The cultivation of a bad handwriting is an elementary precaution, often
overlooked. Few need to be warned against having their MSS. typewritten,
this gives them a chance of being read with ease and interest, and this
must be neglected by all who have really set their hearts on failure. In
the higher matters of education it is well to be as ignorant as possible.
No knowledge comes amiss to the true man of letters, so they who court
disaster should know as little as may be.

Mr. Stevenson has told the attentive world how, in boyhood, he practised
himself in studying and imitating the styles of famous authors of every
age. He who aims at failure must never think of style, and should
sedulously abstain from reading Shakespeare, Bacon, Hooker, Walton,
Gibbon, and other English and foreign classics. He can hardly be too
reckless of grammar, and should always place adverbs and other words
between "to" and the infinitive, thus: "Hubert was determined to
energetically and on all possible occasions, oppose any attempt to
entangle him with such." Here, it will be noticed, "such" is used as a
pronoun, a delightful flower of speech not to be disregarded by authors
who would fail. But some one may reply that several of our most popular
novelists revel in the kind of grammar which I am recommending. This is
undeniable, but certain people manage to succeed in spite of their own
earnest endeavours and startling demerits. There is no royal road to
failure. There is no rule without its exception, and it may be urged
that the works of the gentlemen and ladies who "break Priscian's head"--as
they would say themselves--may be successful, but are not literature. Now
it is about literature that we are speaking.

In the matter of style, there is another excellent way. You need not
neglect it, but you may study it wrongly. You may be affectedly self-