ians. The
only peculiarity of which he is possessed is that he cannot compose
unless he is alone, and he scorns even dumb company during working
hours.

Margaret Eytinge very much prefers the morning for writing, and
generally spends from eight o'clock until eleven or twelve at her desk.
Of course, she often works in the afternoon, and sometimes, though very
rarely, at night. But at those times she only revises and copies. She
makes a slight sketch of her poem or story first--a sketch written so
hastily that it would be impossible for anybody but herself to decipher
it, and she has found trouble in making it out herself at times. Then
she proceeds to clothe this skeleton, an operation which is never
completed satisfactorily until after at least three times trying. She
always makes it a point to produce clean manuscripts. She cannot write
at all with people about her, or in an unfamiliar place, and must be in
her own room, at her own desk, and secure from interruption.

That astute author of innumerable novels, Charlotte M. Yonge, never
works at night. She does not write any outline of her tales. She has
such an outline in her mind, but is guided by the way the characters
shape themselves. She generally composes from about 10.30 A. M. to 1.30
P. M., taking odd times later in the day for proofs and letters. Having
good health, she is seldom indisposed for work; if she is, she takes
something mechanical, such as translating or copying.

Dr. Karl Frenzel, editor of one of the leading Berlin newspapers, has to
struggle hard at first to overcome his unwillingness to compose, but
after he has written for some time any aversion which he may have
experienced disappears. He rarely works at night, never after midnight,
but prefers the evening to the afternoon for literary production. He
sometimes rewrites whole pages of his novels two or three times, but
never makes a plan beforehand. He has the queer habit of making bread
pellets while at work; that is, whenever he is absorbed in thought. He
writes with facility and swiftness, devoting from three to four hours a
day to literary labor.

Dr. Otto Franz Gensichen, German dramatist, poet, and essayist, always
writes in the daytime, almost exclusively in the forenoon, from eight
till twelve o'clock. He makes an exception in the case of lyrical poems,
which, of course, must be written down whenever they occur to the mind.
After his manuscript is done, he polishes it here and there,