This undertaking in which I was engaged involved a period of five
years, but time is of precious little consideration to one when
he is dreaming of exploits achieved in behalf of a beautiful
princess. My fairy godmother (she wore a mob-cap and was
hunchbacked) took good care of me, and conducted me safely
through all my encounters with demons, giants, dragons, witches,
serpents, hippogriffins, ogres, etc.; and I had just rescued the
princess and broken the spell which bound her, and we were about
to ``live in peace to the end of our lives,'' when I awoke to
find it was all a dream, and that the gas-light over my bed had
been blazing away during the entire period of my five-year war
for the delectable maiden.

This incident gives me an opportunity to say that observation has
convinced me that all good and true book-lovers practise the
pleasing and improving avocation of reading in bed. Indeed, I
fully believe with Judge Methuen that no book can be appreciated
until it has been slept with and dreamed over. You recall,
perhaps, that eloquent passage in his noble defence of the poet
Archias, wherein Cicero (not Kikero) refers to his own pursuit of
literary studies: ``Haec studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem
oblectant; secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium
praebent; delectant domi, non impediunt foris; PERNOCTANT
nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur!''

By the gods! you spoke tally, friend Cicero; for it is indeed so,
that these pursuits nourish our earlier and delight our later
years, dignifying the minor details of life and affording a
perennial refuge and solace; at home they please us and in no