Emile Richebourg writes his fascinating novels in a plain style, but, despite the absence of flowery language, is capable of expressing much feeling. The novel or drama is completed in his head before he writes a line. As the plot develops, the dialogues and events suggest themselves. When he has got to work he keeps right on, seldom re-reading what he has composed. He makes an outline of his book before beginning. He is in the habit of noting down on a piece of paper the names, ages, lodgings, etc., of the persons who are pictured in his novels, also the title of each chapter. Formerly he worked from eight to twelve hours a day, but never at night. Now he labors only five or six hours at the most, and always in the morning. Richebourg is an early riser, and goes to bed early in the evening. He gets up at six in the morning. At eight o'clock he drinks a bowl of warm milk without sugar, which constitutes his sole nourishment until dinner at noon. With him this is the principal meal of the day; and during its progress, according to his own confession, he finds a bottle of wine very agreeable. He eats but little in the evening. When at work he smokes continuously; always a pipe. He works with difficulty, yet with pleasure, and identifies himself, that is, when composing, with the personages whom he describes. During the afternoon he promenades in his garden, attends to his roses and other flowers, and trims the shrubs.
The study of Maurice Jokai, the great Hungarian romancer, is a perfect museum of valuable souvenirs and rare antiquities. Books, journals, and pamphlets cover tables, chairs, and walls; busts and statuettes, which stand about here and there, give the room the appearance of picturesque disorder. The portrait of his wife, in various sizes, adorns the space on the walls not taken up by the books. The top of his writing-table is full of bric-à-brac, which leaves only sufficient room for the quarto paper upon which he pens his entertaining romances. He writes with little, fine pens, of so good a workmanship that he is enabled to write a four-volume novel with one pen. He always makes use of violet ink, to which he is so accustomed that he becomes perplexed when compelled, outside of his house, to resort to ink of another color. He claims that thoughts are not forthcoming when he writes with any other ink. When violet ink is not within reach, he prefers to write with a lead pencil, but he does so only when composing short stories and essays. For the composition of his romances, which generally fill from one to five volumes when printed, violet ink is indispensable. He rarely corrects his manuscripts, and they generally go to the printer as they were originally composed; they are written in a plain, legible hand; and are what one of the typographic fraternity would call "beautiful copy." One of the corners of his writing-desk holds a miniature library, consisting of neatly-bound note-books, which contain the outlines of his novels as they originated in his mind. When he has once begun a romance, he keeps right on till he puts down the final period; that is, he writes day by day till the novel is completed. Jokai says: "It often happens that I surround my hero with dangers, that enemies arise on all sides, and escape seems impossible. Then I often say to myself: 'I wonder how the fellow will get out of the scrape?'"
In his home, at Hartford, Conn., Mark Twain's workshop is in his billiard-room, at the top of the house, and when he grows tired of pushing the pen he rises and eases his muscles by doing some scientific strokes with the cue. He is a hard worker, and, like Trollope, believes that there is nothing like a piece of shoemaker's wax on the seat of one's chair to encourage good literary work. Ordinarily he has a fixed amount of writing for each day's duty. He rewrites many of his chapters, and some of them have been scratched out and interlined again and again.
Robert Waldmueller, a leading German novelist, who writes under the pseudonym of "Charles Eduard Duboc," works mostly from eight, nine, or ten o'clock in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon, but never writes at night. Generally he does not plan his work beforehand. When at work he must be unmolested. In composition, he loves to change off, now producing poetry, now plays and essays, as his mood may direct. He writes with great ease and swiftness; and the many books which he has composed testify that he cannot justly be accused of indolence. He attributes his facility of expression to the discrimination which he has always exercised in the choice of books. In early boyhood he was already disgusted with Florian's sickly "Guillaume Tell," while Washington Irving's "Sketch-book" delighted him very much; he was also deeply impressed by the perusal of Homer's immortal epics. He adopted authorship when twenty-five years of age, and has followed it successfully ever since. Until then he was especially fond of composing music and of drawing and painting, but he lacked the time to perfect himself in these accomplishments. Yet, even to-day, he practices both arts occasionally as a pastime and for recreation.
The evening finds Dr. Johann Fastenrath, the poet, who writes as elegant Spanish as he does German, and who is as well-known in Madrid as he is in Cologne on the Rhine, at the writing-table. He never makes a skeleton beforehand of essays in his mother-tongue; but for compositions in French or Spanish he invariably makes an outline. One peculiarity which he has is to scribble his poems upon little scraps of paper. When writing prose in Spanish he divides the manuscript-paper in halves, so as to be able to make additions and to lengthen any particular sentence, for in the Spanish language artfully long periods are considered especially beautiful. He does not regard literary composition as work, and conceives poems faster than he can write them down. When he is at work absolute quiet must reign about him; he cannot bear noise of any kind. During the winter he works day for day at home, but in the summer he tolerates confinement no longer, and whenever he composes at this time it is always in the open air. From autumn till spring he writes from six to seven hours a day.
Adolf Streckfusz, a German novelist, prefers to write in the afternoon and evening, and attains the greatest speed in composition at night. He makes no plan beforehand, but revises his manuscript at least twice after completion. He often allows the cigar which he smokes when at work to go out, but lights it mechanically from time to time, so that the floor of his study is sometimes covered with dozens of thrown-away lucifers after working hours. When writing, his cigar is as indispensable to him as his pen. He can do without neither. Formerly he could work with extraordinary facility, but now, with increasing age, a few hours' work at times tires him out so much that he must, of necessity, take a rest. As with many other authors, a sense of duty often impels him to work; but almost always, after a beginning is made, he composes with pleasure. The time which he devotes daily to literary work varies. He never works more than eight hours, but rarely less than three or four hours a day.
The author of "The Lady or the Tiger" and many other short stories—Frank R. Stockton—always works in the morning, and not at any other time. In writing a short story, such as is published in a single number of a magazine, he usually composes the whole story, description, incident, and even the dialogue, before writing a word of it. In this way the story is finished in his mind before it is begun on paper. While engaged in other writing he has carried in his memory for several months as many as three stories, each ready to be put upon paper as soon as he should have an opportunity. When he is writing a longer story, he makes in his mind a general outline of the plot, etc.; and then he composes three or four chapters before he begins to write; when these are finished, he stops writing until some more are thought out: he never composes at the point of the pen. He does not write any of his manuscripts himself; they are all written from his dictation. Stockton is very fond of working in the summer in the open air, and a great many of his stories have been dictated while lying in a hammock. He usually works from about ten in the morning until one P. M., but he spends no time at the writing-desk, except when he writes letters, which he never does in his working hours. Some years ago he used to work very differently, being occupied all day with editorial work, and in the evening with literary work; but his health would not stand this, and he, therefore, adopted his present methods. He works regularly every day, whether he feels like it or not; but when he has set his mind on a subject, it is generally not long before he does feel like it.
Dr. Leopold Chevalier de Sacher-Masoch generally used to work at night in former years, but now writes by daylight only, preferably in the morning. He is the author of a great many graphic stories about Galicia, and lives at Leipsic, surrounded by a coterie of admiring friends. He makes an accurate outline; then pens his novel word for word till it is finished, whereupon it is handed to the printer as it is, not a word being altered, added, or erased. He is not in the habit of using stimulating drinks or tobacco when at work, and leads altogether a temperate life. He has an innate predilection for fur, and declares that fur worn by a beautiful woman exercises a magic spell over him. Formerly he had a pretty black cat that used to lie on his knees or sleep on his writing-desk when he was at work. Now, when he writes, a red velvet lady's-jacket, with a fur lining of sable and borders of the same material, lies near at hand upon a divan. Although he is ordinarily good-natured, his anger is easily provoked by any disturbance during working hours. Composition is mere play to him after he has begun, but the first lines of a new work always are penned with difficulty. When he writes without an inclination, he is, as a rule, dissatisfied with the result. Generally he spends from three to four hours at the writing-desk and devotes the rest of the day to recreation.
Dr. Julius Stinde, who is responsible for that excellent German satire, "Die Familie Buchholz," never works by lamplight, if he can possibly avoid it. He writes on large sheets, of quarto size, and never makes an outline; the compositor gets the manuscript as it was written, with a few, but not many, alterations. Whatever is not satisfactory to the author is thrown into the waste-paper basket, which, in consequence, is pretty large. While at work he takes a pinch of snuff from time to time, which, he asserts, has a beneficial action on the eyes that are taxed by incessant study and composition. When he treats of scientific topics, a few glasses of Rhine wine tend to induce the proper mood; he finds the "Johannisgarten," a wine grown at Musbach in the palatinate of the Rhine, especially valuable for this purpose. He composes humorous work most easily after a very simple breakfast, consisting of tea and bread. He is in the habit of often changing the kinds of paper, pens, pen-holders, ink, and even ink-stands, which he uses; and loves to see fresh flowers on his writing-desk. He writes with greater facility in fine, sunny weather than on dark, gloomy days. That is the reason why he prefers, on cloudy days, to write in the evening. He declares that he would rather stop writing for days and weeks than to compose without inclination, and he tells us that whenever he attempts to work "sans inclination" as the French say, the result is unsatisfactory, and the effort strains both mind and body. He seldom spends more than eight hours a day at the writing-table.
To the many with whom it is customary to do literary work in the daytime must be added Johannes Nordmann, one of Vienna's most able novelists and newspaper men. He writes more during the winter than in the summer time, most of which he spends in travelling. He never recopies prose. For poems, however, he first makes an outline, and then files the verse till it receives his approbation. While driving the "quill," he smokes cigars. He writes with remarkable speed and ease after the subject in hand has ripened in his thoughts. He often forces himself to do newspaper work, when he would fain do anything else; and is totally unable to compose fiction or poetry when not disposed to.