Study Edition · Essay 41
Getting Up on Cold Mornings
Source: The Indicator, 19 January 1820. Text from Project Gutenberg #32267 (an anthology of English essays). Complete. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
Leigh Hunt was a journalist, poet and friend of Keats, Shelley and Lamb. He ran a small weekly paper called The Indicator, and this is its most famous piece. It is a mock-serious defence of staying in bed on a freezing winter morning, written in the voice of a lazy gentleman who argues every point while the servant fetches hot water and airs his shirt. Notice how Hunt uses the comic dialogue and the long list of bearded great men to make delay itself funny. The essay ends with a sly little twist.
69 sentences: 29 simple, 23 moderate, 17 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- abominablevery unpleasant; hateful
- candidlyhonestly and openly
- dogmaticallyin a way that insists one is right and allows no argument
- enticingattractive; tempting
- decumbencythe state of lying down (a mock-learned word)
- transitiona change from one state to another
- proprietycorrect, proper behaviour
- officioustoo eager to help or give orders
- incumbentone who lies on something; also a clergyman holding a parish (a pun)
- effeminateunmanly; soft
- visageface
- otioseidle; at leisure
- amplitudefullness; spaciousness
- ewera large water jug
- longevitylong life
- sophisticatehere, to argue cleverly but misleadingly
- confoundingconfusing; defeating an argument
- disinterestednot influenced by personal advantage
- corpulentfat
The Essay
An Italian author, Giulio Cordara, a Jesuit, has written a poem upon insects, which he begins by insisting, that those troublesome and abominable little animals were created for our annoyance, and that they were certainly not inhabitants of Paradise.1 We of the north may dispute this piece of theology; but on the other hand, it is clear as the snow on the house-tops, that Adam was not under the necessity of shaving; and that when Eve walked out of her delicious bower, she did not step upon ice three inches thick.2
Some people say it is a very easy thing to get up of a cold morning.3 You have only, they tell you, to take the resolution; and the thing is done.4 This may be very true; just as a boy at school has only to take a flogging, and the thing is over.5 But we have not at all made up our minds upon it; and we find it a very pleasant exercise to discuss the matter, candidly, before we get up.6 This at least is not idling, though it may be lying.7 It affords an excellent answer to those, who ask how lying in bed can be indulged in by a reasoning being, a rational creature.8 How?9 Why with the argument calmly at work in one's head, and the clothes over one's shoulder.10 Oh, it is a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial half-hour.11
If these people would be more charitable, they would get on with their argument better.12 But they are apt to reason so ill, and to assert so dogmatically, that one could wish to have them stand round one's bed of a bitter morning, and lie before their faces.13 They ought to hear both sides of the bed, the inside and out.14 If they cannot entertain themselves with their own thoughts for half an hour or so, it is not the fault of those who can.15 If their will is never pulled aside by the enticing arms of imagination, so much the luckier for the stage-coachman.16
Candid inquiries into one's decumbency, besides the greater or less privileges to be allowed a man in proportion to his ability of keeping early hours, the work given his faculties, etc., will at least concede their due merits to such representations as the following.17 In the first place, says the injured but calm appealer, I have been warm all night, and find my system in a state perfectly suitable to a warm-blooded animal.18 To get out of this state into the cold, besides the inharmonious and uncritical abruptness of the transition, is so unnatural to such a creature, that the poets, refining upon the tortures of the damned, make one of their greatest agonies consist in being suddenly transported from heat to cold, from fire to ice.19 They are “haled” out of their “beds,” says Milton, by “harpy-footed furies,” fellows who come to call them.20 On my first movement towards the anticipation of getting up, I find that such parts of the sheets and bolster, as are exposed to the air of the room, are stone-cold.21 On opening my eyes, the first thing that meets them is my own breath rolling forth, as if in the open air, like smoke out of a cottage chimney.22 Think of this symptom.23 Then I turn my eyes sideways and see the window all frozen over.24 Think of that.25 Then the servant comes in.26 “It is very cold this morning, is it not?” “Very cold, Sir.” “Very cold indeed, isn't it?” “Very cold indeed, Sir.” “More than usually so, isn't it, even for this weather?”27 (Here the servant's wit and good-nature are put to a considerable test, and the inquirer lies on thorns for the answer.)28 “Why, Sir… I think it is.”29 (Good creature! There is not a better, or more truth-telling servant going.)30 “I must rise, however; get me some warm water.”31 Here comes a fine interval between the departure of the servant and the arrival of the hot water; during which, of course, it is of “no use” to get up.32 The hot water comes.33 “Is it quite hot?” “Yes, Sir.” “Perhaps too hot for shaving: I must wait a little?” “No, Sir; it will just do.”34 (There is an over-nice propriety sometimes, an officious zeal of virtue, a little troublesome.)35 “Oh, the shirt: you must air my clean shirt; linen gets very damp this weather.” “Yes, Sir.”36 Here another delicious five minutes.37 A knock at the door.38 “Oh, the shirt, very well. My stockings: I think the stockings had better be aired too.” “Very well, Sir.”39 Here another interval.40 At length everything is ready, except myself.41 I now, continues our incumbent (a happy word, by the bye, for a country vicar), I now cannot help thinking a good deal, who can?, upon the unnecessary and villainous custom of shaving: it is a thing so unmanly (here I nestle closer), so effeminate (here I recoil from an unlucky step into the colder part of the bed).42 No wonder that the Queen of France took part with the rebels against the degenerate King, her husband, who first affronted her smooth visage with a face like her own.43 The Emperor Julian never showed the luxuriancy of his genius to better advantage than in reviving the flowing beard.44 Look at Cardinal Bembo's picture, at Michael Angelo's, at Titian's, at Shakespeare's, at Fletcher's, at Spenser's, at Chaucer's, at Alfred's, at Plato's: I could name a great man for every tick of my watch.45 Look at the Turks, a grave and otiose people.46 Think of Haroun Al Raschid and Bed-ridden Hassan.47 Think of Wortley Montagu, the worthy son of his mother, a man above the prejudice of his time.48 Look at the Persian gentlemen, whom one is ashamed of meeting about the suburbs, their dress and appearance are so much finer than our own.49 Lastly, think of the razor itself, how totally opposed to every sensation of bed, how cold, how edgy, how hard! how utterly different from anything like the warm and circling amplitude, which / Sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses.50
Add to this, benumbed fingers, which may help you to cut yourself, a quivering body, a frozen towel, and a ewer full of ice; and he that says there is nothing to oppose in all this, only shows, at any rate, that he has no merit in opposing it.51
Thomson the poet, who exclaims in his Seasons, / Falsely luxurious! Will not man awake? / used to lie in bed till noon, because he said he had no motive in getting up.52 He could imagine the good of rising; but then he could also imagine the good of lying still; and his exclamation, it must be allowed, was made upon summer-time, not winter.53 We must proportion the argument to the individual character.54 A money-getter may be drawn out of his bed by three and four pence; but this will not suffice for a student.55 A proud man may say, “What shall I think of myself, if I don't get up?” but the more humble one will be content to waive this prodigious notion of himself, out of respect to his kindly bed.56 The mechanical man shall get up without any ado at all; and so shall the barometer.57 An ingenious lier in bed will find hard matter of discussion even on the score of health and longevity.58 He will ask us for our proofs and precedents of the ill effects of lying later in cold weather; and sophisticate much on the advantages of an even temperature of body; of the natural propensity (pretty universal) to have one's way; and of the animals that roll themselves up, and sleep all the winter.59 As to longevity, he will ask whether the longest life is of necessity the best; and whether Holborn is the handsomest street in London.60
We only know of one confounding, not to say confounded argument, fit to overturn the huge luxury, the “enormous bliss,” of the vice in question.61 A lier in bed may be allowed to profess a disinterested indifference for his health or longevity; but while he is showing the reasonableness of consulting his own or one person's comfort, he must admit the proportionate claim of more than one; and the best way to deal with him is this, especially for a lady; for we earnestly recommend the use of that sex on such occasions, if not somewhat over-persuasive; since extremes have an awkward knack of meeting.62 First then, admit all the ingeniousness of what he says, telling him that the bar has been deprived of an excellent lawyer.63 Then look at him in the most good-natured manner in the world, with a mixture of assent and appeal in your countenance, and tell him that you are waiting breakfast for him; that you never like to breakfast without him; that you really want it too; that the servants want theirs; that you shall not know how to get the house into order, unless he rises; and that you are sure he would do things twenty times worse, even than getting out of his warm bed, to put them all into good humour and a state of comfort.64 Then, after having said this, throw in the comparatively indifferent matter, to him, about his health; but tell him that it is no indifferent matter to you; that the sight of his illness makes more people suffer than one; but that if, nevertheless, he really does feel so very sleepy and so very much refreshed by—— Yet stay; we hardly know whether the frailty of a—— Yes, yes; say that too, especially if you say it with sincerity; for if the weakness of human nature on the one hand and the vis inertiae on the other, should lead him to take advantage of it once or twice, good-humour and sincerity form an irresistible junction at last; and are still better and warmer things than pillows and blankets.65
Other little helps of appeal may be thrown in, as occasion requires.66 You may tell a lover, for instance, that lying in bed makes people corpulent; a father, that you wish him to complete the fine manly example he sets his children; a lady, that she will injure her bloom or her shape, which M. or W. admires so much; and a student or artist, that he is always so glad to have done a good day's work, in his best manner.67
Reader. And pray, Mr. Indicator, how do you behave yourself in this respect?68 Indic. Oh, Madam, perfectly, of course; like all advisers.69
Sentence Notes
In plain English: An Italian Jesuit writer, Giulio Cordara, wrote a poem about insects in which he insists at the start that those annoying, hateful little creatures were made to bother us, and that they certainly did not live in the Garden of Eden.
Reference & context: Giulio Cesare Cordara (1704–1785), Italian Jesuit historian and poet.
In plain English: We northerners might argue with that bit of theology, but it is perfectly obvious that Adam never had to shave, and that when Eve walked out of her lovely garden shelter she never stepped onto ice three inches thick.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The usual phrase is “clear as day”; Hunt swaps in a wintry image that suits his subject.
In plain English: Some people say it is very easy to get up on a cold morning.
In plain English: All you have to do, they say, is decide to, and it's done.
In plain English: That may be true, in the same way that a schoolboy only has to take his beating and then it's over.
Reference & context: Corporal punishment was routine in English schools of the time; the comparison suggests that ‘easy’ is the wrong word.
In plain English: But we haven't made up our minds about it at all, and we find it very pleasant to discuss the question honestly before we get up.
In plain English: This at least isn't laziness, though it may be lying (in bed, or not quite telling the truth).
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A pun on two meanings of “lying”: staying in bed, and telling fibs.
In plain English: It gives an excellent reply to people who ask how a thinking, rational being can allow himself to lie in bed.
In plain English: How, you ask?
In plain English: Easily: by calmly working through the argument in your head with the bedclothes pulled up over your shoulder.
Reference & context: “Clothes” here means bedclothes: sheets and blankets.
In plain English: Oh, it's a fine way to spend a sensible, fair-minded half hour.
In plain English: If these critics were kinder, they would win their argument more easily.
In plain English: But they tend to argue so badly and to state their views so stubbornly that you'd like to have them stand round your bed on a bitter morning while you lie there in front of them.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Another pun on “lie”: to stay lying down, or to tell a lie to their faces.
In plain English: They should hear both sides of the argument, that is, both sides of the bed: inside and outside.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A twist on the phrase “hear both sides of the question.”
In plain English: If they can't amuse themselves with their own thoughts for half an hour, that's not the fault of those of us who can.
In plain English: If their willpower is never drawn aside by the tempting arms of imagination, so much the better for the stagecoach driver, who will never have to wait for them.
Reference & context: Long-distance stagecoaches left at fixed early hours; dreamers were the kind of passengers who missed them.
In plain English: An honest inquiry into lying in bed, besides deciding how much leeway a man should get depending on his ability to rise early and how hard his mind has to work, will at least give fair weight to arguments like the ones that follow.
Reference & context: Hunt uses mock-legal, mock-learned language (“decumbency,” “representations”) to make laziness sound like a serious case being argued in court.
In plain English: First of all, says the wronged but calm person making the appeal, I have been warm all night, and my body is in exactly the condition that suits a warm-blooded animal.
In plain English: Leaving this warmth for the cold is not only a harsh and thoughtless sudden change; it is so unnatural for such a creature that poets, when inventing ever finer tortures for souls in hell, make one of the worst of them a sudden move from heat to cold, from fire to ice.
In plain English: Milton writes that the damned are dragged out of their beds by furies with feet like harpies' claws, fellows who come to wake them.
Reference & context: Milton, Paradise Lost II.596–603: “Thither by harpy-footed Furies haled… From beds of raging fire to starve in ice.” Hunt jokingly treats the Furies as servants with a morning call.
In plain English: As soon as I even begin to think about getting up, I find that the parts of the sheets and pillow that are exposed to the room's air are stone-cold.
Reference & context: A bolster is a long, firm pillow laid across the head of the bed.
In plain English: When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is my own breath rolling out in clouds, as if I were outdoors, like smoke from a cottage chimney.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A vivid, homely image of how cold an unheated bedroom could be.
In plain English: Think about what that tells you.
In plain English: Then I glance sideways and see the window completely frosted over.
In plain English: Think about that.
In plain English: Then the servant comes in.
In plain English: “Isn't it very cold this morning?” “Very cold, sir.” “Very cold indeed, isn't it?” “Very cold indeed, sir.” “Colder than usual, isn't it, even for this time of year?”
In plain English: (At this point the servant's cleverness and good nature are really tested, and the questioner waits anxiously for the answer.)
Reference & context: “To lie on thorns” means to be in suspense; here it is also literally said of a man lying in bed.
In plain English: “Well, sir… I think it is.”
In plain English: (What a good fellow! There's no better or more honest servant anywhere.)
Reference & context: The joke: the master praises the servant's honesty because he gave the answer the master wanted.
In plain English: “I must get up, though. Bring me some warm water.”
In plain English: Now comes a lovely pause between the servant leaving and the hot water arriving, during which, of course, there's “no point” in getting up.
In plain English: The hot water arrives.
In plain English: “Is it really hot?” “Yes, sir.” “Perhaps too hot to shave with? I'd better wait a little?” “No, sir, it's just right.”
In plain English: (Sometimes there's a fussy kind of correctness, an overeager devotion to duty, that is a bit of a nuisance.)
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The master complains that the servant is too helpful, because it spoils his excuse.
In plain English: “Oh, the shirt. You must air my clean shirt; linen gets very damp in this weather.” “Yes, sir.”
Reference & context: “Airing” meant warming and drying clothes in front of the fire.
In plain English: Another delightful five minutes.
In plain English: A knock at the door.
In plain English: “Ah, the shirt, very good. My stockings: I think the stockings had better be aired too.” “Very good, sir.”
In plain English: Another pause.
In plain English: At last everything is ready except me.
In plain English: Now, continues our man lying in bed (a nice word, by the way, for a country vicar), I can't help thinking a lot (who could help it?) about the pointless and wicked custom of shaving. It is so unmanly (here I snuggle deeper), so soft (here I pull back from an unlucky move into the colder part of the bed).
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The stage directions in brackets act out the comedy: he praises manliness while snuggling under the covers.
Reference & context: “Incumbent” literally means “lying on,” and is also the term for a clergyman who holds a parish. A sleepy country vicar fits both meanings.
In plain English: No wonder the Queen of France sided with rebels against her decadent husband the King, who was the first to insult her smooth face by showing her a face as smooth as her own.
Reference & context: Eleanor of Aquitaine is said to have disliked her husband Louis VII of France after he shaved his beard as a penance; their marriage was later annulled.
In plain English: The Roman Emperor Julian never showed his rich genius better than when he brought back the long, flowing beard.
Reference & context: Julian the Apostate (ruled 361–363) wore a philosopher's beard and wrote a satire, the Misopogon (“Beard-Hater”), defending it.
In plain English: Look at the portraits of Cardinal Bembo, Michelangelo, Titian, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Spenser, Chaucer, King Alfred and Plato. I could name a bearded great man for every tick of my watch.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The list keeps going to fill time, which is exactly what the speaker wants: every name delays getting up.
In plain English: Look at the Turks, a serious and unhurried people.
In plain English: Think of Harun al-Rashid and Bed-ridden Hassan.
Reference & context: Harun al-Rashid was the Caliph of Baghdad in The Arabian Nights; “Bedreddin Hassan” is a character in the same stories, whose name Hunt twists into a pun.
In plain English: Think of Edward Wortley Montagu, a worthy son of his famous mother, a man who rose above the narrow views of his day.
Reference & context: Edward Wortley Montagu (1713–1776), traveller, son of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, adopted Turkish dress and a long beard.
In plain English: Look at the Persian gentlemen one meets around the edges of London: you feel embarrassed to meet them, because their dress and appearance are so much finer than ours.
Reference & context: A Persian embassy was in London in 1819–20 and attracted much attention.
In plain English: Finally, think of the razor itself: how completely opposite to every feeling of being in bed. How cold, how sharp, how hard! How utterly different from the warm, enfolding softness that, as Shakespeare says, “sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses.”
Reference & context: The quotation adapts Macbeth I.vi.1–3, where Duncan says the air at Macbeth's castle “nimbly and sweetly recommends itself / Unto our gentle senses.”
In plain English: Add to all this numb fingers that may make you cut yourself, a shivering body, a frozen towel and a jug full of ice. Anyone who says there's nothing to resist in all this only proves that he deserves no credit for resisting it.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A neat reversal: if getting up is no hardship for you, then you deserve no praise for doing it.
In plain English: The poet James Thomson, who cries out in The Seasons, “Falsely luxurious! Won't man wake up?”, used to stay in bed until noon himself, because, he said, he had no reason to get up.
Reference & context: James Thomson (1700–1748), The Seasons, “Summer.” Thomson was famously indolent; he also wrote The Castle of Indolence.
In plain English: He could picture the benefits of getting up, but he could also picture the benefits of lying still. And his outcry, it must be admitted, was about summer, not winter.
In plain English: We have to fit the argument to the kind of person.
In plain English: A money-minded man can be lured out of bed by a few pennies, but that won't be enough for a scholar.
Reference & context: “Three and four pence” (3s. 4d.) was a small, traditional sum, a sixth of a pound.
In plain English: A proud man might say, “What will I think of myself if I don't get up?” But a humbler man will happily give up such a grand idea of himself, out of respect for his kind bed.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Laziness is cheekily recast as the virtue of humility.
In plain English: The machine-like man will get up without any fuss at all, and so will the barometer.
Reference & context: A barometer's needle “rises” with the weather. The joke compares the punctual riser to a mindless instrument.
In plain English: A clever bed-lover will find tough points to argue even on the subject of health and long life.
In plain English: He will ask us for proof and examples of the harm done by lying in late in cold weather, and argue cleverly at length about the benefits of keeping the body at an even temperature, about the natural (and nearly universal) wish to get one's own way, and about the animals that curl up and sleep all winter.
In plain English: As for long life, he will ask whether the longest life is necessarily the best, just as the longest street, Holborn, is not necessarily the finest street in London.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A witty comparison: length is not the same as quality, in lives or in streets.
In plain English: We know of only one argument that is crushing (not to say cursed) enough to overturn the great luxury, the “enormous bliss,” of this vice.
Reference & context: “Enormous bliss” is from Milton, Paradise Lost V.297. “Confounded” was a mild curse word, so Hunt plays on “confounding” and “confounded.”
In plain English: Someone who lies in bed may be allowed to claim he doesn't care about his own health or life span. But if he says it is reasonable to consider one person's comfort, he must admit that the comfort of several people counts for proportionally more. The best way to handle him is the following, and it is best done by a woman: we strongly recommend using a lady for this, as long as she is not too persuasive, since opposite extremes have an awkward way of meeting.
Reference & context: “Extremes meet” is a proverb: too much pressure can produce the opposite result.
In plain English: First, then, grant how clever his arguments are, and tell him the legal profession has lost an excellent lawyer.
Reference & context: “The bar” is the profession of barristers (trial lawyers).
In plain English: Then look at him as kindly as possible, with an expression that both agrees and pleads, and tell him you are holding breakfast for him; that you never like to eat breakfast without him; that you are hungry too; that the servants want their breakfast; that you won't be able to put the house in order until he gets up; and that you're sure he would do things twenty times harder than leaving his warm bed to make everyone happy and comfortable.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The one argument that works is not logic but kindness and other people's needs.
In plain English: After saying this, mention the question of his health, which matters little to him, but tell him it matters a great deal to you, and that when he is ill more people suffer than just him. But if, all the same, he really does feel very sleepy and very refreshed by… But wait, we're not sure whether a weak… Yes, yes, say that too, especially if you mean it. Even if human weakness and plain inertia lead him to take advantage of your kindness once or twice, good humour and sincerity together will win in the end, and they are even better and warmer things than pillows and blankets.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The broken-off dashes show the writer himself wavering, softening his own advice in mid-sentence.
Reference & context: Vis inertiae (Latin) means “the force of inactivity”: inertia, the tendency of a body at rest to stay at rest.
In plain English: Other small persuasions can be added as needed.
In plain English: You might tell someone in love, for example, that lying in bed makes people fat; a father, that you want him to complete the fine manly example he sets his children; a lady, that she will spoil her complexion or her figure, which Mr. M. or Mr. W. admires so much; and a student or artist, that he is always so pleased when he has done a good day's work at his best.
In plain English: Reader: And tell me, Mr. Indicator, how do you behave in this matter?
In plain English: Indicator: Oh, madam, perfectly, of course, just like everyone who gives advice.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The final joke: advisers never follow their own advice, so we can guess that Hunt is still in bed.
Fun Fact
Leigh Hunt spent two years in prison (1813–1815) for calling the Prince Regent a fat, debt-ridden libertine in his newspaper. He turned his cell into a cosy study with rose-patterned wallpaper, bookshelves and a piano, and had a little garden in the prison yard. Lord Byron, Charles Lamb and Jeremy Bentham all came to visit him there.