y
in favor of night-work, "If you can work at all at night, one hour at
that time is worth any two in the morning. The house is hushed, the
brain is clear, the distracting influences of the day are at an end.
You have not to disturb yourself with thoughts of what you are about to
do, or what you are about to suffer. You know that there is a gulf
between you and the affairs of the outside world, almost like the chasm
of death; and that you need not take thought of the morrow until the
morrow has come. There are few really great thoughts, such as the world
will not willingly let die, that have not been conceived under the quiet
stars."

The medical objection to night-work in the case of literary men would
probably be that the night is _too_ favorable to literary production.
The author of the Essay just quoted says that at night "you only drift
into deeper silence _and quicker inspiration_. If the right mood is upon
you, _you write on_; if not, your pillow awaits you." Exactly so; that
is to say, the brain, owing to the complete external tranquillity, can
so concentrate its efforts on the subject in hand as to work itself up
into a luminous condition which is fed by the most rapid destruction of
the nervous substance that ever takes place within the walls of a human
skull. "If the right mood is upon you, _you write on_;" in other words,
if you have once well lighted your spirit-lamp, it will go on burning so
long as any spirit is left in it, for the air is so tranquil that
nothing comes to blow it out. You drift into deeper silence and "quicker
inspiration." It is just this quicker inspiration that the physician
dreads.

Against this objection may be placed the equally serious objection to
day-work, that every interruption, when you are particularly anxious not
to be interrupted, causes a definite loss and injury to the nervous
system. The choice must therefore be made between two dangers, and if
they are equally balanced there can be no hesitation, because all the
_literary_ interests of an author are on the side of the most tranquil
time. Literary work is always sure to be much better done when there is
no fear of disturbance than under the apprehension of it; and precisely
the same amount of cerebral effort will produce, when the work is
uninterrupted, not only better writing, but a much greater quantity of
writing. The knowledge that he is working well and productively is an
element of health to every workman because