For literature (reading it, I mean here) is, in this, like love: Richest are the returns to that one whose passion is most complete in its surrender. And a man lapping his frame in soft indolence, though he have a book in his hand, is indulging in sensuous physical pleasure at least equally with intellectual receptivity or aesthetic appreciation. No. Reading should not be taken as an opiate. The way to read, then--but, a moment more; a couple of other points are to be cleared up. There is much babble of slippers and dressing-gowns, easy chairs and "soft lights" in connection with the comments about the pleasures, the "delights" as I believe some people say, of reading. What is wanted to _know_ the relish to be got from reading is, first (of course), an uncommon book. And by that term is meant merely one uncommonly suited to the spirit of the reader. (The only perfect definition, that, of a "good book.") Some people still read Stevenson. Well, there's no great harm in that. Providing you read him (or anybody else) as follows: You should read as you should die--with your boots on. You take a wooden chair, without arms, such (this is the best) as is commonly called a "kitchen chair." It has a good, hard seat. You sit upright in this, crossing and recrossing your legs as they tire. Nearby you is a good, strong light, one with a tonic effect, a light that keeps your eyes wide open. You sit facing a dull, blank wall. No pictures or other ornaments or decorations should be on this wall, as, in case such things are there, and you happen to raise your eyes for an instant, in ecstasy or in thought, your vision lights upon one of these things; and the heart which you have given your author is, certainly in some measure, alienated from him. Maybe, indeed, you go back to him almost at once. But then harm has been done--you have not read with supreme abandon. CHAPTER XXII RECOLLECTIONS OF LANDLADIES There is no figure in the human scene which makes so unctuous an appeal to our relish of humanity as the landlady. When the landlady comes upon the stage at the theatre, we all awaken to an expectation of delight in the characteristic manifestations of her nature, and seldom are disappointed. The genius of the greatest of authors always unfolds with particular warmth in the presence of their landladies. A moment's reflection will recall a procession of immortal landladies. Whether it is that the colorful calling of landlady cultivates in one a peculiar richness of human nature, or whether landladies are born and not made--those with characters of especial tang and savor instinctively adopting this occupation,--I cannot say, but the fact is indisputable that landladies are not as other persons are. No one ever saw a humdrum landlady. A commonplace person as a landlady is unthinkable.