SLEEP, GENTLE SLEEP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 99, 29 April 1935, Page 10

SLEEP, GENTLE SLEEP.

THE NIGHTLY ALLOWANCE,

Mr. Lloyd George, it is said, is one of those lucky men who can take an odd half-hour's sleep whenever he can the chance or such indulgence. lam extremely envious of anybody who can do that, says an English writer. And even more envious of those who need "'oS'ig out of bed in the morning Personally, I sleep lightly, and° when excited, not at all. Fortunately lam not often excited.

One of my friends can go to bed at ; any time and sleep the clock round without knowing anything about it. And when he is finally disturbed in his own interest he will arise with many prodigious yawns and stretches, and comes down to breakfast with a face as glum as a winter landscape. Give me five hours' sleep nightlv, and I shall not complain. But if I get less than that for a few nights running I must eventually make up the deficiency. There are many who cannot sleep in a strange bed for the first few nights, and there are some who can sleep well anywhere at any time. There are some who cannot slepp between sheets, and some who find blankets extremely irritating. A good many people hold that a heavy meal is certain to prevent easy

slumber, but one of the heaviest sleepers l know first packs in a supper which would serve me as a good dinner. I have argued the matter with him, but justifiably he points to the fact that he does sleep well. -Further, he puts it to me that it is Nature's way. "Does not a dog or a cat have a3 big a meal as it can get, and then curl round in sleep to promote digestion?" It is not a satisfying argument to" say that if 1 ate such a hearty meal I should lie awake all the night, or at any rate have a succession of those appallin" tumbles from the top of Ararat into a bottomless pit. The week after I return from a holiday I want to sleep all the time I am indoors, but do not find the same intense desire for slumber when I give up the struggle and go to bed in disgust. ut that, perhaps, is only an inherent part of the general cussedness of things. With George Borrow I can sle'ep readily when I read some poetry. It will move me off when the counting of a | thousand sheep has failed. Some poetry is better than others in soporific quality. On the whole I can recommend some lines as superior to a good, bi" Lancashire potato-pie for the job, and this is high recommendation. In some working class eating-houses potato-pio is understandably ordered as "Four o' laudanum." One full plate will ensure a drowsy afternoon.