It occurred to me, when amid these paroxysms of turmoil I heard a very fair harmony between the bass of my bedfellow and the tenor of a sleeper in the next berth, that if a Gilmore could take snores, into training, and by animal magnetism or mesmerism manage to make them snore in concert and by note—
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood Of flutes and soft recorders—
we should have a diverting performance in sleeping-cars, and one objection to their use would be actually utilized as an extra inducement to patronize them.
Several times I was strongly impelled to shunt my bass snorer off the bed or twig his Roman nose, but one experiment of a kick roused such a vigorous snort, like that produced by dropping a brick on a sleeping pig, that I abandoned such physical means of retaliation. I thought of tickling his nose with a feather or a straw, but the bed contained neither, and I had not even a pin. And supposing I should stop my shelf-mate, what could I do to suppress the rest? Should I make some horrible noise between a hoarse cough and a crow, and say, if any one complained, that it was my way of snoring? But I thought that the object to be attained, and the possibility of being voted insane and consigned, in spite of protestation, to the baggage-car, would not compensate me for the exertion required; so I determined to submit to it like a Stoic. (Query: Would a Stoic have submitted?)
The more one meditates upon the reason of wakefulness, the more his chances of sleep diminish; and from this cause, conjoined with the peculiarity of the situation and the mood in which I found myself, I had surely "affrighted sleep" for that night. As I lay awake I indulged in the following mental calculation of my misery to coax a slumber: The average number of inspirations in a minute is fifteen—remember, snoring is an act of the inspiration—the number of hours I lay awake was six. Fifteen snores a minute make nine hundred an hour. Multiply 900 by 6—the number of hours I lay awake—and you have 5400, the number of notes struck by each snorer. There were at least twelve distinct and regular snorers in the car. Multiply 5400 by 12, and you have 64,800 snores, not including the snuffling neighs, perpetrated in that car from about eleven P. M. until five the next morning!
The question follows: "Can snoring be prevented?" It is plainly a nuisance, and ought to be indictable. I have heard of the use of local stimulants, such as camphire and ammonia—how I longed for the sweet revenge of holding a bottle of aqua ammonia under that Roman nose!—and also of clipping the uvula, which may cause snoring by resting on the base of the tongue. The question demands the grave consideration of our railroad managers; for while the traveling public do not object to a man snoring the roof off if he chooses to do it under his own vine and fig tree, tired men and women have a right to expect a sleep when they contract for it. Is there no lover of sleep and litigation who will prosecute for damages?
There is a prospect, however, of a balm in Gilead. An ingenious Yankee—a commercial traveler—has invented and patented an instrument made of gutta percha, to be fitted to the nose, and pass from that protuberance to the tympanum of the ear. As soon as the snorer begins the sound is carried so perfectly to his own ear, and all other sounds so well excluded, that he awakens in terror. The sanguine inventor believes that after a few nights' trial the wearer will become so disgusted with his own midnight serenading that his sleep will become as sound and peaceable as that of a suckling baby.
And yet there is nothing vulgar in snoring. Chesterfield did it, and so did Beau Brummell, and they were the two last men in the world to do anything beyond the bounds of propriety, awake or asleep, if they could help it. Plutarch tells us that the emperor Otho snored; so did Cato; so did George II., and also George IV., who boasted that he was "the first gentleman in Europe." Position has nothing to do with cause and effect in snoring, as there are instances on record of soldiers snoring while standing asleep in sentry-boxes; and I have heard policemen snore sitting on doorsteps, waiting to be wakened by the attentive "relief." We may be sure Alain Chartier did not snore when Margaret of Scotland stooped down and kissed him while he was asleep, or young John Milton when the highborn Italian won from him a pair of gloves; though it did not lessen the ardor of philosophical Paddy, when he coaxingly sang outside of his true love's window—
Shure, I know by the length of your snore you're awake.
But really, I don't know whether women do snore. I'm not sure that the mellifluous soprano snore in the car was Nilsson's, and Paddy may have been joking. I know that only male frogs croak.