To know when to read is hardly less important than to know what to
read. Of course, every one must decide the matter for himself; but one
general counsel may be ventured: Read only what you want to read, and
only when you want to read it.

Some readers find the early morning, when they have all the world to
themselves, their best time for reading, and, if you are a good
sleeper, and do not find early rising more wearying than refreshing,
there is certainly no other time of the day when the mind is so eagerly
receptive, has so keen an edge of appetite, and absorbs a book in so
fine an intoxication. For your true book-lover there is no other
exhilaration so exquisite as that with which one reads an inspiring
book in the solemn freshness of early morning. One's nerves seem
peculiarly strung for exquisite impressions in the first dewy hours of
the day, there is a virginal sensitiveness and purity about all our
senses, and the mere delight of the eye in the printed page is keener
than at any other time. "The Muses love the morning, and that is a fit
time for study," said Erasmus to his friend Christianus of Lubeck; and,
certainly, if early rising agrees with one, there is no better time for
getting the very best out of a book. Moreover, morning reading has a
way of casting a spell of peace over the whole day. It has a sweet,
solemnizing effect on our thoughts--a sort of mental matins--and
through the day's business it accompanies us as with hidden music.

There are others who prefer to do their reading at night, and I presume
that most readers of this paper are so circumstanced as to have no time
to spare for reading during the day. Personally, I think that one of
the best places to read in is bed. Paradoxical as it may sound, one is
not so apt to fall asleep over his book in bed as in the post-prandial
armchair. While one's body rests itself, one's mind, remains alert,