home. This peaceful, pleasant place, the fields of which
are classic ground, utterly lacked inspiration for Miss Alcott. She
called it "this dull town," and when she had a story to write she went
to Boston, where she shut herself up in a room, and emerged only when
she could show a completed work.

August Niemann, the German novelist, devotes the forenoon to literary
work, but never burns midnight-oil on his writing-desk. He prepares his
manuscript at the outset for the press, never making a plan beforehand.
He writes with great facility, but only when he feels like it; when
disinclined, he does not touch a pen--sometimes he will not write for
weeks. When he is especially interested in a topic, he is apt to write
for from four to six hours at a stretch; ordinarily he spends two, or,
at the most, three, hours a day at the writing-table.

Victor Bluethgen, one of the most noted German authors, prefers the
daytime, especially the early morning, for literary labor; and whenever
he is compelled to work at night, in order to meet engagements, he does
so after ten o'clock. He never makes a skeleton of his work, but when
the manuscript is completed, he files away at it, and even makes
alterations in the proof-sheets. While at work he smokes incessantly,
and is so accustomed to the stimulating effects of tobacco that he
cannot get along without it. He walks up and down the room while
meditating on the plots of his stories. When he elaborates them
everything must be quiet about him, for every loud noise, especially
music, agitates him, and renders work impossible. Bluethgen is a ready
writer, and conception and composition are both easy to him. He always
forces himself to write. When he is beginning, he struggles hard to
overcome his repugnance, until he is interested in the work, when he
composes with increasing pleasure and rapidity. On the average, he
writes for from three to six hours daily, but never more than three
hours at a time. When he sits down to the desk he has but a faint idea
of the novel which he is about to write, being incapable of working out
the details of a story in his mind, as some authors are able to do; but
with the ink the thoughts begin to flow, and all difficulties are
surmounted.

Lucy Larcom declared that she never thought of herself as an author, and
during most of her life her occupation was that of a teacher. She wrote
always before she taught, and in the intervals of leisure she had,--she
use