The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-10-03
RULES FOR WRITERS.

IRev. E. E. Hail. in Herald of Heaith.l
 The business of health, for literary man, seems to me to depend largely upon sleep. He should have enough sleep, and sleep well. He should avoid what ever injures sleep.
 This means that the brain should not be excited or even worked hard for six hours before bedtime. Young men can disregard this rule, and do; but as one grows older he finds it wiser to throw his work upon the morning hours. If he can spend the afternoon, or even the evening, in the open air, his chances of sleep are better. The evening occupation, accord ing to me, should be light and pleasant, as music, novel, reading aloud, conver- sation, the theatre or watching the stars from the piazza. Of course, different men make and need different rules. take nine hours for sleep in every twenty. four, and do not object to ten.
 l accepted very early in life, Bulwer's estimate that three hours day is as large an average of desk work as a man of letters should try for. l have, in old newspaper days, written for twelve con- secutive hours, but this is only tour de force, and in the long run you waste strength, if you do not hold, every day, quite closely to the average.
 As men live, with the telegraph and telephone interrup.ing when they choose, and this fool and that coming in when they choose, to say: do not want to interrupt you; will only take a mo- ment," the great difficulty is to h old your three hours without break. If man has broken my mirror do not thank him for leaving the pieces next each other he has spoiled it, and he may carry them ten miles apart if he chooses. So, if fool comes in and breaks my time in two, he may stay if he wants to. He is none the less fool. What W Ant for work is un- broken time. This is best secured early in the morning.
 l believe in breakfast very thoroughly, and in having a good breakfast. have lived in Paris month at time, and de- test the French practice of substituting for breakfast cup of coffee, with or with out an egg. Breakfast is meal at which much time may be spent with great ad- vantage. People are not apt to come to 1t so regularly, and you may profit by the intermission to read your newspaper and lecture on its contents. No harm in spending an hour at the table.
 After breakfast do not go to work for an hour. Walk out in the garden, lie on your back on sofa and read in general, loaf" for that hour, and bid the servant keep everybody out who rings the bell, and work steadily till your days stent is done. lfyou have had half an hour for breakfast you can make two and half now.
 This business of writing is the most ex- haustng known to men. You should, therefore, steadily feed the machine with fuel. find it a good habit to have stand ing on the stove cup of warm milk, just tinged in color with coffee. In the days of my buoyant youth said: "Ot the color of the cheek of brunette in Seville" l had then never seen a brunette in S.- vile, but have since, and can testify that the description was good. Beef tea answers as well bowl of chowder quite as well as either. Indeed, good clam chowder is probably the form of nourish- ment which most quickly and easily comes to the restoration and refreshment of the brain of man.
 If this bowl of coffee, or chowder, or soup, is counted as one meal, the work ingman who wishes to keep in order will have five meals day, besides the morning cup of coffee, or coffee colored with milk, which he has before breakfast Break fast is one; this extended lunch is another; dinner is the third, say at half after two tea is the fourth, at six or seven o'clock p. m; and what is too apt to be forgotten, a sufficient supper just before bedtime is the fifth. This last may be as light as you medical gentlemen please, but let 1t be sufficient. A few oysters, slice of hot toast, clam chowder again, or a bowl of soup. Never go to bed in any danger ot being hungry.