Napoleon read all the new novels in a
travelling carriage, and pitched them out of the window as each was
finished. Active minds, to read advantageously, should seek a quiet
_sanctum_ of their own.

A very admirable suggestion was made a short time since, I think by Dr.
Ernest Hart, that it should be more a custom to have bookcases in
bedrooms. Many persons, and, I believe, notably Mr. Gladstone, read
before going to bed. I think all bedrooms should have a selection of
favourite books, and I do not think that novels are nearly so suitable
as books of short essays and sketches. Few people would sit up
sufficiently long to read a novel through, and many would therefore not
begin what they knew they would be unable to finish.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] P. G. Hamerton.

[11] P. G. Hamerton.

[12] H. W. Beecher.

[13] James Payn.

[14] _Blackwood's Magazine_, February, 1896.

[15] _Blackwood's Magazine_, February, 1896.

[16] Burke.

[17] Thirlwall.

[18] _Blackwood's Magazine_, February, 1896.

[19] J. S. Blackie.

[20] H. D. Traill.

[21] See Mr. Gladstone's ideas on the subject, in _Gladstone in the
Evening of his Days_, p. 145.

[22] Bowen's lecture on _Novel Reading_.

_Common-place Books._

Very numerous methods have been suggested whereby memory may be assisted
and the assimilation of our reading proceed without indigestion. A
reader is often pictured with note-book in hand, supposed to be
memorising what he is reading. There is no doubt that note-books are
very useful, but no note-book or commonplace-book should take the place
of the natural memory--and every one has a good memory for something.

Thomas Fuller has wittily said, 'Adventure not all thy learning in one
bottom, but divide it between thy memory and thy note-books. . . . . A
commonplace-book contains many notions in garrison, whence an owner may
draw out an army into the field on competent warning.'

Every one has his and her own way of keeping a commonplace-book. Mr.
Sala, I remember, once gave a minute account of his jottings in this
way:[23] 'Todd's _Index Rerum_ was, in its day, very little else than
an alphabeted book--a forerunner of what stationers now sell in various
sizes called _Where is it?_ The simplest form of commonplace-book is a
plain quarto MS. book ruled in an ordinary way, and in this entries may
be made without being alphabeted. Do not write extracts or notes right
across the line, but make your entries thus,