The Timaru Herald MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1923. ON TAKING NAPS.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 5 June 1923, Page 6

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, JUNE 4, 1923. ON TAKING NAPS.

Lord Morley lias said of Walpoie tiiafc iio was “a great sleeper,” yet there cau never iiave been a JL'uiTiumcntarian wno was less likely to be eaugfn. napping. Tliere is, indeed, for men and statesmen alike, so clear a distinction between the arts of sleeping and napping that to contuse' them is to court disaster. “I put oli my cares,’' said Walpole himself, "“when I put off _my clothes,” and all over-anxious men, whose troubles harden then pillows, will envy him his power. They will perceive, moreover, in this saying of his something more than the neat balance of an epigram—an indication that Walpole was well aware of the difference between a bed and an armchair, a sleep and a nap. To sleep well is to rest, with armour laid aside, in such security and such circumstances as make armour superfluous ; to nap well is to nap in secret with such judgment of time, place, and danger that secrecy may not ho surprised. This is true of those only who live in danger of some sort. Others, more fortunate .perhaps, are able to impose the penalty of napping on their friends. A nap then changes its meaning. It is no longer furtive thing, but an act of offence or defiance. Far from fearing discovery, it insists upon an attentive audience.

While it lasts, nor wife nor child nor guest dares speak or move. They dare not quit the. room lest the very sound of their retreat disturb the tyrant; they dare not poke the fire, or rustle the leaves of a book, or shut the door, or open the window. The nap, a decree to which there is no escape, has descended _ upon the world like the outpouring of a volcano. Life is suspended bv it. Children become, while _it continues, a group of fossils, feebly fidgeting. Parental dignity is lost, parental authority endangered; filial piety is undermined, and the seeds of rebellion are sown. And all this happens because the tyrant does not know like Walpole, the difference between a becl and an armchair, and has not realised that to nap in public, even when it is not dangerous, is a repreliensibly selfish habit. Who wishes for rest, let him go to his bedroom, for there he may, with safety and honour, put off his cares with his clothes.

Thus only can he raise his nap to the dignity of sleep, well earned, and avert the discomfort of friends or the malignity of foes.