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"So far we have marked for saving out of the waste of days, half an hour at least on six mornings a week, and one hour and a half on three evenings a week.

"When you have conscientiously given seven hours and a half a week to the cultivation of your vitality for three months--then you may begin to sing louder and tell yourself what wondrous things you are capable of doing.

"Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Read a chapter-- and so short they are, the chapters!--in the evening and concentrate on it the next morning...I may also mention Pascal, La Bruyere, and Emerson.

"a daily, candid, honest examination of what one has recently done, and what one is about to do--of a steady looking at one's self in the face...The solitude of the evening journey home appears to me to be suitable for it.

"Imaginative poetry produces a far greater mental strain than novels.

"Choose a limited period, or a limited subject, or a single author.

"Unless you give at least forty-five minutes to careful, fatiguing reflection (it is an awful bore at first) upon what you are reading, your ninety minutes of a night are chiefly wasted.

"The first is the terrible danger of becoming that most odious and least supportable of persons--a prig...It will be found, ultimately, that in taking care of one's self one has quite all one can do

"Another danger is the danger of being tied to a programme like a slave to a chariot.