IT is said that the effect of eating too much lettuce is "
soporific."
When I had read two or three of the small hours away and was as wide awake as ever, I found that a drink furnished the
soporific effect.
To say the truth, these
soporific parts are so many scenes of serious artfully interwoven, in order to contrast and set off the rest; and this is the true meaning of a late facetious writer, who told the public that whenever he was dull they might be assured there was a design in it.
Evidently
soporific substances had been mixed with the food we had just taken.
When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov opened his eye as a miller wakes up when the
soporific drone of the mill wheel is interrupted.
In them there were no considerations of Mediterranean cruises, of
soporific Southern skies drifting in the Vesuvian Bay.
The repast concluded, a pipe was lighted, which passed from mouth to mouth, and yielding to its
soporific influence, the quiet of the place, and the deepening shadows of approaching night, my companion and I sank into a kind of drowsy repose, while the chief and Kory-Kory seemed to be slumbering beside us.
In the meanwhile, Monsieur continued his route with an air at once so melancholy and so majestic, that he certainly would have attracted the attention of spectators, if spectators there had been; but the good citizens of Blois could not pardon Monsieur for having chosen their gay city for an abode in which to indulge melancholy at his ease, and as often as they caught a glimpse of the illustrious ennuye, they stole away gaping, or drew back their heads into the interior of their dwellings, to escape the
soporific influence of that long pale face, of those watery eyes, and that languid address; so that the worthy prince was almost certain to find the streets deserted whenever he chanced to pass through them.
It is a peculiarity of most of the
soporific drugs that they not only act in a totally different manner on different constitutions, but that they are not even to be depended on to act always in the same manner on the same person.
Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a
soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had finished undressing.
"I was determined to eat only such things as could not possibly have anything
soporific introduced into them.
It seemed to act as an additional
soporific for the sleepers, while the murmuring of the wind through the trees, and the unceasing music of the fountains whose waters tumbled in the basin, still went on uninterruptedly, without being disturbed at the slight noises and items of little moment that constitute the life and death of human nature.