Reading in Bed I T may be laid down, without fear
of contradiction, that all properly constituted people make a practice of reading in bed. Bad sleepers, of course, do so with a definite object in view, and either bore themselves into a state of stupor over a dull book, and thus induce slumber, or read themselves into a state of mental exhaustion over 'a very exciting one to secure the same end. But the best sleepers, those of us who unblushingly assert that we always fall into an abyss of unconsciousness the moment we put our lights out, and only wake to the rattle of the ascending blind, read in bed with the same regularity, though, if they are wise, they avoid, as we shall see, - both dull and exciting literature. The habit, in fact, is one of those instincts which Nature means us to obey, and probably she visits its long continued neglect with one of those subtle penalties of which it is so hard to trace the cause. In some cases early impres- sions of childhood may interfere with this laudable practice: a malignant nurse may hive founded a phobia in her hapless victim by telling him that if he reads in bed he will infallibly be burned to death, and this delusion will have persisted, even though the adult mind is well aware that no amount of reading in bed ever caused any- one to be incinerated by electric light : or a muddle- minded father may have said " Never read in bed, my boy : when you go to bed it is time to go to sleep," and that foolish and wicked lie may have caused a scar which never quite heals, but unless some such Satanic influence has atrophied' a natural inipulse; the desire and indeed the necessity of reading in bed may be taken to be a sign of health. ' Anyone who does not want to" read in bed should consult a doctor. But though an instinct may be entirely healthy, some discrimination is needed in its gratification. Just as it would be unwise always' to quench the natural call of thirst -by unlimited and undiluted whisky, or to still the-Clamour of 'hunger solely with shell-fish or sugar, so guidance is needed in our choice of books; and instruction as to why those Who fake reasonable care of their health invariably read in bed. With regard to the latter it may safely be stated that this habit is the obvious means of throwing "off the mental interests of the day. We doff them much as we doff the clothes we have been wearing, putting on our pyjamas and not lying down to sleep in high collars or stiff shirts or tiaras, for these would seriously interfere with tranquil repose. So too mentally : during the hours "since dinner we may have been playing chess or bridge, or'indulging in agreeable or disagreeable Conversation, and we want to be rid of the incubus of day-thoughts which still crawl about the mind like caterpillars, before we go to sleep. Otherwise we may be the prey of disordered visions in which a new suit, hard to focus, appears in the pack of cards, which swallows up aces of trumps and other treasures like the serpent- of Moses : or some dimly seen ivory spectre with powers of Queen and Knight combined darts across a chessboard that stretches away to the horizon ; or there swims across the darkness of our closed eyes the faintly grinning faCe that has already so profoundly irritated us as we sat over the fire. And it is by the right choice 'of boOks to read in bed that we best get rid of these sinister influences and put on mental pyjamas of ease and agreeable texture. Clearly then our pyjamas must not be too exciting (like those which dazzle the .Lido), or we shall only be working ourselves up into a state of high interest, and want to go on reading when it is time to go to sleep. -In fact, the worst possible books to read in bed are often the best possible books to read when we are up : anything like Wuthering Heights should never be allowed to enter a bedroom at all. On the other hand a bed-book must not be dull (I wisely refrain from giving instances of such), or the minutes we hope to pass in unique and tranquil enjoyment will merely • be boring.: we may even fall asleep over it, and awake bewildered at some timeless and d find ourselves in an agony of outraged economy at the futile expenditure of electric light. We do not want, when we read in bed, either to go to sleep or to become excessively awake : our book must be closed without relief and without regret. We must not starve to know " what happened next," and thus wise readers- in-bed choose books they have read many times before, books they can pick up and open at random, certain of suitable entertainment, and close again without curiosity. The magic name of Jane Austen will rightly leap to a thousand lips. But there is another type of book, highly to be recom- mended, of which the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a sub- species. I am aware, painfully so, that we cannot read those monumental volumes in bed, because if we lie on our backs the weight of them crushes our ribs, and if we lie on our sides, the size of them causes them to thunder on to the floor. Besides, no bed-table will hold them, and the articles are a little too big, and the print a little too small. But such a type of book is admirable, one that deals in a few well-written paragraphs with some interesting subject, and then another and another, all completely unrelated. The note-books of Samuel Butler are of such a breed, so too are the Essays of Elia. We are pleased and interested, but not absorbed, for our author soon thwarts our interest by breaking off, and writing about something quite different. And with a satisfied glance at our watches we switch off the light and, curling our- selves up in our mental pyjamas, look forward drowsily to to-morrow night and the Dissertation on Roast Pig. E. F. BENSON.
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