Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 July 1899 — THEY COMPOSE IN BED. [ARTICLE]

THEY COMPOSE IN BED.

Some of the Best Ideas Come to Authors While Half Awake. Most people, if asked the question, would say that “bed” was the place to rest in, not to work. And though this is true of the great majority of }>eople, there is> still a decent modicum est who find “bed” a very congenial place in which' to do their work, or a great part of it, and who, in fact, do not disguise the truth that they can work there very effectively, says a writer in Pearson’s Weekly. This plan was followed by the great poet Campbell, who tells us that he lay awake thinking of his projected poem, “Lochiel,” when there came into his mind, with other poetic thoughts, the idea of the shadows in the room “showing up” as the day began to break, and he at once jumped out of bed and wrote down what has since become a world-wide proverb: “Coming events cast their shadows before.” Many writers owe much of their success to clever plots and articles which have been begun, worked out and finally set into proper form during the time that their authors lay between the blankets. The writings afterward have often been merely mechanical, and even much of that was done in bed; the setting of the plot and the dialogue was the chief thing, as'most writers know too well. “I trust you will excuse me,” said a ! celebrated doctor lately to a friend who had called to see him early, and who, on being asked to go up to his bedroom, found the physician still enjoying the comfort of the sheets. “Kindly sit down, my boy, for a minute, till I’ve done answering these letters. I have my letters brought up immediately when they arrive in the morning, and I go over them in bed and put down the replies in pencil on the back of them. Then when my secretary arrives at nine he has nothing to-do but go and answer them. As you know, I am kept busy from ten o’clock, when I first appear downstairs, till late at night, and this plan, you see, saves me nearly an hour’s work with him.” That students often “burn the midnight oil” in bed is a fact commonly known, but few are aware of the length to which this is carried out, especially in colleges. I know a college in London where any night one cofild find 30 or 40 men all working in bed, with note books, manuals, pencils ahd all in full rig-out, many of them having their writing desks before them on the bed. The contrivances for turning out the gas without getting out of bed when work is done would do credit to the ingenuity of an. Edison. “And where did you ever find time to get your classical authors and do your mathematical problems so thoroughly as to gain distinction?” said I to a London university man, who had graduated a few years ago, "with distinguished honors.” For I knew he had worked hard at his own business all day from nine till five. “In bed, old fellow, in bed!” said he. “I used to lie awake in the morning for an hour before getting up, and employed the time in thinking over the Euclidian, ‘riders’ and ‘oonio’

problem-; that had puzzled me. Almost invariably I worked their solution out in my brain without paper or pencil while lying in bed. Andeveijr night before I went to sleep I went over so many dozen Greek verbs an 4 Latin annotations till they were aK just like the multiplication table to me.” There is another class of men who work much in bed, viz., the legal fraternity. Not very long ago a leading Q. C. in an important case only got his brief delivered the night before the ease came on for trial at Manchester assizes, and yet, to everybody’s aotpnishment, he showed next day a most surprising grasp of the case, and dealt so successfully with it and the witnesses engaged in it as to bring off bis client successfully. Asked as to how he had been able to master such an intricate brief in one night, thp Q. C. replied: “Took it to bed with me and went over it this morning.”