_amour-propre_? Here we have a subject which it would be curious to
investigate.

If you knew one of your rivals who had discovered a method of placing
you in a position of extreme absurdity before the eyes of those who
were dearest to you--for instance, while you had your mouth crooked
like that of a theatrical mask, or while your eloquent lips, like the
copper faucet of a scanty fountain, dripped pure water--you would
probably stab him. This rival is sleep. Is there a man in the world
who knows how he appears to others, and what he does when he is
asleep?

In sleep we are living corpses, we are the prey of an unknown power
which seizes us in spite of ourselves, and shows itself in the oddest
shapes; some have a sleep which is intellectual, while the sleep of
others is mere stupor.

There are some people who slumber with their mouths open in the
silliest fashion.

There are others who snore loud enough to make the timbers shake.

Most people look like the impish devils that Michael Angelo
sculptured, putting out their tongues in silent mockery of the
passers-by.

The only person I know of in the world who sleeps with a noble air is
Agamemnon, whom Guerin has represented lying on his bed at the moment
when Clytemnestra, urged by Egisthus, advances to slay him. Moreover,
I have always had an ambition to hold myself on my pillow as the king