What long conversations, what arguments, what
protracted and elaborate descriptions of the past
day's exploits—of its cab fares, its extortions,
its pour-boires. And I, a wakeful subject at best
and one who knows all the ramifications of
restlessness as well as any man in England. Does
any man alive know as well as I do the different
classifications of bad nights. There is the bad
night total, the bad night partial, the bad night
early, the bad night late, the bad night candid,
and the bad night deceptive.

The bad night total is a night entirely without
sleep, when not even in the morning, and just
before the servant knocks at the door, does
slumber come to mock the sufferer with a chance
of rest. The bad night utter is rare, it is
terrible: God help thee through it.

The bad night partial is one in which there are
periods of sleep, but such intervals of wakefulness
as render it still essentially a bad night. It
is common enough, it is endurable. Lie still and
be as patient as you can.

He who on going to bed cannot possibly get
to sleep, but towards morning drops off into
oblivion, has had a bad night early. It is,
perhaps, on the whole, a trifle more refreshing than
the bad night late, but he who experiences either
will feel the effects next day. I arn sorry for
him from my heart.

The bad night late has this great disadvantage,
that the period of wakefulness comes at a time
when, for some reason or other, the mind is in a
terribly gloomy and unsatisfactory condition. He
who is going to pass through the sufferings
which the bad night late brings with it will go
to bed early, and will fall asleep on first lying
down. At about half-past two or three o'clock,
however, in the morning he will wake—wake
completely, suddenly, unaccountably. Now, I
am of opinion that at three o'clock A.M. the
human mind is not itself. At that hour we are
far from seeing things in their true colours, and
from estimating them rightly. It is a bleak
period. No words that the pen can write or the
tongue utter will do justice to the chill and
despondent view with which at that particular hour
the mind is ready to regard its past history and
its future prospects. Trust it not at such a
time. Things are not so bad as then they seem.
You don't see truly in the dark or in the dawn.
Why should that lawsuit go against you? Why
should that investment fail, and your children
have to beg their bread? That book you are
writing will not be the worst thing you have
ever done. That picture you are at work on will
sell—why not? Enough of the bad night late,
let us get to the bad night candid and the bad
night deceptive. I have much to say about the last.

It is a bad night candid when one feels, on
going to bed, that one is not going to sleep, and
when one finds, as morning approaches, that the
foreboding has been amply justified. The bad
night candid not uncommonly follows a hard
day's work with the head, and is not a pleasant
or refreshing termination to such labours, by any
means.

But perhaps of all bad nights the most
aggravating is the bad night deceptive. It is
ordinarily preceded by a long walk in the country,
undertaken with a view of improving the health,
and is immediately ushered in by sensations of
intense and overpowering sleepiness, and by
outrageous fits of yawning, which make you long
to feel your head upon the pillow. You deposit
it there, but somehow or other you don't feel
quite so sleepy as you did just now. You are
sleepy, though, you say to yourself—oh yes, very
sleepy—and you try to get up another yawn, but
it is not a successful one at all. You become
about this time a little deceptive yourself, and
begin to meditate in a cajoling manner, with
soothing promises. You draw bills, so to speak,
upon sleep, and endorse them yourself. You
say, dreamily, "How delightful to stretch one's
weary limbs upon the downy couch" (for when
you are humbugging in this way you will, ten to
one, use poetical expressions)—"how delightful
to be in bed at last! After that long walk too.
How many miles, I wonder?"—an easy calculation
is such a good thing to go to sleep upon;
not that you require any elaborate process to
send you off to-night, you are much too sleepy
to need that, thank goodness. "How many
miles?" All this time you are not going to
sleep. You keep your eyes fast shut, though,
and refuse for a long time to take "no" for an
answer. At last you open one eye, and look at
the reflexion of the gas-lamp outside upon the
ceiling of your room. Then you turn round,
and go through the cajoling process upon the
other side. Then you begin to see through it,
and the horrible thought crosses your mind that
you are not so sleepy as you were. You fight
with this idea, but it returns again and again.
You get indignant, and say, in piteous tones,
"Why, I am not going to sleep! And after all
that walking in the open air, and with that
terrible day's work before me to-morrow." After
which you may bid good-by to sleep for many
hours. You are in for the bad night deceptive,
and I wish you joy of it.

There is another form of bad night deceptive,
which is, perhaps, even worse than that already
hinted at. More deceptive, more promising,
more blankly disappointing. You go to bed, as
already described, in a state of extreme sleepiness
at an early hour. You go to sleep at once.
Charming! Nothing like exercise to make a
man sleepy. You wake, and say to yourself,
"What a good night's rest I have had! Let
me see, I went to bed about half-past ten, I
suppose it is now about six in the morning.
Perhaps even later, one never can tell these
winter mornings. Stop! there's the clock
striking now. One—two—three—four—five—
six—ah, I thought so—seven—eight—what,
and not light?—nine—ten—eleven—twelve."
It is midnight, my poor boy, and all your
troubles are before you.

              CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.

A BREAK in the solitude of my existence. My
Crusoe-like isolation interrupted; and in good
time.