omposed 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 someth