If one believed in angels one would feel that they must love us best when we are asleep and cannot hurt each other; and what a mercy it is that once every twenty-four hours we are too utterly weary to go on being unkind. The doors shut, and the lights go out, and the sharpest tongue is silent, and all of us, scolder and scolded, happy and unhappy, master and slave, judge and culprit, are children again, tired, and hushed, and helpless, and forgiven.
And see the blessedness of sleep, that sends us back for a space to our early innocence. Are not our first impulses on waking always good? Do we not all know how in times of wretchedness our first thoughts after the night's sleep are happy, and we wake with a smile, and stare still smiling for a moment at our stony griefs before with a stab we recognize them.
Elizabeth von Arnim, The Solitary Summer
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