Lang, for instance, is
popularly associated with salmon, but that is probably a wilful
delusion. Excessive salmon, far from engendering geniality, will be
found in practice a vague and melancholy diet, tending more towards the
magnificent despondency of Mr. Hall Caine.

Nor does Mr. Haggard feed entirely on raw meat. Indeed, for lurid and
somewhat pessimistic narrative, there is nothing like the ordinary
currant bun, eaten new and in quantity. A light humorous style is best
attained by soda-water and dry biscuits, following cafe-noir. The
soda-water may be either Scotch or Irish as the taste inclines. For a
florid, tawdry style the beginner must take nothing but boiled water,
stewed vegetables, and an interest in the movements against vivisection,
opium, alcohol, tobacco, sarcophagy, and the male sex.

For contributions to the leading reviews, boiled pork and cabbage may be
eaten, with bottled beer, followed by apple dumpling. This effectually
suppresses any tendency to facetiousness, or what respectable English
people call _double entendre_, and brings you _en rapport_ with the
serious people who read these publications. So soon as you begin to feel
wakeful and restless discontinue writing. For what is vulgarly known as
the _fin-de-siecle_ type of publication, on the other hand, one should
limit oneself to an aerated bread shop for a week or so, with the
exception of an occasional tea in a literary household. All people fed
mainly on scones become clever. And this regimen, with an occasional
debauch upon macaroons, chocolate, and cheap champagne, and brisk daily
walks from Oxford Circus, through Regent Street, Piccadilly, and the
Green Park, to Westminster and back, should result in an animated
society satire.

It is not known what Mr. Kipling takes to make him so peculiar. Many of
us would like to know. Possibly it is something he picked up in the
jungle--berries or something. A friend who made a few tentative
experiments to this end turned out nothing beyond a will, and that he
dictated and left incomplete. (It was scarcely on the lines of an
ordinary will, being blasphemous, and mentioning no property except his
inside.) For short stories of the detective type, strong cold tea and
hard biscuits are fruitful eating, while for a social science novel one
should take an abundance of boiled rice and toast and water.

However, these remarks are mainly by way of suggestion. Every writer in
the end, so soon as his dige