body would envy and
malign you, and garble your book, and print quotations from it which you
did not write, all in the sacred cause of morality.

Advice on how to secure the reverse of success should not be given to
young authors alone. Their kinsfolk and friends, also, can do much for
their aid. A lady who feels a taste for writing is very seldom allowed
to have a quiet room, a quiet study. If she retreats to her chill and
fireless bed chamber, even there she may be chevied by her brothers,
sisters, and mother. It is noticed that cousins, and aunts, especially
aunts, are of high service in this regard. They never give an
intelligent woman an hour to herself.

"Is Miss Mary in?"

"Yes, ma'am, but she is very busy."

"Oh, she won't mind me, I don't mean to stay long."

Then in rushes the aunt.

"Over your books again: my dear! You really should not overwork
yourself. Writing something"; here the aunt clutches the manuscript, and
looks at it vaguely.

"Well, I dare say it's very clever, but I don't care for this kind of
thing myself. Where's your mother? Is Jane better? Now, do tell me, do
you get much for writing all that? Do you send it to the printers, or
where? How interesting, and that reminds me, you that are a novelist,
have you heard how shamefully Miss Baxter was treated by Captain Smith?
No, well you might make something out of it."

Here follows the anecdote, at prodigious length, and perfectly
incoherent.

"Now, write _that_, and I shall always say I was partly the author. You
really should give me a commission, you know. Well, good bye, tell your
mother I called. Why, there she is, I declare. Oh, Susan, just come and
hear the delightful plot for a novel that I have been giving Mary."

And then she begins again, only further back, this time.

It is thus that the aunts of England may and do assist their nieces to
fail in literature. Many and many a morning do they waste, many a
promising fancy have they blighted, many a temper have they spoiled.

Sisters are rather more sympathetic: the favourite plan of the brother is
to say, "Now, Mary, read us your new chapter."

Mary reads it, and the critic exclaims, "Well, of all the awful Rot! Now,
why can't you do something like _Bootles's Baby_?"

Fathers never take any interest in the business at all: they do not
count. The sympathy of a mother may be reckoned on, but not her
judgement, for she is either wildly favourable, or, mistr