those who come to
consult me, 'However much occupied you are with your present way of
earning a livelihood, if you have it in you to write anything you will
surely find time to do it.' They go away unconvinced, and a few months
later sees them launched on the perilous seas of journalism; with now
really not a moment to spare for serious writing! Of course, if the
would-be writer has already an income, I see no reason why he should not
give himself up to literature altogether. It was in order to provide a
certain number of coming geniuses with the wherewithal to find at least
spare time in which to write possible masterpieces, that my friend
Edmond de Goncourt and his brother Jules conceived the noble and
unselfish idea to found an institute, the members of which would require
but two qualifications, poverty and exceptional literary power. If a
would-be writer can find someone who will assist him in this manner,
well and good; but no one is a prophet in his own country, and friends
and relations are, as a rule, most unwilling to waste good money on
their young literary acquaintances. Still I admit that the Academie de
Goncourt would fulfil a want, for there have been, and are, great
geniuses who positively cannot produce their masterpieces from bitter
poverty."

"Then do you believe in journalism as a stepping-stone to literature?"

"I cannot say that I do, though, strangely enough, there is scarcely one
of us--I allude to latter-day French novelists and critics--who did not
spend at least a portion of his youth doing hard, pot-boiling newspaper
work. But I deplore the necessity of a novelist having to make
journalism his start in life, for, as all newspaper writing has to be
done against time, his style must certainly deteriorate, and his
literature becomes journalese."

"What was your own first literary essay, M. Daudet?"

"You know I was born a poet, not a novelist; besides, when I was a lad
everyone wrote poetry, so I made my _debut_ by a book of verse entitled
_Mes Amoureuses_. I was just eighteen, and this was my first stroke of
luck; for six weary months I had carried my poor little manuscript from
publisher to publisher, but, strange to say, I never got further than
these great people's ante-chamber; at last, a certain Tardieu, a
publisher who was himself an author, took pity on my _Amoureuses_. The
title had been a happy inspiration, and the volume received some
favourable notices, and led indirectly to my