Professor Fiske is a fine specimen of manhood: he is alert and active, possesses a voracious appetite, a perfect digestion, and ability to sleep soundly. He works by day or night indifferently. His method, like General Grant's, is to "keep hammering." Sometimes he makes an outline first; but scarcely ever changes a word once written. He very seldom tastes coffee or wine, or smokes a cigar; but he drinks beer freely, and smokes tobacco in a meerschaum pipe nearly all the time when at work. He has been in the habit of working from twelve to fifteen hours daily since he was twelve years old. John Fiske is one of the healthiest of men, and never has a headache or physical discomfort of any sort. He prefers to work in a cold room, 55° to 60° F., and always sits in a draft when he can find one. He wears the thinnest clothes he can find, both in winter and summer. Despite this absence of precautions, he catches cold only once in three or four years, and then not severely. He never experienced the feeling of disinclination for work, and, therefore, has never had to force himself. If he feels at all dull when at work, he restores himself by a half-hour at the piano.
Ernest Wichert, who, besides being an honored member of the bar of Germany, is a celebrated novelist, courts the muses from eight o'clock in the morning until two in the afternoon. After five P. M. he attends to his correspondence and daily professional duties. Only two forenoons in the week are taken up by his duties as judge of the superior court at Koenigsberg, Prussia. He never copies a romance or novel once written, but leaves a margin for alterations and additions. When a sentence—not a judicial one—presents any difficulty, he writes it out hastily on a small piece of paper before he puts it down in the manuscript. He is in the habit of revising and copying dramatic work at least three times before he submits it to a stage-manager. He is very much addicted to the use of tobacco, and smokes a pipe and a cigar alternately. He smokes at all times of the day, even during working-hours. Generally he sits down to write; but cannot bear to have a pen in hand when thinking about the subject of his work. He is accustomed to walk up and down the room until his thoughts have assumed a definite form. He works sometimes from five to six hours successively. He cannot write when anybody is in the room, and, therefore, always locks the doors before he sits down to his work. Literary labor is such a necessity to Wichert that he invariably feels uncomfortable when he has finished one work without beginning another immediately.
Many of the friends of Jules Claretie, the famous novelist, often are at a loss to account for his great fertility, and cannot see how he manages to do all that he succeeds in doing. When this question was once asked of the author, he replied, smilingly: "I am used to working, love to work, and work regularly—without excess, and with constant pleasure. Work is, with certain natures, one of the forms of health." Claretie's pen is put in motion only in the daytime; at night it rests, like the genial man himself. When the author feels indisposed, he does not write except for journals to which matter must be supplied on a certain date; attacks of neuralgia and nervous headache often interfere with his work. When at work he is in the habit of humming various tunes without being conscious of it. When work is easy to him, he sings; but when it is difficult, a dead silence reigns in his study. Sometimes work proves exceedingly hard to be done in the beginning, but the longer he writes the easier it becomes. Claretie notes down all ideas that come to his mind, utilizing them afterward for his novels. He also makes a detailed outline of his romances; but his journalistic articles are composed at the point of the pen. He is a very fast writer, and the ink on one page is often not quite dry before another is begun.
Hermann Rollet, a distinguished Austrian author, writes on scientific topics in the evening as well as in the day-time. With him poetry is evolved, almost without exception, in the dead of night, when he lies awake after having slept a few hours. He invariably makes an outline, and when his manuscript is finished he improves it as much as possible. There must be no noise in the room where he works; outside din, however, does not affect him. When Rollet has a clear conception of the subject in hand, work is mere play to him; otherwise, it is difficult indeed. The author has one great peculiarity, which is seldom met with, and has, I think, never been noted before. When composing poetry, it appears to him as if he only removes by the act of writing the covering from something that has been concealed, and he looks upon the resulting poem as if he had not produced it, as if it had been in existence before, and as if he had but revealed it. Thus generally his best songs are produced. Sometimes he dreams of a poem, verse for verse, line for line. If he happens to wake up at the time, and strikes a light, he is able to write down literally the poem of which he dreamt. Frequently he forgets all about his dream after it is written down, and is then greatly astonished in the morning to find a finished poem on his writing-table. He says that he could more easily split wood or break stones than to write without inclination. He has to force himself merely to copy what he has written.
VI.
Favorite Habits of Work.
John G. Whittier, our noble Quaker poet, used to say that he never had any method. "When I felt like it," he said once, "I wrote, and I neither had the health nor the patience to work afterward over what I had written. It usually went as it was originally completed."
Whittier preferred the daytime—and the morning, in fact—for writing, and used no stimulants whatever for literary labor. He made no outline or skeleton of his work—and claimed that his verses were made as the Irishman made his chimney—by holding up one brick and putting another under. He was subject to nervous headache all his life, and for this reason often had to force himself to work when he would rather have rested, especially while he was associate editor of the National Era and other papers.
Philipp Galen, the German novelist, composes during the daytime, and sometimes labors till ten o'clock in the evening. He makes an outline of his story before he prepares the "copy" for the press. He requires no stimulants at work, but when he is through he relishes a glass of wine. He has a habit of perambulating the room when engaged in meditation about a new book, and he writes with remarkable rapidity. He never puts pen to paper without inclination, because, as he says, he always feels disposed to do literary work. Formerly he worked daily from twelve to fourteen hours; now he spends only from six to eight hours at the writing-desk every day.
W. D. Howells always keeps his manuscript six or seven months ahead of the time for publication. Being of a nervous disposition, he could not rely on himself to furnish matter at short notice. When it is possible, he completes a book before giving a page of it to a magazine. He finds the morning to be the best time for brain-labor. He asserts that the first half of the day is the best part of a man's life, and always selects it for his working hours. He usually begins at nine and stops at one, and manages in that time to write about a dozen manuscript pages. After that he enjoys his leisure; that is, he reads, corrects proof, walks about, and pays visits. When he went to Venice as the United States consul he soon threw off the late-hour habits to which he was accustomed as a journalist. There was so little to keep him employed, and the neighborhood was so quiet and delightful, that he began doing his work in the morning, and he has continued the habit ever since. He does not generally make a "skeleton" of his work; in fact, he almost never does. He says that he leans toward indolence, and always forces himself more or less to work, keeping from it as long as he can invent any excuse. He often works when he is dull or heavy from a bad night, and finds that the indisposition wears off. Howells rarely misses a day from any cause, and, for a lazy man, as he calls himself, is extremely industrious.