BOOKS BY THE BED.

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 245, 6 January 1928, Page 14

BOOKS BY THE BED.

fWri«4**i f»r T~h« Saa.l W-~ JTiS CSST3.SJ dreams than the wellconned pages of old favourites? How ran *he mind be more agreeably freed of the day's trivialities than by a hook, last thing at night? Tf yon have an electric bed light, good luck to yon; o’l’’. you ran really manage quite ccmfortaMy with a eand.e splattering on SA 7 that yon are weii on your way to tr.e speetaele-bewse; but take no ti.-er!, spare one of them at least flye If you are too dog-tired for even a fire minutes' browse, hare yon tried glac'..ag over a little book of prints? Do you read as I do, always to the rery last ditoh, till the enemy Is at the ga*e ? Till your mind can reeel re no more, yonr eyes stumble, and printed words begin to blur—in short, till s>ep is not so much around the comer as under your very nose? A sleep preluded by the serene thoughts wc.ch you call from the deeps of books will often yield bl.seful dreams of far, foreign cities, i will answer for it that I hare Tislted most of the big European towns In my dreams. It Is something of an achievement, surely, to hare walked the streets of Berne and Vienna within a week and without the discomforts of travel—dream travels are better than none at all. Let the wind howl and the rain pour and yonr enemies rave: it will make your little seclusion snugger 3till. We ait love the obbligato of the rain beating on the roof while we read. I advise you to leave modern novels alone. They may he as enthralling as easy to read. (That's their great seduction: they're so easy.) Devour them In chunks on the rocking-chair by the lire; but don't take them to bed with you. Leave plays alone, too. Drama Implies a dramatic action not at all persuasive of sleep. A tome of economics works the trick with some; but such a book would fret me into a midnight madness terrible to behold. Away with your facta, then, and give me bright books by the pillow; yet no Michael Arlens. Aldous Hawley? He can claim humour, even If occasionally sardonic:

and for his aesthetic judgments alone he is always readable. But he could never be a permanent companion, merely someone rather exhilarating to know. After all, the best, bed books are biographies, letters, and old, well-worn novels, the chronicles of an age leas fevered than this. X wouldn't be without my Elia, even if I do, to my shame, pick him up too rarely. He is one of the family, like the cat or the dog. And so is Emerson, old friend with the shabby green cover. There are three other girlhood's friends, "Walden,’’ "Sartor Resartus," “Men and Women.” Then a rice-paper Jane Austen, slim as Jane ought to be; Charlotte and Emily In red jackets; Heine’s "Travel Pictures." Ought there not to be a place for "The' Ordeal of Richard Feverel"? Would George Eliot involve too great a mental effort? One book I haven't got; but it would be a heavenly bedside book—Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal, the expresslcn of a mind’s quiet contentment, with touches of Mature by a pen dipped In light and air; little landscapes painted with the brush of an Anton Mauve. I Suppose one should have a Pepys? But strangers will creep in. They are lent to one, or in some other way And place on the shelf. For instance, the other night, on going to bed, I espied a Dennis Bradley, cheek by Jowl with "The Memoirs of a Midget ” and I had a strong impulse to remove Walter from contamination. But de la Mare is above contamination from such as Bradley. Besides, let poor Bradley get all the good he can from close contact with de la Mare; let the poet teach the upstart a thing or two. Mine may be an entirely unreasoned. Dr Fell prejudice; but Bradley is my particular bete noir. He puts all Heaven In a rage! Then I remembered that the good apple doesn’t make the bad one sound, the bad taints the good. So without more ado I shifted de la Mare to a more congenial quarter, and Bradley I flung ont of my radius. Someone has said that for perfect domestic happiness It is necessary to have a clean hearth, a kettle simmering on the bob, and a box of sugarplums on the mantelpiece To that let me add emphatically—a little read In bed. JESS DUFF.