Inscribed to Miss * * * *, being written at her request

应某某小姐的要求而写

As a great part of our life is spent in sleep, during which we have sometimes pleasant and some times painful dreams, it becomes of some consequence to obtain the one kind and avoid the other, for, whether real or imaginary, pain is pain and pleasure is pleasure. If we can sleep without dreaming, it is well that painful dreams are avoided. If, while we sleep, we can have any pleasing dreams, it is, as the French say, autant de gagné, so much added to the pleasure of life.

由于我们生活中的很大一部分时间是在睡眠中度过的，而在此期间我们有时会做愉快的梦，有时会做痛苦的梦，因此获得一种梦境并避免另一种梦境就显得尤为重要，因为无论是真实的还是想象的，痛苦就是痛苦，快乐就是快乐。如果我们能在没有梦的情况下入睡，那么痛苦的梦就被避免了。如果在我们睡觉时能做一些愉快的梦，那就像法国人所说的那样，autant de gagné，增加了生活的乐趣。

To this end it is, in the first place, necessary to[Pg 32] be careful in preserving health, by due exercise and great temperance; for in sickness the imagination is disturbed, and disagreeable, sometimes terrible, ideas are apt to present themselves. Exercise should precede meals, not immediately follow them; the first promotes, the latter, unless moderate, obstructs digestion. If, after exercise, we feed sparingly, the digestion will be easy and good, the body lightsome, the temper cheerful, and all the animal functions performed agreeably. Sleep, when it follows, will be natural and undisturbed; while indolence, with full feeding, occasions nightmares and horrors inexpressible; we fall from precipices, are assaulted by wild beasts, murderers, and demons, and experience every variety of distress. Observe, however, that the quantities of food and exercise are relative things; those who move much may, and, indeed, ought to, eat more; those who use little exercise should eat little. In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eat about twice as much as nature requires. Suppers are not bad if we have not dined; but restless nights naturally follow hearty suppers after full dinners. Indeed, as there is a difference in constitutions, some rest well after these meals; it costs them only a frightful dream and an apoplexy, after which they sleep till doomsday. Nothing is more common in the newspapers than instances of people who, after eating a hearty supper, are found dead abed in the morning.

为此，首先必须通过适当的锻炼和极大的节制来注意保持健康；因为在生病时，想象力会受到干扰，不愉快，有时可怕的想法容易出现。锻炼应在饭前进行，而不是紧随其后；前者促进消化，后者除非适度，否则会妨碍消化。如果在锻炼后少量进食，消化会轻松良好，身体轻盈，情绪愉快，所有生理功能都能愉快地进行。随之而来的睡眠将是自然且不受干扰的；而懒惰加上过量进食，会导致噩梦和无法形容的恐惧；我们从悬崖上跌落，被野兽、凶手和恶魔袭击，经历各种痛苦。然而，请注意，食物和锻炼的量是相对的；活动多的人可以，也确实应该多吃；运动少的人应该少吃。总的来说，自从烹饪技术的改进以来，人类的饮食量大约是自然所需的两倍。 如果我们没有吃晚餐，晚餐也不算坏；但在丰盛的晚餐后，丰盛的晚餐自然会导致不安的夜晚。确实，由于体质的差异，有些人在这些餐后休息得很好；他们只需付出一个可怕的梦和一次中风的代价，之后他们就会一直睡到世界末日。在报纸上，最常见的莫过于那些在吃了一顿丰盛的晚餐后，早上被发现死在床上的人。

Another means of preserving health, to be attended to, is the having a constant supply of fresh air in your bedchamber. It has been a great mistake, the sleeping in rooms exactly closed, and in beds surrounded by curtains. No outward air that may come in to you is so unwholesome as the unchanged air, often breathed, of a close chamber. As boiling water does not grow hotter by longer boiling, if the particles that receive greater heat[Pg 33] can escape, so living bodies do not putrefy if the particles, so fast as they become putrid, can be thrown off. Nature expels them by the pores of the skin and the lungs, and in a free, open air they are carried off; but in a close room we receive them again and again, though they become more and more corrupt. A number of persons crowded into a small room thus spoil the air in a few minutes and even render it mortal, as in the Black Hole at Calcutta. A single person is said to spoil only a gallon of air per minute, and therefore requires a longer time to spoil a bedchamber-full; but it is done, however, in proportion, and many putrid disorders hence have their origin. It is recorded of Methusalem, who, being the longest liver, may be supposed to have best preserved his health, that he slept always in the open air; for, when he had lived five hundred years, an angel said to him, "Arise, Methusalem, and build thee a house, for thou shalt live yet five hundred years longer." But Methusalem answered and said, "If I am to live but five hundred years longer, it is not worth while to build me a house; I will sleep in the air, as I have been used to do." Physicians, after having for ages contended that the sick should not be indulged with fresh air, have at length discovered that it may do them good. It is therefore to be hoped that they may in time discover likewise that it is not hurtful to those who are in health, and that we may then be cured of the aerophoba, that at present distresses weak minds, and makes them choose to be stifled and poisoned rather than leave open the window of a bedchamber or put down the glass of a coach.

保持健康的另一种方法是确保卧室内有持续的新鲜空气供应。完全封闭的房间和被帘子围住的床是一个很大的错误。没有什么外来的空气比封闭房间里经常呼吸的未改变的空气更不健康。就像沸水在更长时间的沸腾中不会变得更热，如果接收到更高热量的颗粒可以逃逸一样，活体也不会腐败，如果腐败的颗粒能够迅速被排出。自然通过皮肤和肺部的毛孔将它们排出，在自由开放的空气中它们被带走；但在封闭的房间里，我们一次又一次地吸入它们，尽管它们变得越来越腐败。许多人挤在一个小房间里会在几分钟内破坏空气，甚至使其致命，就像加尔各答的黑洞一样。据说一个人每分钟只会破坏一加仑的空气，因此需要更长的时间来破坏一个卧室的空气；但无论如何，它是按比例完成的，许多腐败的疾病因此而起。 据记载，玛土撒拉是最长寿的人，可能是因为他最能保持健康，他总是睡在露天；因为当他活到五百岁时，一个天使对他说：“起来，玛土撒拉，给自己建一座房子，因为你还要再活五百年。”但玛土撒拉回答说：“如果我只能再活五百年，那就不值得为自己建房子；我会像以前一样在露天睡觉。”医生们经过多年的争论，认为病人不应享受新鲜空气，最终发现新鲜空气可能对他们有益。因此，希望他们也能及时发现，新鲜空气对健康的人无害，这样我们就可以治愈目前困扰弱者的空气恐惧症，使他们宁愿窒息和中毒，也不愿打开卧室的窗户或放下马车的玻璃。

Confined air, when saturated with perspirable matter,[1] will not receive more; and that matter[Pg 34] must remain in our bodies and occasion diseases; but it gives some previous notice of its being about to be hurtful, by producing certain uneasiness, slight indeed at first, such as with regard to the lungs is a trifling sensation, and to the pores of the skin a kind of restlessness, which is difficult to describe, and few that feel it know the cause of it. But we may recollect that sometimes, on waking in the night, we have, if warmly covered, found it difficult to get asleep again. We turn often, without finding repose in any position. This fidgetiness (to use a vulgar expression for want of a better) is occasioned wholly by an uneasiness in the skin, owing to the retention of the perspirable matter, the bedclothes having received their quantity, and, being saturated, refusing to take any more. To become sensible of this by an experiment, let a person keep his position in the bed, but throw off the bedclothes, and suffer fresh air to approach the part uncovered of his body; he will then feel that part suddenly refreshed; for the air will immediately relieve the skin, by receiving, licking up, and carrying off, the load of perspirable matter that incommoded it. For every portion of cool air that approaches the warm skin, in receiving its portion of that vapour, receives therewith a degree of heat that rarefies and renders it lighter, when it will be pushed away, with its burden, by cooler and, therefore, heavier fresh air, which for a moment supplies its place, and then, being likewise changed and warmed, gives way to a succeeding quantity. This is the order of nature, to prevent animals being infected by their own perspiration. He will now be sensible of the difference between the part exposed to the air and that which, remaining sunk in the bed, denies the air access; for this part now manifests[Pg 35] its uneasiness more distinctly by the comparison, and the seat of the uneasiness is more plainly perceived than when the whole surface of the body was affected by it.

当空气被汗液饱和时，[1] 将不再接纳更多；而这些物质[Pg 34] 必须留在我们的身体中并引起疾病；但它在即将有害之前会发出一些预警，最初确实是轻微的，例如对肺部来说是一种微不足道的感觉，而对皮肤的毛孔来说是一种难以描述的烦躁感，感受到的人很少知道其原因。但我们可能会回忆起，有时在夜间醒来时，如果盖得很暖和，会发现很难再次入睡。我们经常翻身，却在任何姿势中都找不到安宁。这种烦躁不安（用一个通俗的表达来形容）完全是由于皮肤的不适引起的，因为汗液被滞留，床单已经吸收了它们的量，并且由于饱和而拒绝再吸收更多。 为了通过实验感知这一点，让一个人保持在床上的位置，但掀开被褥，让新鲜空气接触他身体裸露的部分；他会感到那部分突然清爽，因为空气会立即通过吸收、舔舐并带走妨碍它的汗液负担来缓解皮肤。每一部分接近温暖皮肤的凉空气，在接收其蒸汽的一部分时，也接收了一定程度的热量，使其膨胀并变得更轻，然后被更凉、更重的新鲜空气推开，暂时取代其位置，然后同样被改变和加热，给后续的空气让路。这是自然的秩序，以防止动物被自己的汗液感染。他现在会感受到暴露在空气中的部分与仍然沉浸在床中、拒绝空气进入的部分之间的差异；因为通过比较，这部分现在更清楚地表现出不适感，并且不适感的部位比当整个身体表面受到影响时更明显地被感知到。

Here, then, is one great and general cause of unpleasing dreams. For when the body is uneasy, the mind will be disturbed by it, and disagreeable ideas of various kinds will in sleep be the natural consequences. The remedies, preventive and curative, follow:

因此，这就是令人不悦的梦的一个重要而普遍的原因。因为当身体不适时，心灵会因此受到干扰，各种不愉快的想法在睡眠中将成为自然的结果。预防和治疗的方法如下：

1. By eating moderately (as before advised for health's sake), less perspirable matter is produced in a given time; hence the bedclothes receive it longer before they are saturated, and we may therefore sleep longer before we are made uneasy by their refusing to receive any more.

1.通过适度饮食（如之前为健康建议的那样），在给定时间内产生的可排汗物质较少；因此，床上用品在饱和之前接收的时间更长，因此我们可以睡得更久，而不会因其拒绝再接收而感到不适。

2. By using thinner and more porous bedclothes, which will suffer the perspirable matter more easily to pass through them, we are less incommoded, such being longer tolerable.

2. 通过使用更薄且更透气的床上用品，可以更容易地让汗液通过，我们会感到不那么不适，这样可以忍受更长时间。

3. When you are awakened by this uneasiness, and find you cannot easily sleep again, get out of bed, beat up and turn your pillow, shake the bedclothes well, with at least twenty shakes, then throw the bed open and leave it to cool; in the mean while, continuing undressed, walk about your chamber till your skin has had time to discharge its load, which it will do sooner as the air may be drier and colder. When you begin to feel the cold air unpleasant, then return to your bed, and you will soon fall asleep, and your sleep will be sweet and pleasant. All the scenes presented to your fancy will be, too, of the pleasing kind. I am often as agreeably entertained with them as by the scenery of an opera. If you happen to be too indolent to get out of bed, you may, instead of it, lift up your bedclothes with one arm and leg, so as to draw in a good deal of fresh air, and, by letting them fall, force it out again. This, repeated twenty times,[Pg 36] will so clear them of the perspirable matter they have imbibed, as to permit your sleeping well for some time afterward. But this latter method is not equal to the former.

3. 当你被这种不安惊醒，发现无法轻易再次入睡时，起床，把枕头拍打并翻转，把被褥好好抖动至少二十次，然后把床铺打开让其冷却；同时，继续不穿衣服，在房间里走动，直到你的皮肤有时间排出负担，空气越干燥和寒冷，这个过程就越快。当你开始感到冷空气不舒服时，就回到床上，你很快就会入睡，而且你的睡眠会甜美愉快。所有呈现在你幻想中的场景也会是令人愉悦的。我常常被它们愉快地娱乐，就像歌剧的场景一样。如果你碰巧太懒而不愿起床，你可以用一只手臂和一条腿抬起被褥，以便吸入大量新鲜空气，然后让它们落下，再次将空气排出。这样重复二十次，[Pg 36]会清除它们吸收的汗液，使你之后能睡得很好。但这种后者的方法不如前者。

Those who do not love trouble, and can afford to have two beds, will find great luxury in rising, when they wake in a hot bed, and going into the cool one. Such shifting of beds would also be of great service to persons ill of a fever, as it refreshes and frequently procures sleep. A very large bed, that will admit a removal so distant from the first situation as to be cool and sweet, may in a degree answer the same end.

那些不喜欢麻烦并且能够负担得起两张床的人，会发现当他们在热床上醒来时，起床并进入凉爽的床是一种极大的享受。对于发烧的病人来说，这种换床也会大有裨益，因为它能使人精神焕发并常常带来睡意。一张非常大的床，可以让人从第一个位置移到一个凉爽和舒适的地方，在一定程度上也能达到同样的效果。

One or two observations more will conclude this little piece. Care must be taken, when you lie down, to dispose your pillow so as to suit your manner of placing your head, and to be perfectly easy; then place your limbs so as not to bear inconveniently hard upon one another, as, for instance, the joints of your ancles; for, though a bad position may at first give but little pain and be hardly noticed, yet a continuance will render it less tolerable, and the uneasiness may come on while you are asleep, and disturb your imagination. These are the rules of the art. But, though they will generally prove effectual in producing the end intended, there is a case in which the most punctual observance of them will be totally fruitless. I need not mention the case to you, my dear friend, but my account of the art would be imperfect without it. The case is, when the person who desires to have pleasant dreams has not taken care to preserve, what is necessary above all things,

再多观察一两点就可以结束这篇小文章了。躺下时必须小心调整枕头，以适应你放置头部的方式，并确保完全舒适；然后将四肢放置得不至于相互压得太紧，例如脚踝的关节；因为虽然不良的姿势起初可能只会带来轻微的疼痛且几乎不被注意，但长时间保持会使其变得难以忍受，而不适感可能在你睡着时出现，并扰乱你的想象。这些是这门艺术的规则。但是，尽管它们通常能有效地达到预期的目的，但有一种情况，即使最严格地遵守这些规则也完全无效。我不需要向你提及这种情况，我亲爱的朋友，但如果不提到它，我对这门艺术的描述就不完整。这种情况是，当想要做美梦的人没有注意保持最重要的东西时，

A Good Conscience.

良心无愧。

[1] What physicians call perspirable matter is that vapour which passes off from our bodies, from the lungs, and through the pores of the skin. The quantity of this is said to be five eighths of what we eat.—Author.

1] 医生所称的“可排泄物质”是指从我们身体中排出的蒸汽，来自肺部，并通过皮肤的毛孔排出。据说这一物质的量是我们所吃食物的五分之三。——作者