nd sent it to the printer as it was originally written; and he composed
the novel "Adja," thirty-nine and one-half octavo pages in print, in
nine hours. But he often meditates over the topics which go to make up
his novels, etc., for years and years until he has considered them from
every standpoint. After composition he often locks up his manuscript in
his desk for half a year, until it is almost forgotten, when he takes it
from its place of concealment and examines it carefully to detect
possible errors. If at such an examination the work does not prove
satisfactory to him, he throws it into the stove. Being the editor of a
journal of fiction, he is often compelled to work whether he wants to or
not. From 1869 to 1870 he worked sixteen hours a day; from 1877 till
1882 about thirteen hours, even Sundays; at present he spends from ten
to eleven hours every day at the writing-table, unless kept from work by
visitors. He retains his health by taking a daily walk, rain or shine,
to which he devotes two hours. Leixner lives a very temperate life and
hardly ever imbibes stimulating drinks.

The greatest of all Southern poets, Paul Hamilton Hayne, had no
particular time for composition, writing as often in the daytime as at
night. Whether he made an outline or skeleton of his work first,
depended upon the nature of the poem. When the piece was elaborate, he
outlined it, and subsequently filled up, much as a painter would do. The
poet used to smoke a great deal in composing, but was obliged to abandon
tobacco, having had attacks of hemorrhage. He used tea instead of coffee
sometimes, but took little even of that. Wine he did not use. Hayne
composed best when walking, or riding upon horseback, and as he was
seldom without a book in hand, wrote a great deal on the fly-leaves of
any volume he chanced to be consulting. He frequently had to force
himself to work when he did not have an inclination to do so.

V.

Writing under Difficulties.

It is an exceptional mind that enables an author to write at his ease
amid interruptions and distractions, lets and hindrances, of a domestic
kind. Heloise gave this singular reason for her constant refusal to
become Abelard's wife--that no mind devoted to the meditations of
philosophy could endure the cries of children, the chatter of nurses,
and the babble and coming and going in and out of serving men and women.
Of Abelard himself, however, we are told that he had a rare power of