must rise, however - get me some warm water." - Here comes a fine interval between the departure of the servant cand the arrival of the hot water; during which, of course, it is of "no use" to get up. The hot water comes. "Is it quite hot?" - "Yes, Sir." - "Perhaps too hot for shaving: I must wait a little?" - "No, Sir; it will just do." (There is an over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, a little troublesome.) "Oh - the shirt- you must air my clean shirt; - linen gets very damp this weather." - "Yes, Sir." Here another delicious five minutes. A knock at the door. "Oh, the shirt - very well. My stockings - I think the stockings had better be aired too." - "Very well, Sir." - Here another interval. At length everything is ready, except myself. I now, continues our incumbent - I now cannot help thinking a good deal - who can? - upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving: it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer) - so effeminate (here I recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed). - No wonder that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against the degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visage with a face like her own. The Emperor Julian never showed the luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the flowing beard. Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture - at Michael Angelo's - at Titian's - at Shakespeare's - at Fletcher's - at Spencer's - at Chaucer's - at Alfred's - at Plato's - I could name a great man for every tick of my watch. - Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose people. - Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan. - Think of Wortley Montague, the worthy son of his mother, a man above the prejudice of his time. - Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are so much finer than our own. - Lastly, think of the razor itself - how totally opposed to every sensation of bed - how cold, how edgy, how hard! How utterly different from anything like the warm and circling amplitude, which

          Sweely recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.

Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cur yourself, a quivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of ice; and he that says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at anyrate, that he has no merit in opposing it.

     Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasons:

Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake?

used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive in getting up. He could imagine the good of rising; but then he could also imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must be allowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter. We must proportion the argument to the individual character. A money-getter may be drawn out of his bed by three or four pence; but this will not suffice for a student. A proud man may say, "What shall I think of myself, if I don't get up?" but the more humble one will be content to waive this prodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed. The mechanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall the barometer.  ...

(to be continued)