ess and the Geni burn each
other to nothingness, in the _Arabian Nights_. On that happy day there
will be one less of the roads leading to failure. If the pair can carry
with them the self-sacrificing characters who take the blame of all the
felonies that they did not do, and the nice girl who is jilted by the
poet, and finds that the squire was the person whom she _really_ loved,
so much the better. If not only Monte Carlo, but the inevitable scene in
the Rooms there can be abolished; if the Riviera, and Italy can be
removed from the map of Europe as used by novelists, so much the better.
But failure will always be secured, while the huge majority of authors do
not aim high, but aim at being a little lower than the last domestic
drivel which came out in three volumes, or the last analysis of the
inmost self of some introspective young girl which crossed the water from
the States.

These are general counsels, and apply to the production of books. But,
when you have done your book, you may play a number of silly tricks with
your manuscript. I have already advised you to make only one copy, a
rough one, as that secures negligence in your work, and also disgusts an
editor or reader. It has another advantage, you may lose your copy
altogether, and, as you have not another, no failure can be more
complete. The best way of losing it, I think and the safest, is to give
it to somebody you know who has once met some man or woman of letters..
This somebody must be instructed to ask that busy and perhaps casual and
untidy person to read your manuscript, and "place" it, that is, induce
some poor publisher or editor to pay for and publish it. Now the man, or
woman of letters, will use violent language on receiving your clumsy
brown paper parcel of illegible wares, because he or she has no more to
do with the matter than the crossing sweeper. The MS. will either be put
away so carefully that it can never be found again, or will be left lying
about so that the housemaid may use it for her own domestic purposes,
like Betty Barnes, the cook of Mr. Warburton, who seems to have burned
several plays of Shakespeare.

The MS. in short will go where the old moons go.

And all dead days drift thither,
And all disastrous things.

Not only can you secure failure thus yourself, but you can so worry and
badger your luckless victim, that he too will be unable to write well
till he has forgotten you and your novel, and all the