I have received many letters from boys and young men who had read _Laugh and Live_, asking me to name the requisites for success. I have made but one answer to all such inquiries:--_A healthy, clean body and a trained, clean mind._ There is no other answer. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII EXALTING THE EGO Some day I propose to write a novel! The main reason for this determination is the fact that I have never written one. I don’t know that it will become a “best goer”--and the chances are against it--but I’ll do my best just the same. _And I hope to win._ My reason for writing a fictional story is that by so doing I will exercise my imaginative faculties and thus _prolong their usefulness_. The power to imagine is an asset that must not be dulled by neglect. It responds to exercise just as readily as do the arms and legs. Mental gymnastics are helpful, in fact they are absolutely necessary in keeping alert the upper story of the general structure. They make of the brain a _spectacular trapeze performer_ toward which all eyes upturn when it takes its place upon the swinging bar. The ability to write a successful novel would be a crowning achievement since it draws upon experience and vision in order to assemble interesting characters around an agreeable plot. Love, of course, must furnish the motif because love is the highest and most noble form of passion--and _passion rules the universe_. When we contemplate the writing of a novel we indulge in aspiration of the highest order. The fact that not one novel in a thousand is likely to measure up to a masterpiece should not halt one’s determination to put over a winner if possible. But novel writing is _big game hunting_, requiring ammunition of considerable power--and the _aim must be perfect_. One should try for small game first, being careful to make a bonfire out of every effort that will not stand the test of several months in cold storage. Real fiction can wait. It needn’t be served to order. Any novel that is going to live through one generation of applauding readers will keep a few months while its author uses the pruning hook. His judgment will be all the keener each time he goes over it. When I write my novel I shall allow no close friend to read it in advance of its legitimate publication, after having been duly passed upon by a calm and candid professional critic _with a beady eye_. When one of these zest-worn individuals wades through my effort from first to last page and comes up smiling it will be time enough to indulge in a faint hope. It is always best for success to _ooze in_ rather than to come as a deluge. It gives us time to consider ways and means of taking care of the output. Also it serves to ward off an aggravated case of disappointment if it doesn’t turn out to be a _genuine gusher_. We never know the real verdict until we hear from the multitude. No multitude, no verdict necessary--_the book is dead_. [Illustration: Where once one equals two]