and what's more...

"You have always managed to sleep soundly enough at my labouring side," I said. "Soundly enough not to be sensible even of the sharp prodding of my finger." And then, quavering shamefully: "Faithful, faithful." I was ready to weep again, the word was so loaded. I remembered poor Winston Churchill who, at about my present age, would weep at words like greatness. It was called emotional lability. A disease of the senility.

Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess.