To begin with, ought there to be any such things? Ought we to accustom
ourselves to having books by our bedside? Ought not 'early to bed and
early to rise' to be the motto of every well-conducted person, and is
not reading in bed calculated to render the carrying out of that axiom
virtually impossible? This is the problem we have first to solve, and it
may be said at once that this discourse does not apply _virginibus
puerisque_. Girls and boys, young men and young women, are hereby
solemnly exhorted to abjure all nocturnal or matutinal reading of the
kind suggested. To them all the lines in the copybooks apply
unreservedly. Nay, even for those of mature years it may be allowed that
bed is not the proper place for intellectual study. Let the hours for
reading and for repose be kept rigidly apart, if the reading is to be
systematic and prolonged. So far, everybody is agreed. To make a habit
of perusing books in bed is to encourage laziness, and to encourage
laziness is (we all know) to sap the foundations of the moral nature.
That way destruction lies.
And I am bound to say that habitual, sustained reading in bed is quite
as uncomfortable for the human frame as it is dangerous to the human
character. It cannot be undertaken with entire success. It looks easy to
do, but it is not. If you are sceptical, try it. You begin swimmingly
enough. You lie down, say, on your back, settle your head cosily on to
the pillow, and perhaps, to start with, hold the book before you in both
hands: For a time all goes well, but not for long. The position of the
arms becomes fatiguing. You withdraw one from the book and commence
again. But the utilized arm speedily grows weary, and the chances are
that you drop the volume and go off to sleep, leaving gas, lamp, or
candle alight--which is not very safe and not very healthy--nay, is
positively unhealthy and unsafe. Perchance you try the effect of
reclining on one side, leaning on one arm, and holding the book by means
of the other. That, also, is charming for the moment, but has a similar
tendency to tire very readily. Your elbow--the one on which your weight
is thrown--soon gives signs of boredom. 'I don't like this at all,' it
says virtually; and perhaps you turn round and try the other for a
spell. But in these matters one elbow is very like its brother, and
before long you are on the look-out for another attitude.
What may be called the last infirmity of the determined reader in bed is
his final decision to sit up and read in that fashion. Nothing could be
better--for a certain more or less brief period. At the expiration of a
few minutes, you realize that you are getting a sort of cramp in the
knees; moreover, there is a disagreeable strain on your head; you are
stooping too much, and bending your spine, and altogether making a toil
of pleasure. The situation, it need hardly be said, is still less
attractive when the weather is cold, and the effort to keep warm is
added to the endeavour to read. You have wrapped yourself up, but
apparently not to much purpose. You are conscious of growing chillier
and chillier every moment. And, indeed, a very low temperature is
usually fatal to the cultivation of bedside books. Even if you lie down,
and almost smother yourself in the clothes, you are bound to obtrude one
hand out of shelter, or how is the book to be held up? And how quickly
that hand gets cold--and how often one's two hands have to be alternated
for the purpose in view--and what a nuisance it is to have to make the
continual change! One begins to think that, under the circumstances,
reading is not so pleasant as one fancied, and that sleep (as the poet
says) is the only certain knot of peace.
One thing is incontrovertible, and that is, that bedside books, if they
are to be acceptable, must be, in the first place, small in size and,
therefore, not very weighty. The hand must be asked to hold as little as
possible. Bed is not the place for heavy tomes; it is the appropriate
_locale_ of the duodecimo. And yet the type must not be too small, or
the eyesight will suffer, unless the reader can command plenty of
illumination--which is not always the case. And the book must be not
only fairly diminutive, but bound and stitched in such a way as to allow
the hand to clutch it and hold it with ease. There must be no
unnecessary extension of the palm and fingers, for it adds so much to
the fatigue. Unhappily, every volume does not fulfil this requirement,
and the requisite selection must be made with care. Moreover, the ideal
bedside book should be not only small, and light, and agreeable to the
touch, but distinguished by special internal characteristics. Not only
must the print be legible; the matter it furnishes must be in brief
instalments. What is wanted is a series of short somethings which the
mind can readily grasp and as easily retain. Sustained reading is for
the library or the study; the last thing at night and the first thing in
the morning, what you desire is simply a number of brevities, at any one
of which you can glance with the certainty of being interested.
Wherefore, such works as novels must be discouraged in the bedside
library. There is nothing to be gained by perusing a romance, by bits,
in such fragments of time as the intending sleeper is inclined or able
to accord to it. Keep a novel beside you, if you like, to turn to if the
night should prove an obstinately sleepless one, and to that end let the
tale be by 'Miss Braddon or Gaboriau'--one which shall really fix your
imagination fast, and finish, perhaps, by sending you to rest. But for
ordinary uses let the book which you take up be one of 'Jewels, five
words long,' or thereabouts! Let it be a volume of short essays--let it
be, for instance, Bacon's, or the 'Roundabout Papers,' now accessible in
a handy form. Let it be a volume of brief verse, such as Mr. Gilbert's
'Bab Ballads,' or Mr. Lang's 'Ballades in Blue China,' or Calverley's
immortal 'Fly Leaves;' or let it be a collection of more serious
lyrics--say, Mr. Palgrave's 'Golden Treasury,' or the selections from
Lord Tennyson and Mr. Matthew Arnold. Or, if you like, let it be a
treasury of maxims, such as those by Vauvenargues or Chamfort; or a
series of select passages, such as those from the works of Lord
Beaconsfield or Heine: or let it be a casquet of choice anecdotes, of
which happily the supply is large--that incomparable volume of Dean
Ramsay's, for example, or even the triter production by Mark Lemon.
There is a whole world from which to choose.
Only, take care that, whatever the literature is, it is not disturbing.
The mission of the bedside book is to soothe the mind, not irritate it.
When one lies down after a hard day's work, one's desire is not that the
brain should be stimulated, but that it should be refreshed. It needs,
not exercise, but diversion. It wants to be prepared for sleep. And if a
book will effect that object, while at the same time adding to the stock
of one's ideas--humorous or sentimental, it does not matter which--that
volume is to be thanked and cherished. The difficulty of putting down
one's book and extinguishing the light before the exposition of sleep
comes upon one, must be left to be dealt with by the individual man. I
have heard of a popular vocalist who was wont, when he had read
sufficiently, to extinguish the candle by plumping down upon it whatever
book he happened to have in his hand. But this is a rough and ready mode
which cannot be generally recommended--at any rate, not in those cases
where the book is one's own! Some other means must be discovered. And
let them be efficacious, for when any element of danger or unhealthiness
is allowed to attend the use of bedside books, the sooner that use is
discontinued the better.