156 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECnONS VOL. 54 



even to the reducing of his hours of sleep to the shortest Hmit. In 

 the winter, he was accustomed to work until between one or two 

 o'clock in the morning, or at the shortest until midnight. He could 

 fall asleep at once, no matter at what hour; sometimes even at 

 work he would fall asleep for a few moments and awake again. 

 Before the break of day he would go to the Emperor Vespasian 

 — for he too used to work at night — to receive his orders or to 

 fu fil some commission. Returning home he would study until 

 breakfast time. After a light breakfast, if it was summer, and 

 he had a little leisure, he would lie down in the sun and have 

 a book read to him, taking notes and extracts; for he read 

 nothing without making some excerpts, being accustomed to 

 say that no book was so bad as not to contain something useful. 

 After sunset he would usually take a bath, then recreate and sleep 

 a little. After that, as if another day had dawned, he studied 

 again until dinner time. Even at this principal meal a book was 

 read, and comments written, and this without interrupting the 

 reading. I remember that once upon a time one of his friends pres- 

 ent checked the reader, who had given a wrong inflection, and had 

 him read the line over again. ' But you understood the meaning 

 at the first reading, did you not?' my uncle interposed; to which 

 the other nodded assent. ' Why, then, did you call for the repeti- 

 tion? We have lost the time it would have taken to read ten lines, 

 by this interruption.' So avaricious was he of time. He arose 

 from the dinner table, whether while it was yet daylight in summer, 

 or when in winter it was after dark, always with the same prompti- 

 tude, as if compelled by law. This was his manner of life amid 

 the business and turmoil of the city. In the country the only 

 respite he allowed himself was that of the daily bath; and when 

 I say that I mean the actual time of the bath; for while the drying 

 and dressing was going on he was either listening or dictating. 

 On his journeyings, as if putting out of mind all business cares, he 

 did nothing else but that; keeping always close beside him a rapid 

 penman, a book, and a writing tablet. . . . For the same purpose 

 even in Rome he had himself carried from place to place in a sedan. 

 I remember well how once in meeting me when I was walking he 

 said : ' You ought not to lose these hours ' ; for he reckoned all 

 time lost that was not given to study. It was by such exertions 

 as these that he brought all those volumes to completion." ^ 



We have from another letter by this same kinsman annalist — a 

 letter to the historian Tacitus — an account of the circumstances of 



> Pliny the younger, Book iii, Epistle 5. 



I 



