Study is often dull because it is improperly managed. I
make no apology for speaking of myself, for as I write anonymously
nobody knows who I am, and if I did not, very few would be the
wiser--but every man speaks more firmly when he speaks from his own
experience. I read four books at a time; some classical book perhaps on
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. The "History of France," we will
say, on the evenings of the same days. On Tuesday, Thursday, and
Saturday, Mosheim, or Lardner, and in the evening of those days,
Reynolds's Lectures or Burns's Travels. Then I have always a standing
book of poetry, and a novel to read when I am in the humour to read
nothing else. Then I translate some French into English one day, and
re-translate it the next; so that I have seven or eight pursuits going
on at the same time, and this produces the cheerfulness of diversity,
and avoids that gloom which proceeds from hanging a long while over a
single book. I do not recommend this as a receipt for becoming a learned
man, but for becoming a cheerful one.
Nothing contributes more certainly to the animal spirits than
benevolence. Servants and common people are always about you; make
moderate attempts to please everybody, and the effort will insensibly
lead you to a more happy state of mind.
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