doing without wine, but has always returned to it
with benefit. He has entirely given up tobacco, which never suited him.
He can work anywhere, if he is not distracted. He has no difficulty in
writing in unfamiliar places--the waiting-room of a railway station or a
rock on the seashore suits him as well (except for the absence of books
of reference) as the desk in his study. He cannot do literary or any
other brain-work for more than three hours on a stretch, and believes
that a man who will work three hours of every working-day will
ultimately appear to have achieved a stupendous result in bulk, if this
is an advantage. But, then, he must be rapid while he is at work, and
must not fritter away his resources on starts in vain directions. Gosse
is utterly unable to write to order,--that is to say, on every occasion.
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