692 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



[November 



inclosed in the same room, with one bed, 

 and such pallets as ; in the emergency, could 

 be provided. The bed was courteously 

 yielded to an elderly and somewhat corpu- 

 lent D.D. Beside the bed of this venerable 

 gentleman, the best couch was appropriated 

 to a man of high order of talent, who had 

 been rendered a little irritable by sickness. 

 He, overcome by ill-health and fatigue, im- 

 plored his compeers to enter into a solemn 

 compact that not a word should be uttered 

 after the light should be extinguished. 

 While the rest were trying to palliate the 

 harshness of their pallets, by adjusting pro- 

 jecting bones to the scarcity of their pro- 

 tection from the floor, the noble old Dr., 

 on his feather bed, softly fell into the arms 

 of Morpheus. Soon the lower maxillary re- 

 laxed a little, with a consequent sudden 

 snort. The sickly gentleman heaved a woe- 

 begone sigh at the reflection, that though he 

 had stopped the mouths of " the wide- 

 awakes," he had no means of closing that of 

 his unconscious neighbor; meanwhile, the 

 tittering listeners could scarcely restrain 

 out-bursting laughter. And now 



"The mirth and fun grew fast and furious." 



The lower jaw fell to a death-like yawning, 

 the veil of the palate fluttered as a leather- 

 winged bat in the mouth and throat, the 

 pendulum palati — as, I think, the doctors 

 call it, flapped about, in the mouth, down the 

 throat, up in the nostrils — for, in the case 

 of snorers, I believe, it is generally elon- 

 gated — 'till finally it lodged fast in the rima 

 glottidis, or top of the wind-pipe ; lifter an 

 awful yell — the whole house shaking all the 

 time as if by an earthquake — in an instant 

 all was still and breathless; for a period, 

 painfully long, this death-like stillness lasted. 

 Finally, the sickly gentleman, irritated to 

 the last extreme, is said to have broken his 

 own compact by an exclamatory whisper, 

 " thank God, he is dead at last." A Yan- 

 kee would guess, there was little sleeping 

 there that night. 



Whether we place snoring in the cate- 

 gory of crime, of bad habit or natural de- 

 fect — and, alas! in my intercourse with man- 

 kind, I have found that the majority would 

 about as soon acknowledge the first as either 

 of the other two — I have never seen the 

 man who would confess himself to be a fully 

 finished, unmitigated snorer. Many will 

 admit that they would be such were they 

 not wakened by the very first snort. I have 



often been kept awake, nearly all night, by 

 those who would most provokingly asseverate 

 the next morning, that their snoring, to the 

 full extent, amounted only to this, u Why, 

 Sir, to this extent, I know myself to be a 

 snorer, for I have often snorted myself 

 awake." And, to tell the whole truth, I 

 must confess, and that upon the evidence of 

 my wife, — and, Mr. Editor, I would rather 

 cry "guilty" to either of the foregoing cate- 

 gories, which she might charge upon me, in 

 my sleep, than contradict her, — I say, I must 

 confess that I should soon have become " a 

 pretty considerable" snorer, had I not been 

 alarmed and resolved that this should not be. 



The mention of the word irife, presents 

 snoring in a new aspect — indeed, to my 

 mind, it ranks it under the head of crime, 

 where, by reasoning, I could not before 

 place it. How many lovely, delicate, self- 

 sacrificing wives have had the flesh snored 

 off* their bones by fat, jolly, self-indulgent 

 husbands, who, if they acknowledge the 

 charge at all, would laugh and say, they 

 had been taken ".for better and for worse," 

 snoring and all. This, Sir, would as well 

 excuse the brutal drunkard, who breaks the 

 heart of his wife, and ruins his children, 

 for whiskey. 



Casuists have puzzled themselves, and 

 their readers, by trying to settle the question, 

 whether there be more sin committed in 

 forming a bad habit, or continuing it — in 

 yielding, painfully, to a transgression, or 

 submitting tamely to be the slave of any 

 vice. The profane man, 'who, probably, 

 shuddered at his early curses, soon learns to 

 belch them out with serene complacency. 

 It, however, can profit him but little, to fix 

 the period of his greatest iniquity, who still 

 remains its slave. Repentance, without 

 reformation, but adds stings to a life already 

 miserable enough. Where cessation from 

 wrong doing — immediate and irrevocable — 

 or the risk of ruin to the votary of vice, 

 and great distress to all whose destinies are 

 intertwined with his, are the only alterna- 

 tives, there is but one wise, one safe course 

 for him. Who can convince him of the 

 awfully critical dilemma in which he stands ? 

 1 1 would, by no means, place the snorer ex- 

 actly there. But he must reform, or be the 

 dread and annoyance of all who lodge with 

 him abroad, and, I had almost said, a curse 

 to his family at home. This is his dilemma. 

 Yerily, I fear that Pantheology is not yet 

 banished from Christendom; and that there 



