magazines about the beginning of December, because, in fact, the editors
have laid in their stock of that kind of thing earlier. Always insist on
_seeing_ an editor, instead of writing to him. There is nothing he hates
so much, unless you are very young and beautiful indeed, when, perhaps,
if you wish to fail you had better _not_ pay him a visit at the office.
Even if you do, even if you were as fair as the Golden Helen, he is not
likely to put in your compositions if, as is probable, they fall _much_
below the level of his magazine.

A good way of making yourself a dead failure is to go about accusing
successful people of plagiarising from books or articles of yours which
did not succeed, and, perhaps, were never published at all. By
encouraging this kind of vanity and spite you may entirely destroy any
small powers you once happened to possess, you will, besides, become a
person with a grievance, and, in the long run, will be shunned even by
your fellow failures. Again, you may plagiarise yourself, if you can, it
is not easy, but it is a safe way to fail if you can manage it. No
successful person, perhaps, was ever, in the strict sense, a plagiarist,
though charges of plagiary are always brought against everybody, from
Virgil to Milton, from Scott to Moliere, who attains success. When you
are accused of being a plagiarist, and shewn up in double columns, you
may be pretty sure that all this counsel has been wasted on you, and that
you have failed to fail, after all. Otherwise nobody would envy and
malign you, and garble your book, and print quotations from it which you
did not write, all in the sacred cause of morality.

Advice on how to secure the reverse of success should not be given to
young authors alone. Their kinsfolk and friends, also, can do much for
their aid. A lady who feels a taste for writing is very seldom allowed
to have a quiet room, a quiet study. If she retreats to her chill and