ds of sweat
appear upon his forehead, and he is compelled to lay down his pen,
unable to write another line. He never writes unless he is in a suitable
frame of mind, except it be on business matters. Sometimes, when
laboring on topics of science, he works from ten to twelve hours at a
stretch; he never spends more than three or four hours in succession on
poetry.

Charles Reade's habit of working was unique. When he had decided on a
new work he plotted out the scheme, situations, facts, and characters on
three large sheets of pasteboard. Then he set to work, using very large
foolscap to write on, working rapidly, but with frequent references to
his storehouse of facts, in the scrap-books, which were ready at his
hand. The genial novelist was a great reader of newspapers. Anything
that struck him as interesting, or any fact which tended to support one
of his humanitarian theories, was cut out, pasted in a large folio
scrap-book, and carefully indexed. Facts of any sort were his hobby.
From the scrap-books thus collected with great care he used to elaborate
the "questions" treated of in his novels.

Like Charles Reade, Miss Anna Katherine Green is a believer in
scrap-books, and culls from newspapers accounts of strange events. Out
of such material she weaves her stories of crime and its detection.

Emile Zola, the graphic author of realistic fiction, carefully makes
studies from life for his sensational works. He writes rapidly, smoking
cigarettes the while. He is an inveterate smoker, and, if there is
anything he likes better than tobacco, it is his beautiful country-house
near Paris, where he receives daily a large circle of admiring friends.

Edward P. Roe, who, if we may rate success by the wide circulation of an
author's books, was our most successful novelist, preferred the daytime
for literary work, and rarely accomplished much in the evening beyond
writing letters, reading, etc. When pressed with work he put in long
hours at night. In the preface to "Without a Home," Rev. Mr. Roe
presents some extremely interesting matter in regard to the causes which
led to his authorship, and the methods of work by which he turned out so
many well-constructed stories in so short a time. "Ten years ago," he
says, "I had never written a line of a story, and had scarcely
entertained the thought of constructing one. The burning of Chicago
impressed me powerfully, and, obedient to an impulse, I spent several
days among its smoki