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There ain't no way to find out why a snorer can't hear himself snore. A use has been found for everything but snoring. |
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| At breakfast, an hour ago, I ventured, for the first time, to throw out
a feeler, for all these days' silence made me a little uneasy and suspicious.
I intimated that at home, I sometimes snored--not often, and not
much, but a little--but it might be possible that at sea, I--though I hoped--that
is to say--But I was most pleasantly interrupted at that point by a universal
outburst of compliment and praise, with assurances that I made the nights
enjoyable for everybody, and that they often lay awake hours to listen,
and Mr. Rogers said it infused him with so much comfortableness that he
tried to keep himself awake by turning over and over in bed so as to get
more of it; Rice said it was not a coarse and ignorant snore, like some
people's, but was a perfectly gentlemanly snore; Colonel Payne said he was
always sorry when night was over and he knew he had to wait all day before
he could have some more; and Tom Reed said the reason he moved down into
the coal bunkers was because it was even sweeter, there, where he could
get a perspective on it. This is very different from the way I am treated
at home, where there is no appreciation of what a person does. - Letter to Olivia Clemens, August 9, 1901, reprinted in Mark Twain's Correspondence with Henry Huttleston Rogers |
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Jim begun to snore--soft and blubbery at first, then a long rasp, then
a stronger one, then a half a dozen horrible ones like the last water
sucking down the plug-hole of a bath-tub, then the same with more power
to it, and some big coughs and snorts flung in, the way a cow does that
is choking to death; and when the person has got to that point he is at
his level best, and can wake up a man that is in the next block with a
dipperful of loddanum in him, but can't wake himself up although all that
awful noise of his'n ain't but three inches from his own ears. |
courtesy of Dave Thomson |
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