Sleep, In The Circumstances Of Comfort Which Most Readers
Will Be Accustomed To, Is A More Expensive Thing Than Is Commonly
Supposed.
If we sleep eight hours in a London hotel we shall have
to pay from 4d. to 6d. an
Hour, or from 1d. to 1.5d. for every
fifteen minutes we lie in bed; nor is it reasonable to believe that
the charge is excessive, when we consider the vast amount of
competition which exists. There is many a man the expenses of
whose daily meat, drink, and clothing are less than what an
accountant would show us we, many of us, lay out nightly upon our
sleep. The cost of really comfortable sleep-necessaries cannot, of
course, be nearly so great at Oropa as in a London hotel, but they
are enough to put them beyond the reach of the peasant under
ordinary circumstances, and he relishes them all the more when he
can get them.
But why, it may be asked, should the peasant have these things if
he cannot afford to pay for them; and why should he not pay for
them if he can afford to do so? If such places as Oropa were
common, would not lazy vagabonds spend their lives in going the
rounds of them, &c., &c.? Doubtless if there were many Oropas,
they would do more harm than good, but there are some things which
answer perfectly well as rarities or on a small scale, out of which
all the virtue would depart if they were common or on a larger one;
and certainly the impression left upon our minds by Oropa was that
its effects were excellent.
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