twelve o'clock
A minister gets up in a crowded lecture-room , where the mephitic air almost makes the candles burn blue , and bewails the deadness of the church , -- the church the while , drugged by the poisoned air , growing sleepier and sleepier , though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so . Little Jim , who , fresh from his afternoon 's ramble in the fields , last evening said his prayers dutifully , and lay down to sleep in a most Christian frame , this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling with crossness , strikes at his nurse , and declares he wo n't say his prayers , -- that he do n't want to be good . The simple difference is , that the child , having slept in a close box of a room , his brain all night fed by poison , is in a mild state of moral insanity . Delicate women remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to get up their strength in the morning . Query : Do they sleep with closed windows and doors , and with heavy bed-curtains ? The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain respects than modern ones , with all their improvements . The great central chimney , with its open fireplaces in the different rooms , created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air .