his side, and a beautiful woman hanging over his shoulder, dashing
off a dozen stanzas of Childe Harold at a sitting, flit through
the brains of sentimental youth. We hear of women who are seized
suddenly by an idea, as if it were a colic, or a flea, often at
midnight, and are obliged to rise and dispose of it in some way.
We are told of very delicate girls who carry pencils and cards
with them, to take the names and address of such angels as may
visit them in out-of-the-way places. We read of poets who go on
long sprees, and after recovery retire to their rooms and work
night and day, eating not and sleeping little, and in some
miraculous way producing wonderful literary creations. The mind of
a literary man is supposed to be like a shallow summer brook, that
turns a mill. There is no water except when it rains, and the
weather being very fickle, it is never known when there will be
water. Sometimes, however, there comes a freshet, and then the
mill runs night and day, until the water subsides, and another dry
time comes on.

Now, while I am aware, as every writer must be, that the brain
works very much better at some times than it does at others, I can
declare without reservation, that no man who depends upon moods
for the power to write can possibly accomplish much. I know men
who rely upon their moods, alike for the disposition and the
ability to write, but they are, without exception, lazy and
inefficient men. They never have accomplished much, and they never
will accomplish much. Regular eating, regular sleeping, regular
working--these are the secrets of all true literary success. A
man may throw off a single little poem by a spasm, but he cannot
write a poem of three thousand lines by spasms. Spasms that
produce poems like this, must last from five to seven hours a day,