things, a habit of regarding his work as a
tedious task, to be scamped as rapidly and stupidly as possible.

You might think that these qualities would displease the reviewer's
editor. Not at all, look at any column of short notices, and you will
occasionally find that the critic has anticipated my advice. There is no
topic in which the men who write about it are so little interested as
contemporary literature. Perhaps this is no matter to marvel at. By the
way, a capital plan is not to write your review till the book has been
out for two years. This is the favourite dodge of the ---, that
distinguished journal.

If any one has kindly attended to this discourse, without desiring to be
a failure, he has only to turn the advice outside in. He has only to be
studious of the very best literature, observant, careful, original, he
has only to be himself and not an imitator, to aim at excellence, and not
be content with falling a little lower than mediocrity. He needs but
bestow the same attention on this art as others give to the other arts
and other professions. With these efforts, and with a native and natural
gift, which can never be taught, never communicated, and with his mind
set not on his reward, but on excellence, on style, on matter, and even
on the not wholly unimportant virtue of vivacity, a man will succeed, or
will deserve success. First, of course, he will have to "find" himself,
as the French say, and if he does _not_ find an ass, then, like Saul the
son of Kish, he may discover a kingdom. One success he can hardly miss,
the happiness of living, not with trash, but among good books, and "the
mighty minds of old." In an unpublished letter of Mr. Thackeray's,
written before he was famous, and a novelist, he says how much he likes
writing on historical subjects, and how he enjoys historical research.
_The work is so gentlemanly_, he remarks. Often and often, after the
daily dreadful lines, the bread and butter winning lines on some
contemporary folly or frivolity, does a man take up some piece of work
hopelessly unremunerative, foredoomed to failure as far as money or fame
go, some dealing with the classics of the world, Homer or Aristotle,
Lucian or Moliere. It is like a bath after a day's toil, it is tonic and
clean; and such studies, if not necessary to success, are, at least,
conducive to mental health and self-respect in literature.

To the enormous majority of persons who risk themselves in li