of drowsiness is at his most potent, we find, about 10:30
P. M. At this period the human carcass seems to consider that it has
finished its cycle, which began with so much courage nearly sixteen
hours before. It begins to slack and the mind halts on a dead centre
every now and then, refusing to complete the revolution. Now there are
those who hold that this is certainly the seemly and appointed time to
go to bed and they do so as a matter of routine. These are, commonly,
the happier creatures, for they take the tide of sleep at the flood and
are borne calmly and with gracious gentleness out to great waters of
nothingness. They push off from the wharf on a tranquil current and
nothing more is to be seen or heard of these voyagers until they
reappear at the breakfast table, digging lustily into their grapefruit.

These people are happy, aye, in a brutish and sedentary fashion, but
they miss the admirable adventures of those more embittered wrestlers
who will not give in without a struggle. These latter suffer severe
pangs between 10:30 and about 11:15 while they grapple with their fading
faculties and seek to reestablish the will on its tottering throne. This
requires courage stout, valour unbending. Once you yield, be it ever so
little, to the tempter, you are lost. And here our poor barren clay
plays us false, undermining the intellect with many a trick and wile. "I
will sit down for a season in that comfortable chair," the creature
says to himself, "and read this sprightly novel. That will ease my mind
and put me in humour for a continuance of lively thinking." And the end
of that man is a steady nasal buzz from the bottom of the chair where he
has collapsed, an unsightly object and a disgrace to humanity. This also
means a big bill from the electric light company at the end of the
month. In many such ways will his corpus bewray him, leading him by
plausible self-deceptions into a pitfall of sleep, whence he is aroused
about 3 A. M. when the planet turns over on the other side. Only by
stiff perseverance and rigid avoidance of easy chairs may the critical
hour between 10:30 and 11:30 be safely passed. Tobacco, a self-brewed
pot of tea, and a browsing along bookshelves (remain standing and do not
sit down with your book) are helps in this time of struggle. Even so,
there are some happily drowsy souls who can never cross these shallows
alone without grounding on the Lotus Reefs. Our friend J---- D----
K----, magnificent c