Monday, October 20, 2008

No heat

Now that it is late autumn it's getting cold at night. Sleeping is always best when the weather gets cold. Here's a good passage from Moby Dick on the virtues of a cold room and a warm blanket:

We felt very nice and snug. The more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I couldn't have said it better myself!

d*pow said...

that is a good quote. I love the whole chapter about soup...Melville done write good.

Katie said...

I like