Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/15



IN THE DOZY HOURS.

" and Howell's letters," says Thackeray, "are my bedside books. If I wake at night, I have one or other of them to prattle me to sleep again. They talk about themselves forever, and don't weary me. I like to hear them tell their old stories over and over again. I read them in the dozy hours, and only half remember them."

In the frank veracity of this last confession there lies a pleasant truth which it is wholesome to hear from such excellent and undisputed authority. Many people have told us about the advantage of remembering what we read, and have imparted severe counsels as to ways and means. Thackeray and Charles Lamb alone have ventured to hint at the equal delight of forgetting, and of returning to some well-loved volume with recollections softened