Night shift

“ Those on the night shift are asleep when the sun pours its life and warmth over the world, while those on the day shift are at the machines before dawn and return to their miserable dens, called “homes,” after dark. Many receive no more than ten cents a day. There are babies who work for five and six cents a day. Those who work on the night shift are often kept awake by having cold water dashed in their faces. ”

“ Crawl out half-way at night before moonrise and get into touch with the chaps we send out. Blaze at 'em if they tried to shift, and so bag some of 'em in the daylight. Learn that patch of ground by heart, lie all day in squatty holes, and come on nearer next night. ”

“ Night was the best time, and, when substitute guards chanced to be on, we often talked through a whole shift.
Night and day were one with us who lived in the dark. We could sleep any time, we could knuckle-talk only on occasion. ”

“ You think you will enjoy the evening twilight an hour or two before going to bed, and lo! the morning begins to dawn. It seems absurd to turn in and sleep by daylight, but you sleep, nevertheless, until eight or nine o'clock, and get up but little refreshed with your repose. You miss the grateful covering of darkness, the sweet, welcome gloom, which shuts your senses, one after one, like the closing petals of a flower, in the restoring trance of the night. The light comes through your eyelids as you sleep, and a certain nervous life of the body that should sleep too keeps awake and active. ”

“ I shall think often now of those whose watch is by night—not with any pity, for it is a strange, quiet life, but a happy one. I only knew it in a rather dead season, not in the busy time when trains were coming in and patients arriving nightly. There the night staff has small time for reflection. The hours pass in a whirl of bed-baths, dressings, and settlement. ”

“ He stood for a moment oblivious to everything: the evening bird fluttering among the rafters, the song of the nightingale without, the sighing wind in the tower entry, the rustics in the doorway, the group in the choir. Presently he became conscious of the words sung:
“A thousand ages in Thy sight Are like an evening gone; Short as the watch that ends the night Before the rising sun. “Time, like an ever-rolling stream, Bears all its sons away; They fly, forgotten, as a dream Dies at the opening day.” ”

“ Nor is it necessary to send them to bed at the very time when all nature awakens from the torpid influence of the day-star; sleep in the atmosphere of a stifling bedroom would bring no rest and no pleasant dreams. But an hour after sunset there will be a change; the night-wind rises and the fainting land revives; cool air is a febrifuge and Nature's remedy for the dyspeptic influences of a sultry day. Open every window, and let your children share the luxury of the last evening hour; after breathing the fresh night-air for a while, they will sleep in peace. ”

“ Nor is it proper for the healthy to pursue those occupations in the evening, which are attended with proportionally greater fatigue of mind or body: such pursuits ought to bo followed in the morning, and the easiest purposely deferred to the latter part of the day; an arrangement by which a more composed and refreshing night's rest will be ensured. Beside this inconvenience, the eyes necessarily suffer from candle-light.—See also Bed-time. ”

“ The great wheel was at rest, as I love best to see it in the later afternoon; the splash and churn of the water belong rather to the morning hours. It is the chief mistake we make in portioning out our day that we banish rest to the night-time, which is for sleep and recreating, instead of setting apart the later afternoon and quiet twilight hours for the stretching of weary limbs and repose of tired mind after a day's toil that should begin and end at five. ”

“ Those who go to bed at midnight or thereafter use several hours of daylight in the early morning for sleeping. I realize that there are nocturnal animals and that the human race has developed nocturnal habits to a certain extent, but the human race and the animal life of the world generally have followed the habit through the ages of sleeping at night. Without doubt a revolutionary change in this habit has more or less effect upon the restful character of our sleep. ”

“ The orange hue of the western horizon remains till ten o'clock, at least, and how much later I am unable to say. The night before last, I could distinguish letters by this lingering gleam between nine and ten o'clock. The dawn, I suppose, shows itself as early as two o'clock, so that the absolute dominion of night has dwindled to almost nothing. There seems to be also a diminished necessity, or, at all events, a much less possibility, of sleep than at other periods of the year. I get scarcely any sound repose just now. It is summer, and not winter, that steals away mortal life. ”

“ But how does the exquisite spend his hours? It may be safely asserted that midnight very often passes before he seeks his bed, after the fatigues of the day and night—and that the sun has mounted high in the meridian before he awakes from slumbers which are not refreshing. ”

“ An hour at noon? Of course, this magnificent hour is theirs! Time to eat, time to feed the human machine. One hour in which to stretch limbs, to pull to upright posture the bent body. Meanwhile daylight progresses from glowing beauty to high noon, and there the acme of brilliance seems to pause, as freed humanity stares half-blinded at God's midday rest.
All the remaining hours of daylight are for the leisure world. Not till night claims Lynn shall the factory girl be free.
Ascending the five flights of dirty stairs, my steps fell side by side those of a young workman in drilling coat. ”

“ Every hour differs from the last. There is a time just between three o’clock and five when all the vibrations of the earth change. It seems the good-bye of the night and the awakening of the day. Day holds night in some subtle, lingering embrace that will not let go until the very gray of the dawn drives the reluctant darkness from the earth. ”

“ Just keep your ears open any time after midnight, when you are lying in bed in a lone attic of a dark night. What horrid, strange, suggestive, unaccountable noises you will hear! The stillness of night is a vulgar error. All the dead things seem to be alive. ”

“ Yes; this wonderful "ball of light"—so bright that the brightest light we know of looks dull when held up before its dazzling face—is ever, night and day, sending out rays of light and heat, like streams from an overflowing fountain, always making daylight somewhere. When you lie down in your bed, and settle yourself to sleep sound till morning, your little cousins in Australia and New Zealand are just beginning to sit up in theirs, and to rub their eyes, and think it will soon be breakfast time; and in the evening, when their day is done, yours will be just beginning again. ”

“ The drowsy heat of the afternoon invites to slumber as the cool hours before the noon of night invite to music, reverie, or sentimental conversation, and our midsummer-night dreams would be no worse for a moonlight ramble on the mountains or in the garden-suburbs of a large city. ”

“ This is without counting the seven nights of the last week, during which there were observers for longer or shorter periods in the house, none of whom recorded any sight or sound of a supernormal kind, unless it were the percussive or detonating noise heard by Mr. "Etienne."
The term "night" is here understood to cover the period between the hour of going to rest at night, to that of leaving one's room next morning, even if the phenomena occurred in the daylight hours of the early morning. The term "day" is used to cover the hours of active, waking life, from breakfast to bedtime. ”

“ It adds somewhat to one's experiences to be roused from uneasy slumber at midnight with notice to alight. You feel for umbrella and knapsack, and step down into the chill gloom of a summer night; and while the leisurely work of changing goes on, stroll a little way up or down the roughly-paved street, looking at the strange old houses, all so still and lifeless, as if they were fast asleep as well as their inmates. Why should you be awake and shivering when honest folk are a-bed? ”

“ I went to bed at ten o'clock, for the purpose of securing a good night's rest, and of being fresh and vigorous in the morning, but eleven, twelve, and one found me wide awake; nor could I have lain in a state of unconsciousness much above an hour when the sound of the bugle restored me to my senses. ”

“ To look forward to luncheon and an afternoon nap, to anticipate dinner and then digest it, makes the day run with pleasant monotony into the night. And night is worth the inspection. The beds in the train are comfortable enough, but the night is vested with misty beauty, and its fascination woos the traveller from his rest. There is the roar of the engine, the rumble of the carriages, the buzz of insects, and the faint rustle of the night wind over the plains. ”

“ It won't do for either of us to watch all night and be sleepy all day. We can split the night up into tricks. It isn't dark until seven and the days are getting longer. We'll make the first watch from dark until midnight, then midnight to four in the morning, and a short trick from four until daylight. We can make up lost sleep in the afternoons. ”

“ The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night. ”

“ But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. ”

“ At ten o'clock she lay down upon her bed, fully dressed, and put out her light; but she dared not fall asleep lest she miss her train. At times she lighted a match and looked at her watch and it surprised her to realize how long a night can be when one is watching for daybreak. ”

“ Night is the city's disease.
The streets and the people one sees
Glow with a light that is strangely inhuman;
A fever that never grows cold.
Heaven completes the disgrace;
For now, with her star-pitted face,
Night has the leer of a dissolute woman,
Cynical, moon-scarred and old.
And I think of the country roads;
Of the quiet, sleeping abodes,
Where every tree is a silent brother
And the hearth is a thing to cling to.
And I sicken and long for it now—
To feel clean winds on my brow,
Where Night bends low, like an all-wise mother
Looking for children to sing to. ”

“ Time flies and morning succeeds the night, but no bill is rendered, and every artifice and trick is employed to detain the guest, until the latter, overcome with saké and fatigue, rolls over on the floor in a drunken sleep. ”

“ The general aspect of midnight is calm and solemn; the lulled spirits unconsciously are subdued by the deep repose. Not so this night. The keen air from the water made exercise necessary to circulate the blood; and somewhat of cheerful exertion is connected with a fresh gale and a quick walk. ”

“ I made that awning myself out of a sail. I bring my books here and read. Sometimes I sit here half the night instead of going to bed—that is, when the nightingales are singing in the orange-trees. My grandfather will always have the house-door shut and bolted by eight o'clock, even in summer. So I come here; it seems such folly to go to bed in the short nights, they are as bright as day. ”

“ Eleven o’clock at night is the great supper-time of the working classes; then, by the steady and industrious mechanic, the final calumet is smoked, the borrowed newspaper read, the topics of the day, the prospects of the coming week, discussed with the cheery and hard-working helpmate who sits by the side of her horny-handed lord, fills his pipe, pours out his beer, and darns the little children’s hose. ”

“ During the cold, chilly nights, those not fortunate enough to possess a blanket were compelled to walk to and fro the entire night to keep warm, thus pacing off the long, weary hours while waiting for the dawn, and, when the sun was up, lie down and sleep beneath his cheering rays, and so prepare themselves for another night’s tramp. ”

“ The Man in the Moon’s Party “It had been the first hot day. Even the sun felt tired. That may sound very strange, to think of the sun feeling tired,” said daddy. “But still can’t you imagine that on the first hot day that comes, when the sun has been shining with all his might and main he gets a little bit tired and is glad when it is time to go to bed? Many strong people may get tired at night.
“As the sun went to bed, the moon began to peep up and laugh. ”

“ Hence the sensations of evening [151] are different from those of morning. We have enjoyed the light and been positive during the day; when night advances, we become passive in the enveloping darkness, and enter a state twin sister to death, to arise in the morning again to meet the positive day.
Sleep during the night is more restoring than during the day—a distinction recognized by animals and plants. Night is no more terrible than day, yet the mind, oppressed by the negative condition then imposed on all things, peoples it with fancies. ”

“ The evening was spent in playing a few games, and in talking and telling stories. Everyone was too tired to stay up long, after the day's trip, and so "early to bed" was the rule, for the first night at least. ”

“ The cool night air envelops the shed and enters in through the doors, restoring the normal temperature, though, if the night be muggy, there will be scarcely any diminution of the punishment till the early morning, when there is always a cooling down of the atmosphere. ”