is illustrated in the story of his lamenting his lack of a new subject
while under the hair-dresser's hand in a cloud of powder, at his rooms
in the Strand, preparing for his night's "entertainment." The friend who
was with him suggested various topics, but all of a sudden the jar of a
ladder sounded against the lamp-iron, and Dibdin exclaimed, "The
lamp-lighter, a good notion," and at once began humming and fingering on
his knee. As soon as his head was dressed he stepped to the piano,
finished off both music and words, and that very night sang "Jolly Dick,
the Lamplighter," at the theatre, nor could he, we are assured on
critical authority, well have made a greater hit if the song had been
the deliberate work of two authors--one of the words, another of the
air--and had taken weeks to finish it, and been elaborated in studious
leisure instead of the distraction of dressing-room din.
XIII.
The Hygiene of Writing.
Edward Everett Hale gives the following description of his mode of life,
which at the same time is full of advice to authors in general:--
"The business of health for a literary man seems to me to depend largely
upon sleep. He should have enough sleep, and should sleep well. He
should avoid whatever injures sleep.
"This means that the brain should not be excited or even worked hard for
six hours before bedtime. Young men can disregard this rule, and do; but
as one grows older he finds it wiser to throw his work upon morning
hours. If he can spend the afternoon, or even the evening, in the open
air, his chances of sleep are better. The evening occupation, according
to me, should be light and pleasant, as music, a novel, reading aloud,
conversation, the theatre, or watching the stars from the piazza. Of
course, different men make and need different rules. I take nine hours
for sleep in every twenty-four, and do not object to ten.
"I accepted very early in life Bulwer's estimate that three hours a day
is as large an average of desk work as a man of letters should try for.
I have, in old newspaper days, written for twelve consecutive hours; but
this is only a _tour de force_, and in the long run you waste strength
if you do not hold every day quite closely to the average.
"As men live, with the telegraph and the telephone interrupting when
they choose, and this fool and that coming in when they choose to say,
'I do not want to interrupt you; I will only take a moment,' the great
difficulty is to hold your three hours without a break. If a man has
broken my mirror, I do not thank him for leaving the pieces next each
other; he has spoiled it, and he may carry them ten miles apart if he
chooses. So, if a fool comes in and breaks my time in two, he may stay
if he wants to; he is none the less a fool. What I want for work is
unbroken time. This is best secured early in the morning.
"I dislike early rising as much as any man, nor do I believe there is
any moral merit in it, as the children's books pretend; but to secure an
unbroken hour, or even less, I like to be at my desk before breakfast.
As long before as possible I have a cup of coffee and a soda biscuit
brought me there, and in the thirty to sixty minutes which follow before
breakfast, I like to start the work of the day. If you rise at a quarter
past six, there will be comparatively few map pedlers, or book agents,
or secretaries of charities, or jailbirds, who will call before eight.
The hour from 6.30 to 7.30 is that of which you are most sure. Even the
mother-in-law or the mother of your wife's sister's husband does not
come then to say that she should like some light work with a large
salary as matron in an institution where there is nothing to do.
"I believe in breakfast very thoroughly, and in having a good breakfast.
I have lived in Paris a month at a time and detest the French practice
of substituting for breakfast a cup of coffee, with or without an egg.
Breakfast is a meal at which much time may be spent with great
advantage. People are not apt to come to it too regularly, and you may
profit by the intermission to read your newspaper and lecture on its
contents. There's no harm in spending an hour at the table.
"After breakfast do not go to work for an hour. Walk out in the garden,
lie on your back on a sofa and read, in general, 'loaf' for that hour,
and bid the servant keep out everybody who rings the bell, and work
steadily till your day's stint is done. If you have had half an hour
before breakfast, you can make two hours and a half now.
"It is just so much help if you have a good amanuensis; none, if you
have a poor one. The amanuensis should have enough else to do, but be
at liberty to attend to you when you need. Write as long as you feel
like writing; the moment you do not feel like it, give him the pen and
walk up and down the room dictating. There are those who say that they
can tell the difference between dictated work and work written by the
author. I do not believe them. I will give a share in the Combination
Protoxide Silver Mine of Grey's Gulch to anybody who will divide this
article correctly between the parts which I dictated and those which are
written with my own red right hand.
"Stick to your stint till it is done. If Philistines come in, as they
will in a finite world, deduct the time which they have stolen from you
and go on so much longer with your work till you have done what you set
out to do.
"When you have finished the stint, stop. Do not be tempted to go on
because you are in good spirits for work. There is no use in making
ready to be tired to-morrow. You may go out of doors now, you may read,
you may in whatever way get light and life for the next day. Indeed, if
you will remember that the first necessity for literary work is that you
have something ready to say before you begin, you will remember
something which most authors have thoroughly forgotten or never knew.
"This business of writing is the most exhausting known to men. You
should, therefore, steadily feed the machine with fuel. I find it a
good habit to have standing on the stove a cup of warm milk, just tinged
in color with coffee. In the days of my buoyant youth I said, 'of the
color of the cheek of a brunette in Seville.' I had then never seen a
brunette in Seville; but I have since, and I can testify that the
description was good. Beef tea answers as well; a bowl of chowder quite
as well as either. Indeed, good clam chowder is probably the form of
nourishment which most quickly and easily comes to the restoration or
refreshment of the brain of man.
"If this bowl of coffee, or chowder, or soup is counted as one meal, the
working man who wishes to keep in order will have five meals a day,
besides the morning cup of coffee, or of coffee colored with milk, which
he has before breakfast. Breakfast is one; this extended lunch is
another; dinner is the third, say at half-past two; tea is the fourth,
at six or seven; and, what is too apt to be forgotten, a sufficient
supper before bedtime is the fifth. This last may be as light as you
please, but let it be sufficient,--a few oysters, a slice of hot toast,
clam chowder again, or a bowl of soup. Never go to bed in any danger of
being hungry. People are kept awake by hunger quite as much as by a bad
conscience.
"Remembering that sleep is the essential force with which the whole
scheme starts, decline tea or coffee within the last six hours before
going to bed. If the women kind insist, you may have your milk and water
at the tea-table, colored with tea; but the less the better.
"Avoid all mathematics or intricate study of any sort in the last six
hours. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and hot heads, and the
nuisances of waking hours.
"Keep your conscience clear. Remember that because the work of life is
infinite you cannot do the whole of it in any limited period of time,
and that, therefore, you may just as well leave off in one place as
another.
"No work of any kind should be done in the hour after dinner. After any
substantial meal, observe, you need all your vital force for the
beginning of digestion. For my part, I always go to sleep after dinner
and sleep for exactly an hour, if people will only stay away; and I am
much more fond of the people who keep away from me at that time than I
am of the people who visit me."
XIV.
A Humorist's Regimen.
Robert Barr (whose pseudonym, "Luke Sharp," is familiar to the readers
of the _Detroit Free Press_) has written an article on "How a Literary
Man Should Live," which may be cited in conclusion:--
"I am not," he says, "an advocate of early rising. I believe, however,
that every literary man should have fixed hours for getting up. I am
very firm with myself on that score. I make it a rule to rise every
morning in winter between the hours of six and eleven, and in summer
from half-past five until ten. A person is often tempted to sleep later
than the limit I tie myself to, but a little resolution with a person's
self at first will be amply repaid by the time thus gained, and the
feeling one has of having conquered a tendency to indolence. I believe
that a literary man can get all the sleep he needs between eight o'clock
at night and eleven in the morning. I know, of course, that some eminent
authorities disagree with me, but I am only stating my own experience in
the matter, and don't propose to enter into any controversy about it.
"On rising I avoid all stimulating drinks, such as tea or coffee. They
are apt to set the brain working, and I object to work, even in its most
disguised forms. A simple glass of hot Scotch, say half a pint or so,
serves to tide over the period between getting up and breakfast-time.
Many literary men work before breakfast, but this I regard as a very
dangerous habit. I try to avoid it, and so far have been reasonably
successful. I rest until breakfast-time. This gives the person a zest
for the morning meal.
"For breakfast the simplest food is the best. I begin with oyster stew,
then some cold chicken, next a few small lamb chops and mashed potatoes,
after that a good-sized beefsteak and fried potatoes, then a rasher of
bacon with fried eggs (three), followed by a whitefish or two, the meal
being completed with some light, wholesome pastry, mince pie for
preference. Care should be taken to avoid tea or coffee, and I think a
word of warning ought to go forth against milk. The devastation that
milk has wrought among literary men is fearful to contemplate. They
begin, thinking that if they find it is hurting them, they can break
off, but too often before they awaken to their danger the habit has
mastered them. I avoid anything at breakfast except a large tumbler of
brandy, with a little soda water added to give it warmth and strength.
"No subject is of more importance to the literary aspirant than the
dividing of the hours of work. I divide the hours just as minutely as I
can, and then take as few of the particles as possible. I owe much of my
success in life to the fact that I never allow work to interfere with
the sacred time between breakfast and dinner. That is devoted to rest
and thought. Much comfort can be realized during these hours by thinking
what a stir you would make in the literary world if you could hire a man
like Howells for five dollars a week to do your work for you. Such help,
I find, is very difficult to obtain, and yet some people hold that the
labor market is overcrowded. The great task of the forenoon should be
preparation for the mid-day meal. The thorough enjoyment of this meal
has much to do with a man's success in this life.
"Of course, I do not insist that a person should live like a hermit.
Because he breakfasts frugally, that is no reason why he should not dine
sumptuously. Some people dine at six and merely lunch at noon. Others
have their principal meal in the middle of the day, and have a light
supper. There is such merit in both these plans that I have adopted
both. I take a big dinner and a light lunch at noon, and a heavy dinner
and a simple supper in the evening. A person whose brain is constantly
worried about how he can shove off his work on somebody else has to have
a substantial diet. The bill of fare for dinner should include
everything that abounds in the market--that the literary man can get
trusted for.
"After a good rest when dinner is over, remain quiet until supper-time,
so that the brain will not be too much agitated for the trials that come
after that meal.
"I am a great believer in the old adage of 'early to bed.' We are apt to
slight the wisdom of our forefathers; but they knew what they were about
when they advised early hours. I always get to bed early,--say two or
three in the morning. I do not believe in night work. It is rarely of a
good quality. The brain is wearied with the exertions of the day and
should not be overtaxed. Besides, the time can be put in with less
irksomeness at the theatre, or in company with a lot of congenial
companions who avoid the stimulating effects of tea, coffee, and milk.
Tobacco, if used at all, should be sparingly indulged in. I never allow
myself more than a dozen cigars a day; although, of course, I
supplement this with a pipe.
"When do I do my literary work? Why, next day, of course."
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[Illustration]
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WRITING FOR THE PRESS:
=A Manual for Editors, Reporters, Correspondents, and
Printers.= By ROBERT LUCE. Fourth edition (seventh
thousand); revised and greatly enlarged. 96 pp. Cloth,
$1.00.
"Writing for the Press" is a practical handbook of the art of newspaper
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it; almost every line contains a useful hint or suggestion about the
proper preparation of newspaper "copy," and a wonderful amount of
information of use to writers is crowded into its carefully-written
pages. The work is the result of the practical experience of the author
as desk editor on the _Boston Globe_, and was written in the main from
notes made while handling MS. there and elsewhere.
Four editions of "Writing for the Press" have been required. For each
edition the work has been revised and enlarged, so that it has grown
from forty-two to ninety-six pages,--yet, it is believed, without the
addition of a useless sentence. New matter has been added partly to make
the book more useful to newspaper writers, and partly to bring within
its scope all other writers. Therefore, those who bought copies of
earlier editions will find it desirable to buy copies of the fourth
edition as well.
That literary workers of every class will find "Writing for the Press"
exceedingly helpful, both for study and for reference, is shown by these
subject-headings: The Preparation of Copy; How to Write Clearly;
Grammar, Good and Bad; Use and Misuse of Common Words and Phrases (with
several hundred examples); Mixed Metaphors; Slang; The Use of Titles;
Puzzling Plurals; Condensation; Points on Proof-reading; Addressing
Editors; Getting into Print, etc. The book is one that every writer
should keep upon his desk for constant reference and study.
Newspaper editors, who are naturally the best judges of the value of
such a work, all commend Mr. Luce's book. For instance, the _Boston
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the mechanical requirements for the proper preparation of manuscript;
the right use of doubtful and frequently misused words; punctuation;
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Quantities of the book have been bought by the managers of leading daily
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Transcriber's Note:
Unmatched quotation marks in the first paragraph on Page 117,
beginning with--"The method of Buckle,"--have been left as they
appear in the original publication.
Hyphenation too has been retained as in the original publication.
Changes have been made as follows:
Page 10
Such was the little feathery wand, _changed to_
"Such was the little feathery wand,
Page 39
Influence Upon Writers _changed to_
Influence upon Writers
Page 51
Writing Under Difficulties _changed to_
Writing under Difficulties
Page 56
Cette puissance de concen tration _changed to_
Cette puissance de concentration
Page 63
solved by Jean Jaques. His strength was not _changed to_
solved by Jean Jacques. His strength was not
Page 64
without using paunce or blotting-paper, to blot _changed to_
without using pounce or blotting-paper, to blot
Page 95
accustomed as a journalist There was so _changed to_
accustomed as a journalist. There was so
Page 112
Berlin newpapers, has to struggle hard at first _changed to_
Berlin newspapers, has to struggle hard at first
Page 120