I guess things never really change. Just enjoying Anselm. I added the numbering and highlighting for easier reading:
(1) The meditations ... must not be read in the midst of noise, but in silence; nor yet rapidly, but in a leisurely manner, with close and severe study of their meaning.
(2) Nor should the reader make it his aim to peruse any one of them from end to end without break; but just so much of it as he feels may be of service to him for enkindling a desire for prayer, or so much as may serve to refresh him.
(3) Nor is there any need for him always to begin any one of them from the beginning; let him, on the contrary, begin where he prefers ... that the reader may easily choose a place for beginning or for stopping, and so avoid the weariness and annoyance which would be produced by too prolonged application to the book, or by repeated reperusal of one and the same passage;
... that he may thus be the more likely to reap some pious dispositions from them; for this was the end had in view in their composition.
Anselm, S., Archbishop of Canterbury. (1872). Saint Anselm's Book of Meditations and Prayers (xv). London: Burns and Oates.
