THE BED-BOOK OF HAPPINESS.
The Bed-Book of Happiness. By Harold Begbie. (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s. net.)—The Bed-Book of Happiness is an anthology of prose and verse, which thus describes itself: "A colligation or assemblage of cheerful writings brought together from many quarters into this one compass for the diversion, distraction, and delight of those who lie abed—a friend to the invalid, a companion to the sleepless, an excuse to the tired." The various excerpts are of all lengths, from two lines to several pages, and cover an enormously wide field of literature. It is impossible to do more than mention a few names and congratulate Mr. Begbie upon a happy knack of choosing short and cheerful readings from English literature. Is there any person in bed who does not know that Charles Lamb said "that the greatest pleasure in life" is" to do good in secret and be found out by accident "? If so, such a "find" as this will be worth an hour's reading to him. It cannot be that the hour will be a dull one either. Dr. Johnson and Mr. Chesterton, Charles Dickens and Dean Hole, Mark Twain, Calverley, and Walter Bagehot, set themselves, with many others, to make it pass pleasantly.
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