ombination of these three methods is the perfection of study; but
the Frenchman's method is not unknown even among Americans. Nor does it
deserve the condemnation it usually receives. The man who peruses a
hundred books on a subject for the purpose of writing one bestows a real
benefit upon society, in case he does his work well. But some excellent
work has been composed without the necessity either of research or
original investigation. Anthony Trollope described his famous
archdeacon without ever having met a live archdeacon. He never lived in
any cathedral city except London; Archdeacon Grantly was the child of
"moral consciousness" alone; Trollope had no knowledge, except
indirectly, about bishops and deans. In fact, "The Warden" was not
intended originally to be a novel of clerical life, but a novel which
should work out a dramatic situation--that of a trustworthy, amiable man
who was the holder, by no fault of his own, of an endowment which was in
itself an abuse, and on whose devoted head should fall the thunders of
those who assailed the abuse.

Bryan Waller Proctor, the poet (who, I believe, is better known under
the name of "Barry Cornwall"), had never viewed the ocean when he
committed to paper that beautiful poem, "The Sea." Many of his finest
lyrics and songs were composed mentally while he was riding daily to
London in an omnibus. Schiller had never been in Switzerland, and had
only heard and read about the country, when he wrote his "William Tell."
Harrison Ainsworth, the Lancashire novelist, when he composed "Rookwood"
and "Jack Sheppard," depended entirely on his ability to read up and on
his facility of assimilation, for during his lifetime he never came in
personal contact with thieves at all. It is said that when he wrote the
really admirable ride of Turpin to York he only went at a great pace
over the paper, with a road-map and description of the country in front
of him. It was only when he heard all the world say how faithfully the
region was pictured, and how truly he had observed distances and
localities, that he actually drove over the ground for the first time,
and declared that it was more like his account than he could have
imagined.

Erasmus composed on horseback, as he pricked across the country, and
committed his thoughts to paper as soon as he reached his next inn. In
this way he composed his "Encomium Moriae," or "Praise of Folly," in a
journey from Italy to the land of the man to whose