THe same Violence of my Fit, that made me very much need Sleep, allow’d me so little of it, that I think I miss’d not hearing one stroke of the Clock all the Night long. But since you know, Sophronia, that the Clock is kept by the Souldiers that are Quarter’d in the place where it stands, you will easily believe, that ‘tis not very carefully look’d to, especially since they are not only wont to let it go Ill, but do oft times make it do so on purpose, and as may best comply with the Officers occasions, and as they would have the Guards that are to be set here, or to be sent hence, sooner or later Reliev’d. Of this uncertain going of the Clock, I never had occasion to take so much notice as the last Night, when, lying too constantly awak’d, I began to observe, that though all the hours were so tedious, as to seem every one of them extraordinary long, yet they manifestly appear’d to me not to be equally so; and therefore, when the Clock struck Eleven, to satisfie my self whether it did not mis-inform me, I call’d to one that sat up by me for the VVatch I use to measure the time with in nice Experiments, and found it to want but very little of Midnight; and not much above an hour after, when by my VVatch it was but about one, those that kept the Clock, whether out of Negligence, or Design, or to make amends for past Slowness, made it strike two, which seem’d to me to hint a not unusefull Rule in estimating the length or shortness of Discourses: For there are Cases, where the difficulty or importance of the Subject is such, that though it cost a Man many words, yet, if what he says be not sufficiently fitted to the Exigency of the Occasion, and the Theam, he may speak much, without saying enough. But on the other hand, if (as it often happens) a Man speak either Unseasonably, Erroneously, or Impertinently, he may, though he say little, talk too much; The paucity or number of VVords, is not, as many think it, that which is in such cases to be chiefly consider’d; for ‘tis not many, or few, that are requir’d, but enough. And, As our Clock struck not so often as it should have done, when it struck Eleven, and yet struck a while after too often when it struck but two, because the first time it was Mid-night, and the second time it was but one of the Clock; so to estimate whether what is said have its due length, we are not so much to look whether it be little, or much, as whether a Man speak in the right time, and say neither more nor less than he should.
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