"I saw your name in the paper," said Cousin Ada.

"Did you?" said the good little girl, pleasantly.

"Yes; an' Bert an' I know who you meant by 'The Old Bad Man.""

"But I did n't mean anybody," explained she; "that was only a little story."

"Oh, we know you did. Mamma says it is n't a nice story at all, an' Mabelle says, 'Ugh!'" It was no wonder that the little girl felt hurt at these words. And it was queer, but every time that any of the friends had any fault to find, or any help to give her, which was the same thing, of course, they began it by saying, "I saw your name in the paper."

At last the good little girl could endure it no longer, and she said to herself, “They sha'n't see my name in the paper any more "; and she sat down on the green grass and thought of a nice new name that pleased her, and she called herself by that name always when she wrote for the papers. And as she never got famous so that she wanted to tell people what her penname was, her friends never found it out, and she lived and died in peace.

Hæc fabula docet - Don't be made to feel it's cowardly to use a nom de plume if you want It is n't likely to do any harm, and it may save you lots of bother.

to.

WENTWORTH, N. H.

Persis E. Darrow.

When any one living in this age of the world feels that he has thoughts clamoring for utterance, he seeks advice from some one who has attained success in the profession of literature. In most instances he receives no satisfactory criticism, and is compelled to act on innate conviction of his right to enter the "thorny path" and fight his way up to the top, where, we are told, there is always room.

There seem to be against each other. their best effort in from writing; those of another set forth an author's life in glowing colors. One faction will tell you that half the manuscripts sent to editors are not even accorded the courtesy of an examination unless signed by a well-known name. Another says that editors are keenly on the outlook for original matter, seizing with avidity anything that promises to make a new element in current literature.

two literary factions pitted Those of one class employ dissuading young writers

A noted author writes to a young aspirant: "Sweet and natural though your utterance seems to be, let me ask you in the friendliest

spirit not to write at all. The toil is great, the pursuit incessant, the reward not outward." To the same young woman writes another equally well known writer: "Your work is excellent; you can and will succeed."

The fact is obvious that there is a literary aristocracy in America. Born in an intellectual atmosphere, with inherited talent, wrapped in their own dreams, knowing little of the struggle and toil of their less fortunate coworkers, its members stand aloof, saying: Thou shalt not enter therein. The old Italian poet quaintly puts it:

"For singing loudly is not singing well;
But ever by the song that's soft and low.
The master singer's voice is plain to tell.
Few have it, and yet all are masters now,
And each of them can trill out what he calls
His ballads, canzonets, and madrigals.
The world with masters is so covered o'er
There is no room for pupils any more."

Therefore, the individual who contemplates becoming an author must be a law unto himself. If he finds his truest expression, his greatest delight in literary work, let him

persevere, all the world to the contrary notwithstanding.

"There is no chance, no destiny, no fate,

Can circumvent, can hinder, or control The firm resolve of a determined soul. Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great." An editor, noted for his gentleness and courtesy, tells us that all writers must go through an elolutionary process of rejected

manuscripts, and cites the instance of Mrs. Harriet Prescott Spofford, who awoke one morning to find herself famous. She had written "The Amber Gods." When congratulated as the first author who had attained reputation by a single effort, she replied:"No, that is not true. I have been writing for years under an assumed name." WASHINGTON, D. C.

Susan Andrews Rice.

A fragment of a conversation overheard the other evening, when the writer, half-buried with the daily proof-sheets from which he knows no escape, was hurrying westward on an afternoon train, is the raison d'être of this communication. The participants were two young and pleasant-looking girls: they discussed matters feminine, of which only the words "toque," a bewitching little thing," and "pink velvet" had reached my ears; but when I heard the question, "What became of your last poem, Clara?"—and the reply, "Youth's Companion, came back with a printed slip; Independent, ditto; then I tried the Waverley Magazine, who accepted it, but 'did not pay young contributors'"; I became unthinkingly an interested eavesdropper, and just then, with creak and clatter, the train stopped, the station, "Wellesley," was called, and the fair ones departed, taking my thoughts (and all power of concentration on work in hand) with them.

I mused in this wise: "Just why does the average young person give him (or her) self out in verse, good, bad, and indifferent?" The Youth's Companion does not want a Wellesley girl's lucubrations; it has verse on hand from many of the most skilled and charm

ing writers in that line. But it does, I know, want good stories for boys, for girls, — and where can be a better "locale," materials for plot, sketches of life and character, etc., than at a girls' college? One could surely range "from grave to gay, from lively to severe," in such a field.

The editor of the Atlantic, dear young people, accepts articles — well-written, of course on questions relating to higher education, university extension, matters of historical research. Harper & Brothers are glad to get character sketches (not New England particularly, — you cannot outdo, quite yet, Miss Jewett and Mary Wilkins, but there are many other bits of humanity, quaint, odd, or pathetic). Scribner's and the Cosmopolitan like travels, but they must be bright and varied; and mechanical articles, young men, but these must be a direct and forcible presentation of their subjects, and not rehashes from old books; while the Century will pay you well for some dainty comic bit for its "Bric-a-brac." Friends of the Golden Rule, Cottage Hearth, and Christian Register have as" sured me that good- not goody-goody — juvenile literature is very hard to get. I know a young woman who is paid well by the page for all the children's stories she can write, and her

pages are fresh and good, with new themes and unhackneyed incidents; and a young man who is taking up themes of interest in our history, the unprecedented message of a president which gave no report to Congress of financial or diplomatic matters for the preceding two years, and the three presidental protests against action taken in Congress (how many of you know about these state papers?), - there are a hundred other things, too, which might be told about in this line, and he finds no difficulty in getting his matter accepted. There is an assistant editor not far from Beacon Hill who keeps track of the clergymen, the prominent families, and individuals in a certain large religious denomination. Every week she furnishes her quota of items to an eight-page paper, and she is a pearl of great price to her chief. The Marthas of the household, “careful and troubled," there is a place for in many journals

to-day, whether their specialty be cooking, scrubbing, or lace-work. There is also a chance for those who possess a large fund of miscellaneous information, in Notes and Queries and like journals.

"The bearing of which lies in the application of it." Perhaps you may think, discouragingly, that there is no chance for you in these or any other specialties, but take my advice and try something awhile-get into a class and work to become at the head of that class; then, even if you do not attain the full measure of success you had hoped, you will certainly have the proud consciousness of having striven, and can contemplate with pity

Those green and salad days: Can
I rehearse

What sweets I ate and what I put
In verse?

A few months ago the pages of THE WRITER contained some interesting suggestions as to the advisability of a uniform indentation for sonnets when printed; the writer favoring a New York method, which would bring out even the first, fifth, ninth, and twelfth lines, setting all the other lines an equal space to the right of these. I give a quatrain for example:

"The early star, soft mirrored in the stream,
Dim vistas of the dewy forest-road,

Yea, even the solemn, high-walled glen, abode
Of mortal dust long quit of deed and dream."

The writer's chief argument for this style was, I believe, that it was used by a good printing-house, and also made a neat appearance on the page; but the question at once occurred to me, What is indentation in verse for? Is it not

a guide to the eye, to enhance the proper recurrence of the rhyme (and in the ode to show as well rhythm)? If we are to have a mere arbitrary arrangement of the sonnet, why not the same in a poem of regular or inverted quatrains, or of the Persian quatrain, which is now always given in this form :

"I sometimes think that never blows so red
The rose as where some buried Cæsar bled;
That every flower the fragrant garden wears
Dropped in her lap from some once lovely head."

Or imagine an édition de luxe of Gray's "Elegy " with every stanza printed in this style:

"Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, their destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor."

I could not take much pleasure in a book of sonnets where each page was thus stiffly arranged, but should greatly prefer the indent ing of lines according to rhyme, the first, fourth, fifth, an eighth to be in line, and the second, third, sixth, and seventh to be set somewhat to the right of these; should there come, however, a Shakespearian sonnet to be provided for, lines rhyming alternately, or any of those monstrosities of fourteen lines, which have no regularity of rhyme, let the lines then be brought to a uniform indentation, and the reader disentangle the plan of the verse as best he may.

In editing copy or reading proof for a poet, I always follow the author's preference, if indicated, or if copy submitted is consistent; but having the matter to determine, I would first look to see if the sonnets were generally regular; and second, if the sextet (the last six lines) followed the Italian or the best accepted English forms: this done, it is easy to determine upon a style, which would be the one adopted at the present time by the best English and American printers (as far as recent books of both countries give any clue ), as follows:

"What we miscall our life is Memory:

We walk upon a narrow path between Two gulfs - what is to be, and what has been, Led by a guide whose name is Destiny; Beyond is sightless gloom and mystery, From whose unfathomable depths we glean Chaotic hopes and terrors, dimly-seen Reflections of a past reality.

"Behind, pursuing through the twilight haze,
The phantom people of the past appear;
Hope, happiness and sorrow, fruitless strife,
And all the loved and lost of other days;
They crowd upon us closer year by year,

Till we as phantoms haunt some other life."

The octet, in the regular form of a sonnet, should stand as above; if the sextet varies, but is not too irregular, vary the indentation of the latter, as

"the great World-builder has designed The wondrous plans which Nature's works disclose. A child who scans the philosophic page Of some profoundly meditative sage May see familiar phrases, - - then he knows

That his own simple thoughts and childish lore Are part of the great scholar's mental store."

In like manner, let any irregularity of the eight lines settle the question of indentation, even though the latter portion of the sonnet should happen to be according to the best forms.

There are many other questions of style and appearance in getting up a collection of sonnets, a few of which may be referred to here. A little English book which I have at hand has the best of all the recent work in that line, and even runs back, in some cases, fifty years; from a literary point of view, it is unexcelled. But look at a few of the mechanical defects: it is printed as a very small 18mo. — all the long lines of the sonnets with a word or two "turned down," as the printers say. It is a "red-line" book, which means a large enclosed white space above and below the sonnet, and very little margin on each side. It has running titles standing in a lonesome way at the head of each page, and a folio in the page corner instead of being centred at the foot of each sonnet; and, to make a bad matter worse, each of these running titles has a rule beneath it, making the separation more obvious. These are only a few of the defects. Not the less displeasing to me is another book of sonnets, printed in octavo form. Not that one objects to a large margin, but the duodecimo, it seems to me, is much the best size and shape of volume for the proper display upon a printed page of this miniature poem, and a handsome old-style or Elzevir letter is the fittest type, instead of the sombre modern cut, so often used.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.

F.D. Stickney.

THE WRITER is published the first day of every month. It will be sent, post-paid, ONE YEAR for ONE Dollar.

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Everything printed in the magazine will be written expressly for it.

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Advertising rates will be sent on request. Contributions not used will be returned, if a stamped and addressed envelope is enclosed.

It is hard to believe that Dr. Edward Everett Hale will be seventy years old April 3, but it will not do to contradict the birth record and the arithmetic, in spite of all his unfailing energy and youthful activity in many different undertakings. Dr. Hale is one of the men who will be always young, and it may be in consequence of this that he has written so many things that will never lose their freshness. One of the best of them is the chapter in "How to Do It" on "How to Write," which is full of crisp and practical suggestions. Dr. Hale's rules for writing are evidently those which have always governed his own literary work; and while others may not be able to follow them with equal success, they are worth remembering by every writer. The rules are:

It was proposed by a recent contributor to THE WRITER that authors should advertise their wares, like other manufacturers. In case the idea should meet with favor, I would suggest that the practice be carried a step further in the line of business methods. During the "Robert Elsmere " craze, a few years ago, a certain soap manufacturing company advertised a copy of the book with every quarter's worth of soap sold. It is unfortunate that Mrs. Humphry Ward, whose "History of David Grieve," it is reported, is not meeting with great success in this country, did not profit by the hint of the soap company and advertise a cake of soap to be given as an inducement with every copy of her book.

WINDHAM, N. H.

A. L. A.

THE USE AND MISUSE OF WORDS.

[ Brief, pointed, practical paragraphs discussing the use and misuse of words and phrases will be printed in this department. All readers of THE WRITER are invited to contribute to it. Contributions are limited to 400 words; the briefer they are, the better. ]

"Cenotaph." We are told that a cenotaph is a monument "in memory of one buried elsewhere" - otherwise, "an empty tomb." A recent number of a popular magazine contains an article on "Memorials of Edgar Allen Poe." When the author asked to be directed to the grave of the poet, the sexton pointed to the cenotaph of white marble in the corner at the intersection of two streets, and we are told that "the remains" were "transferred to this more conspicuous spot from the family lot in the rear of the church." Are not "high-sounding" words too often used without reference to their