by drinking coffee which I do not consider helpful to serious and
sustained work. It is possible, however, that works of genius may be
produced sometimes in a state of nervous excitement, I suppose when
the shattered nerves begin to relax. Manzoni wrote his master pieces
when in a state of painful nervous distraction, but alcohol had
nothing to do with it; perhaps he had recourse to other stimulants.

(1) When we read that literary producers of any power have gone on
working up to the last, even in the near approach of death, we usually
find the work done has been of a not unwelcome kind, and often that it
has formed part of a long-cherished design. But when the disease of
which the sufferer is dying is consumption, or some disease which
between paroxysms of pain leaves spaces of ease and rest, it is
nothing wonderful that work should be done. Some of the best of
Paley's works were produced under such conditions, and some of the
best of Shelley's. Nor, indeed, is there anything in mere pain which
necessarily prevents literary work. The late Mr. T. T. Lynch produced
some of his most beautiful writings amid spasms of _angina
pectoris_. This required high moral courage in the writer.... It is
a curious, though well-known fact, however, that times of illness,
when the eyes swim and the hand shakes, are oftentimes rich in
suggestion. If the mind is naturally fertile--if there is stuff in
it--the hours of illness are by no means wasted. It is then that the
"_dreaming_ power" which counts for so much in literary work
often asserts itself most usefully.--_The Contemporary Review_,
vol. 29, p. 946.

(2) When the poet Wordsworth was engaged in composing the "White Doe
of Rylstone," he received a wound in his foot, and he observed that
the continuation of his literary labours increased the irritation of