| There ain't no way to find out why a snorer
can't hear himself snore. - Tom Sawyer Abroad 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 |
A use has been found for everything but snoring.
- Notebook, May 1892-Jan. 1893
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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