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    Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof
    Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof
    Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof
    Ebook61 pages43 minutes

    Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof

    By Franklin H. (Franklin Harvey) Head

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof

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      Book preview

      Shakespeare's Insomnia, and the Causes Thereof - Franklin H. (Franklin Harvey) Head

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes

      Thereof, by Franklin H. Head

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Shakespeare's Insomnia, And the Causes Thereof

      Author: Franklin H. Head

      Release Date: April 11, 2004 [EBook #11990]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA ***

      Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders

      SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA And the Causes Thereof

      BY FRANKLIN H. HEAD

      1887

      Copyright, 1886, BY FRANKLIN H. HEAD.

      [**Transcriber's Note: The following is a literary hoax, and the letters quoted below are fictitious.]

      SHAKESPEARE'S INSOMNIA, AND THE CAUSES THEREOF.

      I.

      Insomnia, the lack of tired Nature's sweet restorer, is rapidly becoming the chronic terror of all men of active life who have passed the age of thirty-five or forty years. In early life, while yet he wears the rose of youth upon him, man rarely, except in sickness, knows the want of sound, undreaming sleep. But as early manhood is left behind and the cares and perplexities of life weigh upon him, making far more needful than ever the rest which comes only through unbroken sleep, this remedial agent cannot longer be wooed and won. Youth would fain encounter darkness as a bride and hug it in his arms. To those of riper years the blanket of the dark often ushers in a season of terrors,—a time of fitful snatches of broken sleep and of tormenting dreams; of long stretches of wakefulness; of hours when all things perplexing and troublesome in one's affairs march before him in sombre procession: in endless disorder, in labyrinths of confusion, in countless new phases of disagreeableness; and at length the morning summons him to labor, far more racked and weary than when he sought repose.

      It has been of late years much the fashion in the literature of this subject to attribute sleeplessness to the rapid growth of facilities for activities of every kind. The practical annihilation of time and space by our telegraphs and railroads, the compressing thereby of the labors of months into hours or even minutes, the terrific competition in all kinds of business thereby made possible and inevitable, the intense mental activity engendered in the mad race for fame or wealth, where the nervous and mental force of man is measured against steam and lightning,—these are usually credited with having developed what is considered a modern and even an almost distinctively American disease.

      As the maxim, There is nothing new under the sun, is of general application, it may be of interest to investigate if an exception occurs in the case of sleeplessness; if it be true that among our ancestors, before the days of working steam and electricity, the glorious sleep of youth was prolonged through all one's three or four score years.

      Medical books and literature throw no light upon this subject three hundred years ago. We must therefore turn to Shakespeare—human nature's universal solvent—for light on this as we would on any other question of his time. Was he troubled with insomnia, then, is the first problem to be solved.

      Dr. Holmes, our genial and many-sided poet-laureate, who is also a philosopher, in his Life of Emerson, has finely worked out the theory that no man writes other than his own experience: that consciously or otherwise an author describes himself in the characters he draws; that when he loves

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