The rule on which I am here insisting should be most carefully observed towards evening.  For as darkness makes us timid and apt to see terrifying shapes everywhere, there is something similar in the effect of indistinct thought; and uncertainty always brings with it a sense of danger.  Hence, towards evening, when our powers of thought and judgment are relaxed,—­at the hour, as it were, of subjective darkness,—­the intellect becomes tired, easily confused, and unable to get at the bottom of things; and if, in that state, we meditate on matters of personal interest to ourselves, they soon assume a dangerous and terrifying aspect.  This is mostly the case at night, when we are in bed; for then the mind is fully relaxed, and the power of judgment quite unequal to its duties; but imagination is still awake.  Night gives a black look to everything, whatever it may be.  This is why our thoughts, just before we go to sleep, or as we lie awake through the hours of the night, are usually such confusions and perversions of facts as dreams themselves; and when our thoughts at that time are concentrated upon our own concerns, they are generally as black and monstrous as possible.  In the morning all such nightmares vanish like dreams:  as the Spanish proverb has it, noche tinta, bianco el dia—­the night is colored, the day is white.  But even towards nightfall, as soon as the candles are lit, the mind, like the eye, no longer sees things so clearly as by day:  it is a time unsuited to serious meditation, especially on unpleasant subjects.  The morning is the proper time for that—­as indeed for all efforts without exception, whether mental or bodily.  For the morning is the youth of the day, when everything is bright, fresh, and easy of attainment; we feel strong then, and all our faculties are completely at our disposal.  Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.  Evening is like old age:  we are languid, talkative, silly.  Each day is a little life:  every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

But condition of health, sleep, nourishment, temperature, weather, surroundings, and much else that is purely external, have, in general, an important influence upon our mood and therefore upon our thoughts.  Hence both our view of any matter and our capacity for any work are very much subject to time and place.  So it is best to profit by a good mood—­for how seldom it comes!—­

  Nehmt die gute Stimmung wahr,
  Denn sie kommt so selten.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Goethe.]

We are not always able to form new ideas about; our surroundings, or to command original thoughts:  they come if they will, and when they will.  And so, too, we cannot always succeed in completely considering some personal matter at the precise time at which we have determined beforehand to consider it, and just when we set ourselves to do so.  For the peculiar train of thought which is favorable to it may suddenly become active without any special call being made upon it, and we may then follow it up with keen interest.  In this way reflection, too, chooses its own time.