The Oddest Things I Have Read

Can We Do Without Sleep?

Some people sleep a great deal, and for others a little sleep is enough. One man may be content with an hour or two of rest, while another finds even ten hours insufficient. Sleep, in the judgment of medicine and science, is necessary for man and beast. Yet “Al Herpin,” of “Trenton” in the United States, who lived 94 years, proved that a human being can do without sleep altogether! For this man never once slept in his life, and there was no bed for sleeping in his house; he passed his whole life awake, and when he felt that he needed a little rest, he would sit in his chair, reading or thinking... Doctors and scientists took up this strange phenomenon with study and analysis, and satisfied themselves that the man did not sleep; but they were unable to explain this freak of nature. And when they offered to treat “Herpin” so that he might sleep, he refused, for he was content with his condition and comfortable in it. And so died this man who never once slept in his life...

Woman and Man

Man is a sea, and woman a lake...

The sea is adorned by pearls; the lake is adorned by its calm and lovely views!

Man is an eagle that flies in the sky and rules all beneath it...

And woman is a nightingale that sings — and rules hearts!

Man has a lamp: conscience!

And woman has a star: hope!

The lamp guides, and hope saves.

And man is bound to the earth... and woman is fastened to heaven.

[Victor Hugo]

Statistics

A professor of the science of statistics was obliged to stay at home one holiday evening to look after his children while their mother was away... When she returned from her rounds, he presented her with the following statistics:

21 times — warnings to the children against crossing the street.

21 — times the children crossed the street.

13 — shoelaces tied.

9 times — tears dried.

9 times — running after balloons. — 13 seconds, average life of a balloon.

Zero — the number of days on which I shall undertake this work again.