The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-05-29
Different Kinds Of Sleep.

The siesta is the short sleep after
dinner, and fifteen minutes worth of
it is one of the best daily investments
of time busy man or woman can make.
When you haven't time to take siesta
it is about time you went off and died
somewhere. Slumber is the light sleep,
varied by startling facial contortions
and sudden spasmodic motions of the
limbs, accompanied by compulsory
silence all over the house, which is the
rest of infants. Insomnia is sleeping
wide awake in state of irritable imbe-
cility. 1t is the common lot of actresses
and literary people who are in need of
rest or advertising. A nap" is the
passing rest of a school-teacher who is
just far enough "gone" to appear de-
ceitful, and wide enough awake to
catch the smart boy who thinks that all
things are what they seem. A =" doze !"
is the hideous sleep of man who goes
to sleep with his eyes wide open while
you are talking to him, fixing upon
you CLASSY stare that curdles your
blood and makes you forget what you
were trying to say. Then he wakes
up and says, idiotically: Yes, yes :;
just so; served him quite right; and
then?" To "just drop off for a Sec
ond" is the term applied by the Of
fender to the act of going sound asleep
in church with ones head hanging
over the back of the pew, the mouth
wide open and the operator snoring
like house afire until the deacon hits
him on the head with a collection
basket, or the choir rises TO sing the
last hymn. Nodding" in church is
sleeping through the entire sermon, but
without snoring, and with head bowed
on the back of the pew in front, as
though in prayer. Nobody in the
whole church, by the way, thinks it re-
motely resembles the attitude of
prayer except the person who is /" nod
ding" To jam yourself up against
your fathers back, kick him black and
blue from withers to hook, crowd him
out of bed twice or thrice during the
night, and to lie habitually across the
middle of the bed, is the "sound
sleep" of boyhood. To make terrific
noises with the nose all night long while
lying like log in one position is the
"sweet sleep" of the laboring man
who never gives his nose a holiday.
To punctuate ones slumber by sudden
blood-curdling yells in the middle of
the night is called " sleeping" by peo-
pie who quaff fiagon of the New Eng
land national drink called pie for a
night-cap just before going to sleep.
To lose sound of the voice of the person
addressing you, to have the room pass
in musty blurr before your eyes and
to sink into utter oblivion for about
ten minutes, is called yawning" by
very polite people. To fall off the
chair and rouse yourself by knocking
your head against corner of andirons
is what some people call just " closing
the eyes," "To feel little drowsy :"
is the term applied to his condition by
the man who sleeps seven stations past
the place where he wants to get off.
If he doesn't wake till some time the
next day he admits that he was
" sleepy" To fold the hands upon
the breast, nestle the head in the folds
of snowy pillow, straighten the
shapely limbs and arrange the figure
gracefully, with lightly closed eyes, to
pass the night in mist of pleasant
dreams and enhancing visions, with
an accompaniment of soft, regular
breathing, scarcely audible to people in
the next block, is to sleep like Chris
tian, as l do.-Burdette, in Brooklyn
Eagle.