He can generally write, but there are occasions when for weeks together
he is conscious of an invincible disinclination, and this he never
opposes. Consequently, he is by temperament unfitted for journalism, in
which he has, he thinks, happily, never been obliged to take any part.
As for Mr. Gosse's verse, it gets itself written at odd times, wholly
without rule or precedent, and, of course, cannot be submitted to rule;
But his experience is that the habit of regular application is
beneficial to the production of prose.

Felix Dahn, whose fertile fancy conjures up romances of life in ancient
Rome, always writes by the light of day. He writes with great facility
and rapidity; and devotes nine hours a day to literary work. His
manuscript goes to the printer as it is originally composed, and he
seldom alters a line after it is once committed to paper.

Albert Traeger, a celebrated German poet, writes in the
afternoon,--after three o'clock, by preference. When composing prose, he
writes fair copy at once; for poems, however, he makes an outline, which
is hardly ever altered, since he completes every line in his head before
he writes it down. While at work he constantly smokes very strong
cigars, and is in the habit of sipping black coffee from time to time.
The poet is a ready writer, but never pens a single sentence unless he
feels disposed to work. Sometimes months pass before he takes up the
neglected pen again.

That excellent writer of short stories, Sarah Orne Jewett, composes in
the afternoon. She does not make a formal outline of her work, but has a
rough plan of it in her own head, depending most upon a knowledge of the
chief characters. She writes for about four hours a day, and often finds
the first ten or fifteen minutes' work an effort, but after that she can
almost always go on easily.

Thomas Hardy prefers the night for working, but finds the use of daytime
advisable, as a rule. He follows no plan as to outline, and uses no
stimulant excepting tea. His habit is to remove boots or slippers as a
preliminary to work. He has no definite hours for writing, and only
occasionally works against his will.

W. H. Riehl, who, besides being a professor at the University of Munich,
is a famous novelist, always writes by daylight. He carefully outlines
his work beforehand, and repeatedly revises it before it is printed.
When engaged in the labor of composition, he smokes one cigar--no more.
He invents easily, but is very painstaking when writing down his
thoughts, mercilessly erasing whatever does not suit him. He takes a pen
to hand whenever he has a leisure moment, sometimes in the morning,
sometimes in the afternoon, as circumstances permit.

The renowned divine, Karl Gersk, who is the author of by far the best
German religious poems, as a rule makes an outline before composing
poetry, but writes down prose at once. When his attention is taken up by
an interesting topic, he is in the habit of curling, absent-mindedly,
one of his occipital locks about the left index finger. He rarely writes
for more than six hours a day, and then only when he feels especially
disposed to work.

The author of "St. Olave" always writes in the daytime; namely, from
nine A. M. to one P. M.; and does not make any outline first, but only
two copies, which are improved afterward, the first copy being written
in pencil, and the second in ink. The second manuscript is revised and
corrected. Day by day, this knight of the pen writes during the stated
time, unless prevented by illness or unexpected engagements, and does
not wait for "feeling disposed," but goes steadily on.

R. E. Francillon prefers working at night, when both ideas and words
come most fluently. He always works at night, and sometimes all night,
when he works against time. He has not then to conquer an unwillingness
to work which besets him at other hours. Next to the night-time, he
prefers the afternoon, to which circumstances practically confine him.
This refers to imaginative work. With regard to journalistic and
critical work and study, it is just the reverse, and he prefers the
morning. He never makes a skeleton of his work. He has tried the
skeleton method, but found it useless, and broke away from it soon after
starting. He finds that incident suggests incident, and characters
develop themselves. Of course, he starts with a motive (in the technical
sense), and a general drift and color, and the salient points of leading
characters. He uses no stimulant when at work, except tobacco in the
form of cigarettes, which he smokes all the time, whatever he is doing,
even when writing a letter. Pen and cigarette are inseparable; but he
smokes very little when not working, and next to nothing when taking a
holiday. His hours of work depend very much on necessity. He is engaged
on a newspaper from nine A. M. till one P. M. The afternoon and evening
are devoted to fiction or whatever other work he has on hand.
Practically he is at his desk all day, an industry which is rendered
possible by frequent change of work. He constantly forces himself to
work, dead against inclination; and, though it may seem strange, it
constantly happens that the less the original inclination, the better
the result, and _vice versa_. Francillon has no faith whatever in
writing upon inclination, and maintains that even if little comes of
working when disinclined, the little is something and prevents the want
of inclination lasting, besides preventing one from yielding easily. He
is perfectly indifferent to outside noise, and, indeed, to almost
everything that most people find a trial to the nerves--except
conversation in the same room. He has worked with music playing in the
same room, and has not even noticed it.

Hubert H. Bancroft, the historian of the Pacific coast, works day and
evening, with little interruption, except as he takes a walk or rides
for exercise occasionally in the afternoon. He determines that a certain
amount of work shall be accomplished within so many hours, days, and
weeks, and so is always stimulated and successfully accomplishes the
allotted task. He frequently writes when not disposed to work.

Richard Schmidt Cabanis, the German humorist, has often spent whole
nights at the writing-desk. When composing poetry he makes an outline
beforehand, otherwise not. Before his manuscript goes to press he
carefully revises it and strikes out a great deal. He is very fond of
French red wine, which he imbibes occasionally when writing, but which
he must often forego in obedience to the advice of his physicians. The
only peculiarity of which he is possessed is that he cannot compose
unless he is alone, and he scorns even dumb company during working
hours.

Margaret Eytinge very much prefers the morning for writing, and
generally spends from eight o'clock until eleven or twelve at her desk.
Of course, she often works in the afternoon, and sometimes, though very
rarely, at night. But at those times she only revises and copies. She
makes a slight sketch of her poem or story first--a sketch written so
hastily that it would be impossible for anybody but herself to decipher
it, and she has found trouble in making it out herself at times. Then
she proceeds to clothe this skeleton, an operation which is never
completed satisfactorily until after at least three times trying. She
always makes it a point to produce clean manuscripts. She cannot write
at all with people about her, or in an unfamiliar place, and must be in
her own room, at her own desk, and secure from interruption.

That astute author of innumerable novels, Charlotte M. Yonge, never
works at night. She does not write any outline of her tales. She has
such an outline in her mind, but is guided by the way the characters
shape themselves. She generally composes from about 10.30 A. M. to 1.30
P. M., taking odd times later in the day for proofs and letters. Having
good health, she is seldom indisposed for work; if she is, she takes
something mechanical, such as translating or copying.

Dr. Karl Frenzel, editor of one of the leading Berlin newspapers, has to
struggle hard at first to overcome his unwillingness to compose, but
after he has written for some time any aversion which he may have
experienced disappears. He rarely works at night, never after midnight,
but prefers the evening to the afternoon for literary production. He
sometimes rewrites whole pages of his novels two or three times, but
never makes a plan beforehand. He has the queer habit of making bread
pellets while at work; that is, whenever he is absorbed in thought. He
writes with facility and swiftness, devoting from three to four hours a
day to literary labor.

Dr. Otto Franz Gensichen, German dramatist, poet, and essayist, always
writes in the daytime, almost exclusively in the forenoon, from eight
till twelve o'clock. He makes an exception in the case of lyrical poems,
which, of course, must be written down whenever they occur to the mind.
After his manuscript is done, he polishes it here and there, and then
copies it; for while slowly transcribing he can most easily detect
mistakes. While at work in the morning he smokes a mild cigar, which is,
however, sometimes omitted. When writing, he likes to have as much light
and silence about him as he can possibly attain. While the manuscript
lies on the writing table, and the author is meditating on the subject
in hand, he is in the habit of pacing up and down the room. At first he
repeats the words aloud to test their euphonism and smoothness; he then
commits the spoken words to paper. He can boast of himself that he has
never written a line "_invita Musa_," without being fully inclined to
composition. Sometimes he does not write for months, but when the proper
mood takes possession of him, he is very industrious. Even then,
however, he does most of his work before midday, and, exceptionally,
from five till eight in the afternoon. As he is a bachelor and given up
altogether to authorship, he is governed entirely by his moods.

Paul Burani, the brilliant Parisian journalist and dramatist, is forty
years of age, married and father of one daughter,--Michelette,--owner
of the house he lives in, and, altogether, the perfect type of a
successful literarian. Before writing a play, he makes a very elaborate
outline, which is developed afterward. Ordinarily he rewrites a play
three times, but being both a ready and a rapid writer, the task is
quickly accomplished. When compelled to stop writing in consequence of
fatigue or a lack of interest, he takes up something else, promenades in
his garden, or smokes a cigar. He is indifferent to noise, and can
compose almost anywhere. The great number of books which he has written
has given him the reputation of being one of the most productive authors
of the times, but he does not write for more than five or six hours a
day.

Ludwig Habicht, a German novelist, loves to write by the light of the
sun, and invariably works in the daytime, never at night. When his
manuscript is finished and corrected, he has it copied by a professional
copyist, whereupon it goes to the compositor. Habicht prefers to write
in the open air, and does not use a writing-desk. The duration of his
working hours depends entirely upon his health and moods, but he never
writes for more than four or five hours a day; and sometimes does not
pen a line for months.

Formerly, when the world--that is to say, the German world--used to
know Karl Stelter, the poet, as a merchant, he was in the habit of
spending his leisure hours in the evening in the production of poetry,
and, strange though it may seem, his best poems were made after a hard
day's work. Now, since he has retired from business and is in prosperous
circumstances, he versifies whenever and wherever he wants to, in the
evening as well as in the daytime. He writes his poems with a lead
pencil, and polishes them for weeks before they are published. He works
with great ease, and is a ready improviser; but he never writes against
his inclination.

Brander Matthews does his work between breakfast and lunch, as a rule;
and works at night only occasionally. He makes elaborate notes, and then
writes at white heat, revising at his leisure.

André Theuriet, the Parisian novelist, makes an outline of his work
first; he delineates each chapter of his novel, indicating the
situations, personages, dialogues, and so on. Thereupon the novel soon
assumes a definite form. Theuriet spends six hours a day at his
writing-desk, but always in the morning. He does not believe in night
work. In the afternoon he revises the work of the previous day. During
working hours the author drinks two cups of tea and smokes one or two
pipes of tobacco. Theuriet retires early in the evening, between ten
and eleven o'clock, and rises in the morning at a quarter before six.
This regular mode of life explains why the novelist is able to write so
much, and is a key to the productiveness which has astonished his
contemporaries.

Paul Lindau, another German novelist, critic, and journalist, dictates a
great deal, sometimes without inclination, and sometimes after hasty
lead-pencil sketches. When he writes himself only one manuscript is
made. He incessantly smokes cigarettes while at work. Only when he has
labored uninterruptedly a long time does he refresh himself with coffee,
tea, wine, and water. As a rule, Lindau writes with ease. He declares
that dictating tires him out more than if he should write himself, but
by dictation he is enabled to do twice as much work as he could
otherwise accomplish. Generally, he writes for from four to five hours a
day, but sometimes he has spent ten or even eleven hours in literary
work.

A. v. Winterfeld, the German humorist, devotes the day only to literary
work. His original manuscript is committed to the press, for he never
copies what he has written. He composes with great ease and swiftness,
and spends four hours a day at the writing-desk.

Hector Malot, the Parisian novelist, makes an outline of his romances
beforehand, faintly indicating all important incidents of his work. He
does not take stimulating drinks, either when at work or when at rest;
with him the work itself acts as a stimulant. He rises at five o'clock
in the morning, and writes till eleven. After breakfast he takes a walk.
At two o'clock in the afternoon he resumes work and keeps at it until
seven o'clock in the evening; but he never composes at night. Nine
months of the year are devoted to literary labor, but the remaining
three months he spends in travel, study, and recreation.

Victorien Sardou, the dramatist, writes his play twice; first on little
scraps of paper, then on foolscap. The first draft, when it is finished,
is a maze of alterations and delineations.

Mezerai, the famous historian, used to study and write by candle-light,
even at noonday in summer, and, as if there had been no sun in the
world, always waited upon his company to the door with a candle in his
hand.

"The method of Buckle, the historian," so says his biographer, "was
chiefly remarkable for careful, systematic industry, and punctilious
accuracy. His memory appeared to be almost faultless, yet he took as
much precaution against failure as if he dared not trust it. He
invariably read with "paper and pencil in his hand, making copious
references for future consideration. How laboriously this system was
acted upon can be appreciated only by those who have seen his
note-books, in which the passages so marked during his reading were
either copied or referred to under proper heads. Volume after volume was
thus filled, everything being written with the same precise neatness
that characterizes his manuscript for the press, and indexed with care,
so that immediate reference might be made to any topic. But, carefully
as these extracts and references were made, there was not a quotation in
one of the copious notes that accompanied his work that was not verified
by collation with the original from which it was taken."

Joaquin Miller says that he has always been so poor, or, rather, has had
so many depending on his work, that he has "never been able to indulge
the luxury of habits," and that he has worked in a sort of
"catch-as-catch-can" way. Having been mostly on the wing since he began
writing, he has done his work in all kinds of ways, and hours, and
houses. However, now, since he has a little home, his life has become
regulated. He rises at daylight, so as to save candles, and never works
at night. After he has made and imbibed his coffee, he digs or pulls
weeds, and cultivates his flowers, or works in some way about the
greens, for an hour or so, and at length, when he feels compelled to
literary work, and can no longer keep from it, he writes whatever he
feels that he must set down; and then he writes only as long as he
feels impelled. Holding, as he does, that all modern authors think too
little and write too much, he never writes as long as he can keep from
it. He looks forward with hope and pleasure to the day when he shall be
able to stop writing entirely. As for stimulants, he never takes them.
Yet he often smokes a cigar about the greens before beginning work. But
he would be ill if he attempted to drink while writing. As for making an
outline of his work, he generally jots down a lot of sketches or
pictures, one each day; then he puts these together, and the play, poem,
or novel is finished. He works for from three to five hours every day,
then goes out till dinner time. He once lived in a rude log cabin, built
on an eminence overlooking the city of Washington, D. C. There his
latch-string was always out. He now lives near Oakland, Calif., not in
one cabin, but in three, each as rude as that of any settler in the
Sierras.

George Manville Fenn, during a period of some eighteen years, has tried
a good many plans, with the result of settling down for the last twelve
or fourteen years to one alone. He prefers the daytime decidedly for
mental work, because the brain is fresh and vigorous from the rest of
the past few hours, and because the work produced is lighter and better
and can be sustained longer; and the writer is not exhausted when he
leaves his table. Brilliant work has often been done at night; but when
Fenn has made the trial he has found the results of a month's day-work
better, and there has been more in quantity. He invariably makes an
outline or skeleton of his work, and often with his story first in a
dramatic form, which, he thinks, adds much to the vigor and effect of a
tale. He is in the habit of using tobacco, but has never looked upon it
as a stimulus, regarding it rather as a soothing aid to reflection. He
dines early, so as to have the evenings free. The afternoon is spent in
work, a visit to town, or a chat with friends; he takes tea early,--at
six,--and afterward often writes for two or three hours. For years Mr.
Fenn has been trying to solve this problem: Why can one write easily and
fairly well one day, and have the next be almost a blank? After long
study and much musing, he has come to the determination that he knows
nothing whatever about it, and that the only thing to do is to lead as
quiet and temperate a life as one can. Of course, the stimulated and
excited brain will produce a few weird and powerful bits of work; but,
judging from what Mr. Fenn has seen, the loaded mind soon breaks down.

VII.

Goethe, Dickens, Schiller, and Scott.

Goethe was a believer in the pleasant doctrine that the highest and
freest work can be done under the healthiest conditions of fresh air,
early hours, daylight, and temperance--which does not mean abstinence.
He and Balzac are at precisely opposite pales in their method of
working. Here is the account of Goethe's days at Weimar, according to G.
H. Lewes: He rose at seven. Till eleven he worked without interruption.
A cup of chocolate was then brought, and he worked on again till one. At
two he dined. His appetite was immense. Even on the days when he
complained of not being hungry, he ate much more than most men. He sat a
long while over his wine, chatting gayly; for he never dined alone. He
was fond of wine, and drank daily his two or three bottles. There was no
dessert--Balzac's principal meal--nor coffee. Then he went to the
theatre, where a glass of punch was brought to him at six, or else he
received friends at home. By ten o'clock he was in bed, where he slept
soundly. Like Thorwaldsen, he had a talent for sleeping.

No man of business or dictionary maker could make a more healthy
arrangement of his hours. The five or six hours of regular morning work,
which left the rest of the day open for society and recreation, the
early habits, the full allowance of sleep, and the rational use of food
are in glaring contrast to Balzac's short and broken slumbers, his night
work, and his bodily starvation. Goethe differed from almost every other
great poet in not doing his greatest work at a white heat; and not only
so, but he differed also in constantly balancing his reasoning against
his creative faculties. Those long mornings of early work were not
always spent in the fever of creation. He was a physiologist, a
botanist, a critic; and the longer he lived, the more of a savant he
became, if not less of a poet. His imagination was most fertile before
he settled down into these regular ways, but not before he settled down
into a full appreciation of wine. Balzac would write the draft of a
whole novel at a sitting, and then develop it on the margins of proofs,
revises, and re-revises. Goethe acted as if while art is long, life were
long also. Till the contrary is proved, we must consistently hold that
Goethe was the philosopher before dinner-time, and the poet in the
theatre, or during those long after-dinner hours over his two or three
bottles of wine. That these later hours were often spent socially proves
nothing, one way or the other. Some men need such active influences as
their form of mental stimulus. Alfieri found, or made, his ideas while
listening to music or galloping on horseback. Instances are common in
every-day life of men who cannot think to good purpose when shut up in a
room with a pen, and who find their best inspiration in wandering about
the streets and hearing what they want in the rattle of cabs and the
seething of life around them, like the scholar of Padua, whose
conditions of work are given by Montaigne as a curiosity: "I lately
found one of the most learned men in France studying in the corner of a
room, cut off by a screen, surrounded by a lot of riotous servants. He
told me--and Seneca says much the same himself--that he worked all the
better for this uproar, as, if overpowered by noise, he was obliged to
withdraw all the more closely into himself for contemplation, while the
storm of voices drove his thoughts inward. When at Padua he had lodged
so long over the clattering of the traffic and the tumult of the
streets, that he had been trained not only to be indifferent to noise,
but even to require it for the prosecution of his studies."

Goethe abominated smoking, though he was a German. Bayard Taylor says
that he tolerated the use of the pipe by Schiller and his sovereign,
Carl August, but otherwise he was very severe in denouncing it. Goethe
himself somewhere says that "with tobacco, garlic, bed-bugs, and
hypocrites he should wage perpetual war."

We learn from Mr. Forster that "method in everything was Dickens'
peculiarity, and between breakfast and luncheon, with rare exceptions,
was his time of work. But his daily walks were less of rule than of
enjoyment and necessity. In the midst of his writing they were
indispensable, and especially, as it has been shown, at night." When he
had work on hand he walked all over the town furiously, and in all
weathers, to the injury of his health; and his walks, be it observed,
were frequently what Balzac's always were--at night; so that, in the
matter of hours, he must be taken as having conformed in some important
respects to Balzac's hygiene. Now, Goethe was also an essentially
out-of-doors man by nature--not one to let his pen do his imagining for
him. He was no slave of the ink-bottle, as some are, who cannot think
without the feather of a goose in their hands, by way of a sometimes
appropriate talisman. There is a well-known passage in one of the Roman
elegies to the effect that inspiration is to be sought more directly
than within the four walls of a study, and that the rhythm of the
hexameter is not best drummed with the fingers on a wooden table; and if
it is true, as the author tells, that "youth is drunkenness without
wine," it seems to follow, according to his experience, that those two
or three bottles of wine are not altogether needless as an aid to
inspiration when youth is gone by.

Schiller could never leave off talking about his poetical projects, and
thus he discussed with Goethe all his best pieces, scene after scene. On
the other hand, it was contrary to Goethe's nature, as he told
Eckermann, to talk over his poetic plans with anybody--even with
Schiller. He carried everything about with him in silence, and usually
nothing of what he was doing was known to any one until the whole was
completed.

Sir Walter Scott was one of the most industrious of writers. He rose
early, and accomplished a good day's literary work before half the world
was out of bed. Even when he was busiest, he seldom worked as late as
noon. His romances were composed with amazing rapidity; and it is an
astonishing fact, that in less than two weeks after his bankruptcy Scott
wrote an entire volume of "Woodstock." His literary labors yielded him
$50,000 a year. Two thousand copies of "The Lady of the Lake" were sold
within a few months.

Many of the more energetic descriptions in "Marmion," and particularly
that of the battle of Flodden, were struck off, according to Mr.
Skene's account, while Scott was out with his cavalry, in the autumn of
1807. In the intervals of drilling, we are told, Scott used to delight
"in walking his powerful black steed up and down by himself upon the
Portobello sands, within the beating of the surge; and now and then you
would see him plunge in his spurs, and go off as if at the charge, with
the spray dashing about him. As we rode back to Musselburgh, he often
came and placed himself beside me, to repeat the verses that he had been
composing during these pauses of our exercise."

In after years, Mr. Cadell, then a guest at Abbotsford, observing how
his host was harassed by lion-hunters, and what a number of hours he
spent daily in the company of his work-people, expressed his wonder that
Scott should ever be able to work at all while in the country. "Oh,"
said Sir Walter, "I lie simmering over things for an hour or so before I
get up; and there's the time I'm dressing to overhaul my half-sleeping,
half-waking _projet de chapitre_, and when I get the paper before me, it
commonly runs off pretty easily. Besides, I often take a doze in the
plantations, and while Tom [Purdie] marks out a dyke or a drain as I
have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain rigs in some other
world."

By far the greater portion of "The Bride of Lammermoor," the whole of
"The Legend of Montrose," and almost the whole of "Ivanhoe" were
dictated under the terrible stimulus of physical pain, which wrung
groans from the author between the words. The very two novels wherein
the creative power of the arch-master of romance shows itself most
strongly were composed in the midst of literal birth-throes. Laidlaw
would often beseech Sir Walter affectionately to stop dictating, when
his audible suffering filled every pause. It was then he made that
grimmest of all bad puns: "Nay, Willie," addressing Laidlaw, who wrote
for him and implored him to rest, "only see that the doors are fast. I
would fain keep all the cry, as well as all the wool, to ourselves; but
as to giving over work, that can be done only when I am in woollen."
John Ballantyne, his other faithful amanuensis, after the first day,
took care to have always a dozen of pens made before he seated himself
opposite the sofa on which Scott lay, the sufferer usually continuing
his sentence in the same breath, though he often turned himself on his
pillow with a groan of anguish. "But when a dialogue of peculiar
animation was in progress, spirit seemed to triumph altogether over
matter: he arose from his couch and walked up and down the room, raising
and lowering his voice, and, as it were, acting the parts."

In this last particular we are reminded of the celebrated Russian
author, Gogol, whose practice it is said to have been in composing a
dialogue to recite all the different speeches in character before
committing them to paper, to assure himself of their being in complete
consonance with what the character and situation required.

So far from affording any argument to the contrary, the history of the
years during which Sir Walter's hand was losing its cunning seems to
illustrate the penalty of trying to reconcile two irreconcilable
things--the exercise of the imagination to its fullest extent, and the
observance of conditions that are too healthy to nourish a fever.
Apropos of his review of Ritson's "Caledonian Annals," he himself says:
"No one that has not labored as I have done on imaginary topics can
judge of the comfort afforded by walking on all-fours, and being grave
and dull." There spoke the man who habitually, and without artificial
help, drew upon his imagination at the hours when instinct has told
others they should be employing, not their fancy, but their reason. The
privilege of being healthily dull before breakfast must have been an
intense relief to one who compelled himself to do unhealthy or abnormal
work without the congenial help of abnormal conditions. Herder, in like
manner, is accused by De Quincey, in direct terms, of having broken
down prematurely because he "led a life of most exemplary temperance.
Surely, if he had been a drunkard or an opium-eater, he might have
contrived to weather the point of sixty years." This is putting things
pretty strongly; but it is said of a man of great imaginative power by a
man of great imaginative power, and may, therefore, be taken as the
opinion of an expert, all the more honest because he is prejudiced. A
need must be strongly felt to be expressed with such daring contempt for
popular axioms.

The true working-life of Scott, who helped nature by no artificial
means, lasted for no more than twelve years, from the publication of
"Waverley" until the year in which his genius was put into harness; so
that, of the two men, Scott and Balzac, who both began a literary life
at nearly the same age, and were both remarkable for splendid
constitutions, the man who lived abnormally surpassed the man who lived
healthily by fully eight years of good work, and kept his imagination in
full vigor to the end.

It is amusing to read Sir Walter's candid avowal, when beginning the
third volume of "Woodstock," that he "had not the slightest idea how the
story was to be wound up to a catastrophe." He declares he never could
lay down a plan--or that, if he had laid one down, he never could stick
to it. "I tried only to make that which I was writing diverting and
interesting, leaving the rest to fate. This habnab at a venture is a
perilous style, I grant, but I cannot help it."

VIII.

Burning Midnight Oil.

That night, and not morning, is most appropriate to imaginative work is
supported by a general consent among those who have followed instinct in
this matter. Upon this question, which can scarcely be called vexed,
Charles Lamb is the classical authority: "No true poem ever owed its
birth to the sun's light. The mild, internal light, that reveals the
fine shapings of poetry, like fires on the domestic hearth, goes out in
the sunshine. Milton's 'Morning Hymn in Paradise,' we would hold a good
wager, was penned at midnight, and Taylor's rich description of a
sunrise smells decidedly of a taper." "This view of evening and
candle-light," to quote his commentator, De Quincey, once more, "as
involved in the full delight of literature," may seem no more than a
pleasant extravaganza, and no doubt it is in the nature of such gayeties
to travel a little into exaggeration; but substantially it is certain
that Lamb's sincere feelings pointed habitually in the direction here
indicated. His literary studies, whether taking the color of tasks or
diversions, courted the aid of evening, which, by means of physical
weariness, produces a more luxurious state of repose than belongs to
the labor hours of day; they courted the aid of lamp-light, which, as
Lord Bacon remarked, "gives a gorgeousness to human pomps and pleasures,
such as would be vainly sought from the homeliness of day-light." Those
words, "physical weariness," if they do not contain the whole philosophy
of the matter, are very near it, and are, at all events, more to the
point than the quotation from Lord Bacon. They almost exactly define
that unnatural condition of the body which, on other grounds, appears to
be proper to the unnatural exercise of the mind. It will be remembered
that Balzac recommended the night for the artist's work, the day for the
author's drudgery. Southey, who knew as well as anybody who ever put pen
to paper how to work, and how to get the best and the most out of
himself, and who pursued the same daily routine through his whole
literary life, performed his tasks in the following order: From
breakfast till dinner, history, transcription for the press, and, in
general, all the work that Scott calls "walking on all-fours." From
dinner till tea, reading, letter-writing, the newspapers, and frequently
a siesta--he, also, was a heroic sleeper, and slept whenever he had the
chance. After tea, poetry, or whatever else his fancy chose--whatever
work called upon the creative power. It is true that he went to bed
regularly at half-past ten, so that his actual consumption of midnight
oil was not extravagant. But such of it as he did consume served as a
stimulant for the purely imaginative part of his work, when the labor
that required no stimulant was over and done.

Blake was a painter by day and a poet by night; he often got out of bed
at midnight and wrote for hours, following by instinct the deliberate
practice of less impulsive workers.

Schiller evolved his finest plays in a summer-house, which he built for
himself, with a single chamber, on the top of an acclivity near Jena,
commanding a beautiful prospect of the valley of the Saal and the fir
mountains of the neighboring forest. On sitting down to his desk at
night, says Döring, he was wont to keep some strong coffee or wine
chocolate, but more frequently a flask of old Rhenish or champagne,
standing by him: often the neighbors would hear him earnestly declaiming
in the silence of the night, and he might be seen walking swiftly to and
fro in his chamber, then suddenly throwing himself down into his chair
and writing, drinking at intervals from the glass that stood near him.
In winter he continued at his desk till four, or even five, o'clock in
the morning; in summer, till toward three. The "pernicious expedient of
stimulants" served only to waste the more speedily and surely, as Mr.
Carlyle says, his already wasted fund of physical strength. Schiller
used an artificial stimulus altogether peculiar to himself: he found it
impossible, according to the well-known anecdote, to work except in a
room filled with the scent of rotten apples, which he kept in a drawer
of his writing-table, in order to keep up his necessary mental
atmosphere.

In the park at Weimar we have other glimpses of Schiller; frequently he
was to be seen there, wandering among the groves and remote
avenues,--for he loved solitary walks,--with a note-book in his hand;
now loitering along, now moving rapidly on; "if any one appeared in
sight, he would dart into another alley, that his dream might not be
broken." In Joerden's Lexicon we read that whatever Schiller intended to
write, he first composed in his head, before putting down a line of it
on paper; and he used to call a work "ready" so soon as its existence in
his spirit was complete: hence, there were often reports current of his
having finished such and such a work, when, in the common sense, it was
not even begun.

Lord Byron was a late riser. He often saw the sun rise before he went to
bed. In his journals we frequently find such entries as these: "Got up
at two P. M., spent the morning," etc. He always wrote at night. While
he was the most brilliant star in London society, he was in the habit of
returning from balls, routs, the theatre, and opera, and then writing
for two or three hours before going to bed. In this way "The Corsair,"
"Lara," "The Giaour," and "The Siege of Corinth" were composed. Byron
affords an illustration of a tendency to put himself out of working
condition in order to work the better. "At Disdati," says Moore, "his
life was passed in the same regular round of habits into which he
naturally fell." These habits included very late hours and
semi-starvation, the excessive smoking of cigars and chewing of tobacco,
and the drinking of green tea, without milk or sugar, in the evening.
Like Balzac, Byron avoided meat and wine, and so gave less natural
brain-food room for active play.

The experience of P. K. Rosegger, the greatest novelist of Styria, whose
popular works are read not only in the palace, but also in the hut, is
contrary to that of most writers; he finds that with him lamp-light and
night-work are most conducive to literary fertility, and that he can
work with greater ease on dark, gloomy days than in fine weather. His
manuscripts are generally committed to the press as they were originally
composed, except for additions that fill the margins which the author
leaves for that purpose when writing. Poetry comes to him spontaneously
when he takes his exercise in the field or garden, so that all he has to
do when he gets home is to write it down; but he can compose prose only
at the writing-desk. After a rest of several days he writes with great
ease and velocity; in fact, writing is a necessity to him. On the
average, he writes three hours a day. He is often forced to write while
disinclined, to provide for the maintenance of a large family.

George Parsons Lathrop thus speaks of the habits of work of Dr. William
A. Hammond, one of the more recent additions to our novel-writers: "Dr.
Hammond's habits of work are something which should interest all brain
laborers. At a moderately early hour in the morning he seats himself in
his consulting-room to receive patients, and he remains indoors until
two in the afternoon. Then he drives out and walks. On certain days he
has medical lectures to deliver. His spare time in the afternoon is
devoted to taking the air, reading, or diverting himself. After dinner
and any social recreation that may be in hand he sits down at his desk
again by ten or eleven o'clock, and writes until two in the morning. 'I
do it,' he says, 'because I like it. It amuses and refreshes me.' How he
manages to endure this constant sitting up is something of a marvel,
considering that so much of his energies must be consumed by
professional work. He seems to be always at leisure and unharassed, and
lives comfortably, not denying himself a reasonable portion of
stimulants and tobacco."

IX.

Literary Partnership.

Literary partnerships are common in France, but in England they are
confined almost exclusively to dramatists. The one well-known exception
was that of Messrs. Besant and Rice. Mr. Rice's partnership with Mr.
Besant began in 1871, and ended with the death of Mr. Rice. "It arose,"
explains Mr. Besant, "out of some slight articles which I contributed to
his magazine, and began with the novel called 'Ready-Money Mortiboy.' Of
this eleven years' fellowship and intimate, almost daily, intercourse, I
can say only that it was carried on throughout without a single shadow
of dispute or difference. James Rice was eminently a large-minded man,
and things which might have proved great rocks of offence to some, he
knew how to treat as the trifles they generally are."

In France, the best example of literary partnership is found in that of
M. Erckmann and M. Chatrian. How these men worked in concert has been
described by the author of "Men of the Third Republic." "M. Chatrian is
credited with being the more imaginative of the two. The first outlines
of the plots are generally his, as also the love scenes, and all the
descriptions of Phalsbourg and the country around. M. Erckmann puts in
the political reflections, furnishes the soldier types, and elaborates
those plain speeches which fit so quaintly, but well, into the mouths of
his honest peasants, sergeants, watchmakers, and schoolmasters. A clever
critic remarked that Erckmann-Chatrian's characters are always hungry
and eating. The blame, if any, must lie on M. Chatrian's shoulders; to
his fancy belong the steaming tureens of soup, the dishes of browned
sausages and sauer-kraut, and the mounds of flowery potatoes, bursting
plethorically through their skins. All that M. Erckmann adds to the ménu
is the black coffee, of which he insists, with some energy, on being a
connoisseur. Habitually the co-authors meet to sketch out their plots
and talk them over amid much tobacco smoking. Then, when the story has
taken clear shape in their minds, one or the other of the pair writes
the first chapter, leaving blanks for the dialogues or descriptions
which are best suited to the competency of the other. Every chapter thus
passes through both writers' hands, is revised, recopied, and, as
occasion requires, either shortened or lengthened in the process. When
the whole book is written, both authors revise it again, and always with
a view to curtailment. Novelists who dash off six volumes of diluted
fiction in a year, and affect to think naught of the feat, would grow
pensive at seeing the labor bestowed by MM. Erckmann and Chatrian on the
least of their works, as well as their patient research in assuring
themselves that their historical episodes are correct, and their
descriptions of existing localities true to nature. But this careful
industry will have its reward, for the novels of MM. Erckmann and
Chatrian will live. The signs of vitality were discovered in them as
soon as the two authors, nerved by their first success, settled down and
produced one tale after another, all too slowly for the public demand.
'The Story of a Conscript,' 'Waterloo,' 'The History of a Man of the
People,' and, above all, 'The History of a Peasant,' were read with
wonder as well as interest."

X.

Anonymity in Authorship.

The question of the authorship of certain popular works has given rise
to a great deal of speculation. A few years ago, it will be remembered,
we were puzzling our brains to discover the name of the author of "The
Breadwinners." Among other stinging charges against him, to induce him
to break the silence, was the fling that it was a base and craven thing
to publish a book anonymously. "My motive in withholding my name is
simple enough," said the unknown author to his furious critics. "I am
engaged in business in which my standing would be seriously compromised
were it known that I had written a novel. I am sure that my practical
efficiency is not lessened by this act, but I am equally sure that I
could never recover from the injury it would occasion me if known among
my own colleagues. For that positive reason, and for the negative one
that I do not care for publicity, I resolved to keep the knowledge of my
little venture in authorship restricted to as small a circle as
possible. Only two persons besides myself know who wrote 'The
Breadwinners.'"

A far more serious dispute followed the publication of the "Vestiges of
Creation," forty years ago. The theologians of Scotland were wild with
rage at the audacity of the author, who would have been torn to pieces
almost had he been discovered. In scientific circles Robert Chambers was
credited with the authorship; and Henri Gréville seems to have had no
doubt upon the matter. In "Leaves from the Diary of Henri Gréville"
there is an entry under the date December 28, 1847, as follows: "I have
been reading a novel called 'Jane Eyre,' which is just now making a
great sensation, and which absorbed and interested me more than any
novel I can recollect having read. The author is unknown. Mrs.
Butler,--Miss Fannie Kemble,--who is greatly struck by the talent of the
book, fancies it is written by Chambers, who is the author of the
'Vestiges of Creation,' because she thinks that whoever wrote it must,
from its language, be a Scotchman, and from its sentiments be a
Unitarian; and Chambers, besides answering to all these peculiarities,
has an intimate friend who believes in supernatural agencies, such as
are described in the last volume of the book." Thackeray also had the
credit of the work.

Nobody knew Charlotte Brontë; but she was unable to keep her secret very
long. The late R. H. Horne was present at that first dinner party given
by George Smith, the publisher, when Currer Bell, then in the first
flush of her fame, made her earliest appearance in a London dining-room.
She was anxious to preserve the anonymity of her literary character, and
was introduced by her true name. Horne, however, who sat next to her,
was so fortunate as to discover her identity. Just previously he had
sent to the new author, under cover of her publisher, a copy of his
"Orion." In an unguarded moment, Charlotte Brontë turned to him and
said:--

"I was so much obliged to you, Mr. Horne, for sending me your--" But she
checked herself with an inward start, having thus betrayed her Currer
Bell secret, by identifying herself with the author of "Jane Eyre."

"Ah, Miss Brontë," whispered the innocent cause of the misfortune, "you
would never do for treasons and stratagems!"

The late John Blackwood corresponded with George Eliot for some time
before he knew that she was a woman. He called her "Dear George," he
says, and often used expressions which a man commonly uses only to a
man. After he found out who "Dear George" was, he was naturally a little
anxious to recall some of the expressions he had used. Charles Dickens,
however, detected what escaped the observation of most people. Writing
to a correspondent in January, 1858, he said: "Will you, by such
roundabout ways and methods as may present themselves, convey this note
of thanks to the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' whose two first
stories I can never say enough of, I think them so truly admirable. But,
if those two volumes, or a part of them, were not written by a woman,
then shall I begin to believe that I am a woman myself."

XI.

System in Novel Writing.

Anthony Trollope was the most systematic of all the English novelists.
Sitting down at his desk, he would take out his watch and time himself.
His system is well known, but a singular explanation of his fertility
may be quoted: "When I have commenced a new book," he says, "I have
always prepared a diary divided into weeks, and carried it on for the
period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In
this I have entered day by day the number of pages I have written, so
that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the
record of that idleness has been there staring me in the face and
demanding of me increased labor, so that the deficiency might be
supplied. According to the circumstances of the time, whether any other
business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was
writing was or was not wanted with speed, I have allotted myself so many
pages a week. The average number has been about forty. It has been
placed as low as twenty and has risen to one hundred and twelve. And as
a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain two
hundred and fifty words, and as words, if not watched, will have a
tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went."

Under the title of "A Walk in a Wood," Anthony Trollope thus describes
his method of plot-making and the difficulty the novelist experiences in
making the "tricksy Ariel" of the imagination do his bidding: "I have to
confess that my incidents are fabricated to fit my story as it goes on,
and not my story to fit my incidents. I wrote a novel once in which a
lady forged a will, but I had not myself decided that she had forged it
till the chapter before that in which she confesses her guilt. In
another a lady is made to steal her own diamonds, a grand _tour de
force_, as I thought; but the brilliant idea struck me only when I was
writing the page in which the theft is described. I once heard an
unknown critic abuse my workmanship because a certain lady had been made
to appear too frequently in my pages. I went home and killed her
immediately. I say this to show that the process of thinking to which I
am alluding has not generally been applied to any great effort of
construction. It has expended itself on the minute ramifications of
tale-telling: how this young lady should be made to behave herself with
that young gentleman; how this mother or that father would be affected
by the ill conduct or the good of a son or a daughter; how these words
or those other would be most appropriate or true to nature if used on
some special occasion. Such plottings as these with a fabricator of
fiction are infinite in number, but not one of them can be done fitly
without thinking. My little effort will miss its wished-for result
unless I be true to nature; and to be true to nature I must think what
nature would produce. Where shall I go to find my thoughts with the
greatest ease and most perfect freedom?

"I have found that I can best command my thoughts on foot, and can do so
with the most perfect mastery when wandering through a wood. To be alone
is, of course, essential. Companionship requires conversation, for
which, indeed, the spot is most fit; but conversation is not now the
object in view. I have found it best even to reject the society of a
dog, who, if he be a dog of manners, will make some attempt at talking;
and though he should be silent, the sight of him provokes words and
caresses and sport. It is best to be away from cottages, away from
children, away as far as may be from chance wanderers. So much easier is
it to speak than to think, that any slightest temptation suffices to
carry away the idler from the harder to the lighter work. An old woman
with a bundle of sticks becomes an agreeable companion, or a little girl
picking wild fruit. Even when quite alone, when all the surroundings
seem to be fitted for thought, the thinker will still find a difficulty
in thinking. It is not that the mind is inactive, but that it will run
exactly whither it is not bidden to go. With subtle ingenuity, it will
find for itself little easy tasks, instead of setting itself down on
that which it is its duty to do at once. With me, I own, it is so weak
as to fly back to things already done, which require no more thinking,
which are, perhaps, unworthy of a place even in the memory, and to revel
in the ease of contemplating that which has been accomplished, rather
than to struggle for further performance. My eyes, which should become
moist with the troubles of the embryo heroine, shed tears as they call
to mind the early sorrow of Mr. ----, who was married and made happy
many years ago. Then, when it comes to this, a great effort becomes
necessary, or that day will for me have no results. It is so easy to
lose an hour in maundering over the past, and to waste the good things
which have been provided in remembering instead of creating!

"But a word about the nature of the wood! It is not always easy to find
a wood, and sometimes when you have got it, it is but a muddy, plashy,
rough-hewn congregation of ill-grown trees,--a thicket rather than a
wood,--in which even contemplation is difficult, and thinking is out of
the question. He who has devoted himself to wandering in woods will
know at the first glance whether the place will suit his purpose. A
crowded undergrowth of hazel, thorn, birch, and elder, with merely a
track through it, will by no means serve the occasion. The trees around
you should be big and noble. There should be grass at your feet. There
should be space for the felled or fallen princes of the forest. A
roadway with the sign of wheels that have passed long since will be an
advantage, so long as the branches above your head shall meet or seem to
meet each other. I will not say that the ground should not be level,
lest by creating difficulties I shall seem to show that the fitting spot
may be too difficult to be found; but, no doubt, it will be an
assistance in the work to be done if occasionally you can look down on
the tops of the trees as you descend, and again look up to them as with
increasing height they rise high above your head. And it should be a
wood--perhaps a forest--rather than a skirting of timber. You should
feel that, if not lost, you are losable. To have trees around you is not
enough, unless you have many. You must have a feeling as of Adam in the
garden. There must be a confirmed assurance in your mind that you have
got out of the conventional into the natural, which will not establish
itself unless there be a consciousness of distance between you and the
next ploughed field. If possible, you should not know the east from the
west; or, if so, only by the setting of the sun. You should recognize
the direction in which you must return simply by the fall of water.

"But where shall the wood be found? Such woodlands there are still in
England, though, alas! they are becoming rarer every year. Profit from
the timber merchant or dealer in fire-wood is looked to; or else, as is
more probable, drives are cut broad and straight, like spokes of a wheel
radiating to a nave or centre, good only for the purposes of the slayer
of multitudinous pheasants. I will not say that a wood prepared, not as
the home, but the slaughter-ground, of game, is altogether inefficient
for our purpose. I have used such, even when the sound of the guns has
been near enough to warn me to turn my steps to the right or to the
left. The scents are pleasant even in winter; the trees are there, and
sometimes even yet the delightful feeling may be encountered that the
track on which you are walking leads to some far-off, vague destination,
in reaching which there may be much of delight, because it will be
new;--something also of peril, because it will be distant. But the wood,
if possible, should seem to be purposeless. It should have no evident
consciousness of being there, either for game or fagots. The felled
trunk on which you sit should seem to have been selected for some
accidental purpose of house-building, as if a neighbor had searched for
what was wanting and had found it. No idea should be engendered that it
was let out at so much an acre to a contractor, who would cut the trees
in order and sell them in the next market. The mind should conceive that
this wood never had been planted by hands, but had come there from the
direct beneficence of the Creator--as the first woods did come, before
man had been taught to recreate them systematically, and as some still
remain to us, so much more lovely in their wildness than when reduced to
rows and quincunxes, and made to accommodate themselves to laws of
economy and order.

"They will not come at once, those thoughts which are so anxiously
expected; and in the process of coming they are apt to be troublesome,
full of tricks, and almost traitorous. They must be imprisoned or bound
with thongs when they come, as was Proteus when Ulysses caught him
amidst his sea-calves,--as was done with some of the fairies of old, who
would, indeed, do their beneficent work, but only under compulsion. It
may be that your spirit should on an occasion be as obedient as Ariel;
but that will not be often. He will run backward,--as it were
downhill,--because it is so easy, instead of upward and onward. He will
turn to the right and to the left, making a show of doing fine work,
only not the work that is demanded of him that day. He will skip hither
and thither with pleasant, bright gambols, but will not put his shoulder
to the wheel, his neck to the collar, his hand to the plough. Has my
reader ever driven a pig to market? The pig will travel on freely, but
will always take the wrong turning; and then, when stopped for the tenth
time, will head backward and try to run between your legs So it is with
the tricksy Ariel,--that Ariel which every man owns, though so many of
us fail to use him for much purpose; which but few of us have subjected
to such discipline as Prospero had used before he had brought his
servant to do his bidding at the slightest word.

"But at last I feel that I have him, perhaps by the tail, as the
Irishman drives his pig. When I have got him I have to be careful that
he shall not escape me till that job of work be done. Gradually, as I
walk or stop, as I seat myself on a bank or lean against a tree, perhaps
as I hurry on waving my stick above my head, till, with my quick motion,
the sweatdrops come out upon my brow, the scene forms itself for me. I
see, or fancy that I see, what will be fitting, what will be true, how
far virtue may be made to go without walking upon stilts, what
wickedness may do without breaking the link which binds it to humanity,
how low ignorance may grovel, how high knowledge may soar, what the
writer may teach without repelling by severity, how he may amuse without
descending to buffoonery; and then the limits of pathos are searched and
words are weighed which shall suit, but do no more than suit, the
greatness or the smallness of the occasion. We, who are slight, may not
attempt lofty things, or make ridiculous with our little fables the
doings of the gods. But for that which we do there are appropriate terms
and boundaries which may be reached, but not surpassed. All this has to
be thought of and decided upon in reference to those little plottings of
which I have spoken, each of which has to be made the receptacle of
pathos or of humor, of honor or of truth, as far as the thinker may be
able to furnish them. He has to see, above all things, that in his
attempts he shall not sin against nature; that in striving to touch the
feelings he shall not excite ridicule; that in seeking for humor he does
not miss his point; that in quest of honor and truth he does not become
bombastic and straitlaced. A clergyman in his pulpit may advocate an
altitude of virtue fitted to a millennium here or to a heaven hereafter;
nay, from the nature of his profession, he must do so. The poet, too,
may soar as high as he will, and if words suffice to him, he need never
fear to fail because his ideas are too lofty. But he who tells tales in
prose can hardly hope to be effective as a teacher, unless he binds
himself by the circumstances of the world which he finds around him.
Honor and truth there should be, and pathos and humor, but he should so
constrain them that they shall not seem to mount into nature beyond the
ordinary habitations of men and women.

"Such rules as to construction have probably been long known to him. It
is not for them he is seeking as he is roaming listlessly or walking
rapidly through the trees. They have come to him from much observation,
from the writings of others, from that which we call study, in which
imagination has but little immediate concern. It is the fitting of the
rules to the characters which he has created, the filling in with living
touches and true colors those daubs and blotches on his canvas which
have been easily scribbled with a rough hand, that the true work
consists. It is here that he requires that his fancy should be
undisturbed, that the trees should overshadow him, that the birds should
comfort him, that the green and yellow mosses should be in unison with
him, that the very air should be good to him. The rules are there
fixed,--fixed as far as his judgment can fix them,--and are no longer a
difficulty to him. The first coarse outlines of his story he has found
to be a matter almost indifferent to him. It is with these little
plottings that he has to contend. It is for them that he must catch his
Ariel and bind him fast, but yet so bind him that not a thread shall
touch the easy action of his wings. Every little scene must be arranged
so that--if it may be possible--the proper words may be spoken and the
fitting effect produced.

"Alas! with all these struggles, when the wood has been found, when all
external things are propitious, when the very heavens have lent their
aid, it is so often that it is impossible! It is not only that your
Ariel is untrained, but that the special Ariel which you may chance to
own is no better than a rustic hobgoblin or a pease-blossom, or mustard
seed at the best. You cannot get the pace of the racehorse from a
farmyard colt, train him as you will. How often is one prompted to fling
one's self down in despair, and, weeping between the branches, to
declare that it is not that the thoughts will wander, it is not that the
mind is treacherous! That which it can do, it will do; but the pace
required from it should be fitted only for the farmyard. Nevertheless,
before all be given up, let a walk in the wood be tried."

Much has been said about the quality of Mr. Trollope's work. There seems
a consensus of opinion that it degenerated. "Mr. Trollope," says Mr.
Freeman, "had certainly gone far to write himself out. His later work is
far from being so good as his earlier. But, after all, his worst work is
better than a great many other people's best; and considering the way in
which it was done, it is wonderful that it was done at all. I, myself,
know what fixed hours of work are, and their value; but I could not
undertake to write about William Rufus or Appius Claudius up to a
certain moment on the clock, and to stop at that moment. I suppose it
was from his habits of official business that Mr. Trollope learned to do
it, and every man undoubtedly knows best how to do his own work. Still,
it is strange that works of imagination did not suffer by such a way of
doing."

James Payn said that Trollope injured his reputation by publishing his
methods of writing. Likewise, the _Daily News_, in referring to Alphonse
Daudet's history of his own novels, doubted whether he acted wisely. As
the editor said, "An effect of almost too elaborate art, a feeling that
we are looking at a mosaic painfully made up of little pieces picked out
of real life and fitted together, has often been present to the
consciousness of M. Daudet's readers. That feeling is justified by his
description of his creative efforts."

M. Daudet's earlier works were light and humorous, like "Tartarin," or
they were idyllic and full of Provençal scenery, the nature and the
nightingales of M. Daudet's birthplace, the south. One night at the
theatre, when watching the splendid failure of an idyllic Provençal sort
of play, M. Daudet made up his mind that he must give the public sterner
stuff, and describe the familiar Parisian scenery of streets and quais.
This wise determination was the origin of his novels, "Jack," "Fromont
jeune et Risler ainé," and the rest. Up to that time, M. Daudet, M.
Zola, M. Flaubert, and the brothers Goncourt had all been more or less
unpopular authors. It is not long since they had a little club of the
unsuccessful, and M. Daudet was the first of the company who began to
blossom out into numerous editions.

M. Daudet's secret as a novelist, as far as the secret is communicable,
seems to be his wonderfully close study of actual life and his
unscrupulousness in reproducing its details almost without disguise. He
frankly confesses that not only the characters in his political novels,
but those in his other works, are drawn straight from living persons.
The scenery is all sketched from nature, M. Daudet describing the vast
factories with which he was familiar when, at the age of sixteen, he
began to earn his own living, or the interiors to which he was admitted
by virtue of his position under a great man of the late imperial
administration. Places about which he did not know much, and which
needed to be introduced into his tales, M. Daudet visited with his
note-book.

M. Daudet's mode of work is, first, to see his plot and main incidents
clearly, to arrive at a full understanding of his characters, then to
map out his chapters, and then, he says, his fingers tingle to be at
work. He writes rapidly, handing each wet slip of paper to Madame Daudet
for criticism and approval. There is no such sound criticism, he says,
as that of this helpful collaborator, who withal is "so little a woman
of letters."

When a number of chapters are finished M. Daudet finds it well to begin
publishing his novel in a journal. Thus he is obliged to finish within a
certain date; he cannot go back to make alterations; he cannot afford
time to write a page a dozen times over, as a conscientious artist often
wishes to do.

XII.

Traits of Musical Composers.

A long chapter of instances might be penned on the habits of work of
musical composers; such as Gluck's habit of betaking himself with his
harpsichord on a fine day into some grassy field, where the ideas came
to him as fast again as within doors.

Handel, on the contrary, claims to have been inspired for his grandest
compositions by the murmurous din of mighty London,--far from mighty as
the London of George the Second may seem to those with whom the
nineteenth century is waning.

Sarti composed best in the sombre shadows of a dimly-lighted room.

The Monsieur Le Maître commemorated in Rousseau's autobiography typified
a numerous section in his constant recourse, _en travaillant dans son
cabinet_, to a bottle, which was replenished as often as emptied, and
that was too often by a great deal. His servant, in preparing the room
for him, would no more have thought of omitting _son pot et son verre_
than his ruled paper, ink, pens, and violoncello; and one serving did
for these,--not so for the drink.

The learned artist Haydn could not work except in court-dress, and used
to declare that, if, when he sat down to his instrument, he had
forgotten to put on a certain ring, he could not summon a single idea.
How he managed to summon ideas before Frederick II. had given him the
said ring we are not informed.

Charles Dibdin's method of composition, or, rather, the absence of it,
is illustrated in the story of his lamenting his lack of a new subject
while under the hair-dresser's hand in a cloud of powder, at his rooms
in the Strand, preparing for his night's "entertainment." The friend who
was with him suggested various topics, but all of a sudden the jar of a
ladder sounded against the lamp-iron, and Dibdin exclaimed, "The
lamp-lighter, a good notion," and at once began humming and fingering on
his knee. As soon as his head was dressed he stepped to the piano,
finished off both music and words, and that very night sang "Jolly Dick,
the Lamplighter," at the theatre, nor could he, we are assured on
critical authority, well have made a greater hit if the song had been
the deliberate work of two authors--one of the words, another of the
air--and had taken weeks to finish it, and been elaborated in studious
leisure instead of the distraction of dressing-room din.

XIII.

The Hygiene of Writing.

Edward Everett Hale gives the following description of his mode of life,
which at the same time is full of advice to authors in general:--

"The business of health for a literary man seems to me to depend largely
upon sleep. He should have enough sleep, and should sleep well. He
should avoid whatever injures sleep.

"This means that the brain should not be excited or even worked hard for
six hours before bedtime. Young men can disregard this rule, and do; but
as one grows older he finds it wiser to throw his work upon morning
hours. If he can spend the afternoon, or even the evening, in the open
air, his chances of sleep are better. The evening occupation, according
to me, should be light and pleasant, as music, a novel, reading aloud,
conversation, the theatre, or watching the stars from the piazza. Of
course, different men make and need different rules. I take nine hours
for sleep in every twenty-four, and do not object to ten.

"I accepted very early in life Bulwer's estimate that three hours a day
is as large an average of desk work as a man of letters should try for.
I have, in old newspaper days, written for twelve consecutive hours; but
this is only a _tour de force_, and in the long run you waste strength
if you do not hold every day quite closely to the average.

"As men live, with the telegraph and the telephone interrupting when
they choose, and this fool and that coming in when they choose to say,
'I do not want to interrupt you; I will only take a moment,' the great
difficulty is to hold your three hours without a break. If a man has
broken my mirror, I do not thank him for leaving the pieces next each
other; he has spoiled it, and he may carry them ten miles apart if he
chooses. So, if a fool comes in and breaks my time in two, he may stay
if he wants to; he is none the less a fool. What I want for work is
unbroken time. This is best secured early in the morning.

"I dislike early rising as much as any man, nor do I believe there is
any moral merit in it, as the children's books pretend; but to secure an
unbroken hour, or even less, I like to be at my desk before breakfast.
As long before as possible I have a cup of coffee and a soda biscuit
brought me there, and in the thirty to sixty minutes which follow before
breakfast, I like to start the work of the day. If you rise at a quarter
past six, there will be comparatively few map pedlers, or book agents,
or secretaries of charities, or jailbirds, who will call before eight.
The hour from 6.30 to 7.30 is that of which you are most sure. Even the
mother-in-law or the mother of your wife's sister's husband does not
come then to say that she should like some light work with a large
salary as matron in an institution where there is nothing to do.

"I believe in breakfast very thoroughly, and in having a good breakfast.
I have lived in Paris a month at a time and detest the French practice
of substituting for breakfast a cup of coffee, with or without an egg.
Breakfast is a meal at which much time may be spent with great
advantage. People are not apt to come to it too regularly, and you may
profit by the intermission to read your newspaper and lecture on its
contents. There's no harm in spending an hour at the table.

"After breakfast do not go to work for an hour. Walk out in the garden,
lie on your back on a sofa and read, in general, 'loaf' for that hour,
and bid the servant keep out everybody who rings the bell, and work
steadily till your day's stint is done. If you have had half an hour
before breakfast, you can make two hours and a half now.

"It is just so much help if you have a good amanuensis; none, if you
have a poor one. The amanuensis should have enough else to do, but be
at liberty to attend to you when you need. Write as long as you feel
like writing; the moment you do not feel like it, give him the pen and
walk up and down the room dictating. There are those who say that they
can tell the difference between dictated work and work written by the
author. I do not believe them. I will give a share in the Combination
Protoxide Silver Mine of Grey's Gulch to anybody who will divide this
article correctly between the parts which I dictated and those which are
written with my own red right hand.

"Stick to your stint till it is done. If Philistines come in, as they
will in a finite world, deduct the time which they have stolen from you
and go on so much longer with your work till you have done what you set
out to do.

"When you have finished the stint, stop. Do not be tempted to go on
because you are in good spirits for work. There is no use in making
ready to be tired to-morrow. You may go out of doors now, you may read,
you may in whatever way get light and life for the next day. Indeed, if
you will remember that the first necessity for literary work is that you
have something ready to say before you begin, you will remember
something which most authors have thoroughly forgotten or never knew.

"This business of writing is the most exhausting known to men. You
should, therefore, steadily feed the machine with fuel. I find it a
good habit to have standing on the stove a cup of warm milk, just tinged
in color with coffee. In the days of my buoyant youth I said, 'of the
color of the cheek of a brunette in Seville.' I had then never seen a
brunette in Seville; but I have since, and I can testify that the
description was good. Beef tea answers as well; a bowl of chowder quite
as well as either. Indeed, good clam chowder is probably the form of
nourishment which most quickly and easily comes to the restoration or
refreshment of the brain of man.

"If this bowl of coffee, or chowder, or soup is counted as one meal, the
working man who wishes to keep in order will have five meals a day,
besides the morning cup of coffee, or of coffee colored with milk, which
he has before breakfast. Breakfast is one; this extended lunch is
another; dinner is the third, say at half-past two; tea is the fourth,
at six or seven; and, what is too apt to be forgotten, a sufficient
supper before bedtime is the fifth. This last may be as light as you
please, but let it be sufficient,--a few oysters, a slice of hot toast,
clam chowder again, or a bowl of soup. Never go to bed in any danger of
being hungry. People are kept awake by hunger quite as much as by a bad
conscience.

"Remembering that sleep is the essential force with which the whole
scheme starts, decline tea or coffee within the last six hours before
going to bed. If the women kind insist, you may have your milk and water
at the tea-table, colored with tea; but the less the better.

"Avoid all mathematics or intricate study of any sort in the last six
hours. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and hot heads, and the
nuisances of waking hours.

"Keep your conscience clear. Remember that because the work of life is
infinite you cannot do the whole of it in any limited period of time,
and that, therefore, you may just as well leave off in one place as
another.

"No work of any kind should be done in the hour after dinner. After any
substantial meal, observe, you need all your vital force for the
beginning of digestion. For my part, I always go to sleep after dinner
and sleep for exactly an hour, if people will only stay away; and I am
much more fond of the people who keep away from me at that time than I
am of the people who visit me."

XIV.

A Humorist's Regimen.

Robert Barr (whose pseudonym, "Luke Sharp," is familiar to the readers
of the _Detroit Free Press_) has written an article on "How a Literary
Man Should Live," which may be cited in conclusion:--

"I am not," he says, "an advocate of early rising. I believe, however,
that every literary man should have fixed hours for getting up. I am
very firm with myself on that score. I make it a rule to rise every
morning in winter between the hours of six and eleven, and in summer
from half-past five until ten. A person is often tempted to sleep later
than the limit I tie myself to, but a little resolution with a person's
self at first will be amply repaid by the time thus gained, and the
feeling one has of having conquered a tendency to indolence. I believe
that a literary man can get all the sleep he needs between eight o'clock
at night and eleven in the morning. I know, of course, that some eminent
authorities disagree with me, but I am only stating my own experience in
the matter, and don't propose to enter into any controversy about it.

"On rising I avoid all stimulating drinks, such as tea or coffee. They
are apt to set the brain working, and I object to work, even in its most
disguised forms. A simple glass of hot Scotch, say half a pint or so,
serves to tide over the period between getting up and breakfast-time.
Many literary men work before breakfast, but this I regard as a very
dangerous habit. I try to avoid it, and so far have been reasonably
successful. I rest until breakfast-time. This gives the person a zest
for the morning meal.

"For breakfast the simplest food is the best. I begin with oyster stew,
then some cold chicken, next a few small lamb chops and mashed potatoes,
after that a good-sized beefsteak and fried potatoes, then a rasher of
bacon with fried eggs (three), followed by a whitefish or two, the meal
being completed with some light, wholesome pastry, mince pie for
preference. Care should be taken to avoid tea or coffee, and I think a
word of warning ought to go forth against milk. The devastation that
milk has wrought among literary men is fearful to contemplate. They
begin, thinking that if they find it is hurting them, they can break
off, but too often before they awaken to their danger the habit has
mastered them. I avoid anything at breakfast except a large tumbler of
brandy, with a little soda water added to give it warmth and strength.

"No subject is of more importance to the literary aspirant than the
dividing of the hours of work. I divide the hours just as minutely as I
can, and then take as few of the particles as possible. I owe much of my
success in life to the fact that I never allow work to interfere with
the sacred time between breakfast and dinner. That is devoted to rest
and thought. Much comfort can be realized during these hours by thinking
what a stir you would make in the literary world if you could hire a man
like Howells for five dollars a week to do your work for you. Such help,
I find, is very difficult to obtain, and yet some people hold that the
labor market is overcrowded. The great task of the forenoon should be
preparation for the mid-day meal. The thorough enjoyment of this meal
has much to do with a man's success in this life.

"Of course, I do not insist that a person should live like a hermit.
Because he breakfasts frugally, that is no reason why he should not dine
sumptuously. Some people dine at six and merely lunch at noon. Others
have their principal meal in the middle of the day, and have a light
supper. There is such merit in both these plans that I have adopted
both. I take a big dinner and a light lunch at noon, and a heavy dinner
and a simple supper in the evening. A person whose brain is constantly
worried about how he can shove off his work on somebody else has to have
a substantial diet. The bill of fare for dinner should include
everything that abounds in the market--that the literary man can get
trusted for.

"After a good rest when dinner is over, remain quiet until supper-time,
so that the brain will not be too much agitated for the trials that come
after that meal.

"I am a great believer in the old adage of 'early to bed.' We are apt to
slight the wisdom of our forefathers; but they knew what they were about
when they advised early hours. I always get to bed early,--say two or
three in the morning. I do not believe in night work. It is rarely of a
good quality. The brain is wearied with the exertions of the day and
should not be overtaxed. Besides, the time can be put in with less
irksomeness at the theatre, or in company with a lot of congenial
companions who avoid the stimulating effects of tea, coffee, and milk.
Tobacco, if used at all, should be sparingly indulged in. I never allow
myself more than a dozen cigars a day; although, of course, I
supplement this with a pipe.

"When do I do my literary work? Why, next day, of course."

THE WRITER

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WRITING FOR THE PRESS:

    =A Manual for Editors, Reporters, Correspondents, and
        Printers.= By ROBERT LUCE. Fourth edition (seventh
        thousand); revised and greatly enlarged. 96 pp. Cloth,
        $1.00.

"Writing for the Press" is a practical handbook of the art of newspaper
writing, written by a practical newspaper man. There is no "padding" in
it; almost every line contains a useful hint or suggestion about the
proper preparation of newspaper "copy," and a wonderful amount of
information of use to writers is crowded into its carefully-written
pages. The work is the result of the practical experience of the author
as desk editor on the _Boston Globe_, and was written in the main from
notes made while handling MS. there and elsewhere.

Four editions of "Writing for the Press" have been required. For each
edition the work has been revised and enlarged, so that it has grown
from forty-two to ninety-six pages,--yet, it is believed, without the
addition of a useless sentence. New matter has been added partly to make
the book more useful to newspaper writers, and partly to bring within
its scope all other writers. Therefore, those who bought copies of
earlier editions will find it desirable to buy copies of the fourth
edition as well.

That literary workers of every class will find "Writing for the Press"
exceedingly helpful, both for study and for reference, is shown by these
subject-headings: The Preparation of Copy; How to Write Clearly;
Grammar, Good and Bad; Use and Misuse of Common Words and Phrases (with
several hundred examples); Mixed Metaphors; Slang; The Use of Titles;
Puzzling Plurals; Condensation; Points on Proof-reading; Addressing
Editors; Getting into Print, etc. The book is one that every writer
should keep upon his desk for constant reference and study.

Newspaper editors, who are naturally the best judges of the value of
such a work, all commend Mr. Luce's book. For instance, the _Boston
Advertiser_ says of it: "It is a remarkably compact and useful little
manual, full of the wisest and most practical suggestions in regard to
the mechanical requirements for the proper preparation of manuscript;
the right use of doubtful and frequently misused words; punctuation;
matters of style; and errors of arrangement." The _Critic_ says: "It is
full of sound advice and practical suggestions."

Quantities of the book have been bought by the managers of leading daily
newspapers for distribution among their editors, reporters, and
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_Journal_, and _Transcript_, the _New York World_, and the _Chicago
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Transcriber's Note:

    Unmatched quotation marks in the first paragraph on Page 117,
    beginning with--"The method of Buckle,"--have been left as they
    appear in the original publication.

    Hyphenation too has been retained as in the original publication.

    Changes have been made as follows:

    Page 10

    Such was the little feathery wand, _changed to_
    "Such was the little feathery wand,

    Page 39

    Influence Upon Writers _changed to_
    Influence upon Writers

    Page 51

    Writing Under Difficulties _changed to_
    Writing under Difficulties

    Page 56

    Cette puissance de concen tration _changed to_
    Cette puissance de concentration

    Page 63

    solved by Jean Jaques. His strength was not _changed to_
    solved by Jean Jacques. His strength was not

    Page 64

    without using paunce or blotting-paper, to blot _changed to_
    without using pounce or blotting-paper, to blot

    Page 95

    accustomed as a journalist There was so _changed to_
    accustomed as a journalist. There was so

    Page 112

    Berlin newpapers, has to struggle hard at first _changed to_
    Berlin newspapers, has to struggle hard at first

    Page 120

    musing, he has come to the detemination that _changed to_
    musing, he has come to the determination that

    Page 126

    Abbotsford, observing how his host was harrassed _changed to_
    Abbotsford, observing how his host was harassed