After all, there is nothing more important in the world than human happiness; and as the simple 'Yes' or 'No' of maidenhood may decide the happiness of not one but two lives, that is why it is a matter of universal interest in song and story; and that is why quite elderly people, removed by half a century from such frivolities themselves, but nevertheless possessed of memory and a little imagination, and still conscious that life has been throughout a puzzle and a game of chance, and that even in their case it might have turned out very differently, find themselves awaiting with a strange curiosity and anxiety the decision of some child of seventeen, knowing no more of the world than a baby dormouse.
"The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols"
William Black
They tried to talk to him, to lend him books, to awaken him out of this dormouse sleep of the intellect, to break the spell which weighed him down.
"The Countess of Albany"
Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
Little Minie, running past her sister's door, glanced in, and stood transfixed with horror at the sight of Jane rolled up like a dormouse, and still dozing peacefully.
"Jane Lends A Hand"
Shirley Watkins