midnight
I sha n't be very late . '' He meant it when he said it , but returning to his desk at the back of the shop his eye fell upon his private shelf of books which he kept there `` to rectify perturbations '' as Burton puts it . On this shelf there stood Pilgrim 's Progress , Shakespeare , The Anatomy of Melancholy , The Home Book of Verse , George Herbert 's Poems , The Notebooks of Samuel Butler , and Leaves of Grass . He took down The Anatomy of Melancholy , that most delightful of all books for midnight browsing . Turning to one of his favourite passages -- `` A Consolatory Digression , Containing the Remedies of All Manner of Discontents '' -- he was happily lost to all ticking of the clock , retaining only such bodily consciousness as was needful to dump , fill , and relight his pipe from time to time . Solitude is a dear jewel for men whose days are spent in the tedious this-and-that of trade . Roger was a glutton for his midnight musings .