Part 2 (1/2)

Rochefoucauld[53] spent fifteen years over his little book of Maxims, altering some of them thirty times. Rogers admitted that he had more than once spent ten days upon a single verse before he turned it to suit him. Vaugelas, the great French scholar, devoted twenty years to his admirable translation of ”Quintus Curtius.”

Some authors have produced with such rapidity as to approach improvisation. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of this was in the case of Lope de Vega, who composed and wrote a versified drama in a single day, and is known to have done so for seven consecutive days.

Contemporary with Shakespeare and Cervantes, De Vega has left behind him two thousand original dramas sparkling with vivacity of dialogue and richness of invention. Soldier, duellist, poet, sailor, and priest, his long life was one of intense activity and adventure.[54] The name of Hardy, the French dramatic author and actor, occurs to us in this connection; though an inferior genius to De Vega, he wrote over six hundred original dramas. He was considered the first dramatic writer of the days of Henry IV. and Louis XIII., before whom Hardy often appeared upon the stage personating the heroes of his own dramas.

Prynne, the English antiquary, politician, and pamphlet-writer, sat down early in the morning to his composition. Every two hours his man brought him a roll and a pot of ale as refreshment; and so he continued until night, when he partook of a hearty dinner. One of his pamphlets was ent.i.tled ”A Scourge for Stage-Players,” which was considered so scurrilous that the Star-Chamber sentenced him to pay a heavy fine, to be exposed in the pillory, to lose his ears, and to be imprisoned for life. He was finally released from prison. While he was confined in the pillory, a pyramid of his offending pamphlets was made close at hand, to windward of his position, and set on fire, so that the author was very nearly choked to death by the smoke. He was almost as incessant and inveterate a writer as Petrarch, and considered being debarred from pen and ink an act more barbarous than the loss of his ears. However, he partially obviated his want of the usual facilities by writing a whole volume on his prison walls while confined in the Tower of London.

Byron wrote the ”Corsair” in ten days, which was an average of nearly two hundred lines a day,--a fact which he acknowledged to Moore with a degree of shame. He said he would not confess it to everybody, considering it to be a humiliating fact, proving his own want of judgment in publis.h.i.+ng, and the public in reading, ”things which cannot have stamina for permanent attention.” The surpa.s.sing beauty of the ”Corsair,” however, excuses all the author said or did in connection with it. It may nevertheless be affirmed that, as a rule, no great work has ever been performed with ease, or ever will be accomplished without encountering the throes of time and labor. Dante, we remember, saw himself ”growing lean” over his ”Divine Comedy.” Mary Russell Mitford, the charming English auth.o.r.ess, dramatist, poet, and novelist, who so excelled in her sketches of country life, says of herself: ”I write with extreme slowness, labor, and difficulty; and, whatever you may think, there is a great difference of facility in different minds. I am the slowest writer, I suppose, in England, and touch and retouch incessantly.” Her life was one of constant labor and self-abnegation in behalf of a worthless, selfish, and imperious father. He was a robust, showy, wasteful profligate, and a gambler. A doctor by profession, he was a spendthrift and sensualist by occupation. He contracted a venal marriage with an heiress much older than himself, and after squandering her entire fortune he fell back upon his daughter as the bread-winner for the whole family. By a remarkable chance she became the possessor of a great lottery prize, from which she realized twenty thousand pounds, every penny of which her beastly father drank and gambled away. Still, the devotion and industry of the daughter never waned for a moment. Her patient struggles have placed her name on the roll of fame, while her father's has sunk into deserved oblivion.

De Tocqueville wrote to his publishers: ”You must think me very slow.

You would forgive me if you knew how hard it is for me to satisfy myself, and how impossible it is for me to finish things incompletely.”

Horace suggested that authors should keep their literary productions from the public eye for at least nine years, which certainly ought to produce ”the well-ripened fruit of sage delay.” After a labor of eleven years Virgil p.r.o.nounced his aeneid imperfect. This recalls the Italian saying, ”One need not be a stag, neither ought one to be a tortoise.”

Ta.s.so's ma.n.u.script, which is still extant, is almost illegible because of the number of alterations which he made after having written it.

Montaigne, ”the Horace of Essayists,” could not be induced, so lazy and self-indulgent was he, to even look at the proof-sheets of his writings.

”I add, but I correct not,” he said.

The writer of these pages has seen the original draft of Longfellow's ”Excelsior,” so interlined and amended to suit the author's taste as to make the ma.n.u.script rather difficult to decipher. The poet wrote a back-hand, as it is called; that is, the letters sloped in the opposite direction from the usual custom, and as a rule his writing was remarkably legible. Coleridge was very methodical as to the time and place of his composition. He told Hazlitt that he liked to compose walking over uneven ground, or making his way through straggling branches of undergrowth in the woods; which was a very affected and erratic notion, and might better have been ”whipped out of him.”[55]

Wordsworth, on the contrary, found his favorite place for composing his verses in walking back and forth upon the smooth paths of his garden, among flowers and creeping vines. Hazlitt, in a critical a.n.a.lysis of the two poets, traces a likeness to the style of each in his choice of exercise while maturing his thoughts,--which, it would seem to us, is a subtile deduction altogether too fine to signify anything.

Charles Dibdin, the famous London song-writer and musician, whose sea-songs as published number over a thousand, caught his ideas ”on the fly.” As an example, he was at a loss for something new to sing on a certain occasion. A friend was with him in his lodgings and suggested several themes. Suddenly the jar of a ladder against the street lamp-post under his window was heard. It was a hint to his fertile imagination, and Dibdin exclaimed, ”The Lamplighter! That's it; first-rate idea!” and stepping to the piano he finished both song and words in an hour, and sang them in public with great eclat that very night, under the t.i.tle of ”Jolly d.i.c.k, the Lamplighter.” Like nearly all such mercurial geniuses, Dibdin was generous, careless, and improvident in his habits, dying at last poor and neglected.

Dr. Johnson was so extremely short-sighted that writing, re-writing, and correcting upon paper were very inconvenient for him; he was therefore accustomed to revolve a subject very carefully in his mind, forming sentences and periods with minute care; and by means of his remarkable memory he retained them with great precision for use and final transmission to paper. When he began, therefore, with pen in hand, his production of copy was very rapid, and it required scarcely any corrections. Boswell says that posterity will be astonished when they are told that many of these discourses, which might be supposed to be labored with all the slow attention of literary leisure, were written in haste, as the moments pressed, without even being read over by Johnson before they were printed. Sir John Hawkins says that the original ma.n.u.scripts of the ”Rambler” pa.s.sed through his hands, ”and by the perusal of them I am warranted to say, as was said of Shakespeare by the players of his time, that he never blotted a line.” Johnson tells us that he wrote the life of Savage in six-and-thirty hours. He also wrote his ”Hermit of Teneriffe” in a single night. When we consider the amount of literary work performed by Johnson, say in the period of seven years, while ”he sailed a long and painful voyage round the world of the English language,” and produced his dictionary, we must give him credit for the most remarkable industry and great rapidity of production.

During these seven years he found time also to complete his ”Rambler,”

the ”Vanity of Human Wishes,” and his tragedy, besides several minor literary performances. No wonder he developed hypochondria. Burke was a very slow and painstaking producer; it is even said that he had all his works printed at a private press before submitting them to his publisher.

Hume was more rapid, even careless with his first edition of a work, but went on correcting each new one to the day of his death.[56] Macaulay, in his elaborate speeches, did not write them out beforehand, but _thought_ them out, trusting to his memory to recall every epigrammatic statement and every felicitous epithet which he had previously forged in his mind, so that when the time came for their delivery they appeared to spring forth as the spontaneous outpouring of his feelings and sentiments, excited by the questions discussed. Wendell Phillips followed a similar method.

Thomas Paine, the political and deistical writer, was under contract to furnish a certain amount of matter for each number of the ”Pennsylvania Magazine.” Aitken the publisher had great difficulty in getting him to fulfil his agreement. Paine's indolence was such that he was always behindhand with his engagements. Finally, after it had become too late to delay longer, Aitken would go to his house, tell him the printers were standing idle waiting for his copy, and insist upon his accompanying him to the office. Paine would do so, when pen, ink, and paper would be placed before him, and he would sit thoughtfully, but produce nothing until Aitken gave him a large gla.s.s of brandy. Even then he would delay. The publisher naturally feared to give him a second gla.s.s, thinking that it would disqualify him altogether, but, on the contrary, his brain seemed to be illumined by it, and when he had swallowed the third gla.s.s,--quite enough to have made Mr. Aitken dead drunk,--he would write with rapidity, intelligence, and precision, his ideas appearing to flow faster than he could express them on paper. The copy produced under the fierce stimulant was remarkable for correctness, and fit for the press without revision.[57]

Charlotte Bronte was a very slow producer of literary work, and was obliged to choose her special days. Often for a week, and sometimes longer, she could not write at all; her brain seemed to be dormant.

Then, without any premonition or apparent inducing cause, she would awake in the morning, go to her writing-desk, and the ideas would come with more rapidity than she could pen them. Mrs. Gaskell the novelist, a friend of the Brontes, was exactly the opposite in her style of composition. She could sit down at any hour and lose herself in the process of the story she was composing. She was also a prolific auth.o.r.ess, of whom George Sand said: ”She has done what neither I nor other female writers in France can accomplish; she has written novels which excite the deepest interest in men of the world, and which every girl will be the better for reading.” Bacon[58] often had music played in the room adjoining his library, saying that he gathered inspiration from its strains. Warburton said music was always a necessity to him when engaged in intellectual labor. Curran, the great Irish barrister, had also his favorite mode of meditation; it was with his violin in hand. He would seem to forget himself, running voluntaries over the strings, while his imagination, collecting its tones, was kindling and invigorating all his faculties for the coming contest at the bar. Bishop Beveridge adopted Bacon's plan, and said, ”When music sounds sweetest in my ears, truth commonly flows the clearest in my mind.” Even the cold, pa.s.sionless Carlyle said music was to him a kind of inarticulate speech which led him to the edge of the infinite, and permitted him for a moment to gaze into it.

John Foster, the English essayist, declared that the special quality of genius was ”the power to light its own fire;” and certainly Sir Walter Scott was a s.h.i.+ning example of this truth. Sh.e.l.ley, a poet of finer but less robust fibre, decided that ”the mind, in creating, is as a fading coal, which some pa.s.sing influence, like an invisible wind, wakens into momentary brightness.”

As already remarked, ten years transpired between the first sketch of the ”Traveller,” which was made in Switzerland, and its publication; but the history of the ”Vicar of Wakefield” was quite different. Goldsmith hastened the closing pages to raise money, being terribly pressed for the payment of numerous small bills, and also by his landlady for rent.

He was actually under arrest for this last debt, and sent to Dr. Johnson to come to him at once. Understanding very well what was the trouble, Johnson sent him a guinea, and came in person as soon as he could. He found, on arriving, that Goldsmith had already broken the guinea and was drinking a bottle of wine purchased therewith. The Doctor put the cork into the bottle, and began to talk over the means of extricating the impecunious author from his troubles. Goldsmith told Johnson that he had just finished a small book, and wished he would look at it; perhaps it would bring in some money. He brought forth the ma.n.u.script of the ”Vicar of Wakefield.” Johnson hastily glanced over it, paused, read a chapter carefully, bade Goldsmith to be of good cheer, and hastened away with the new story to Newbury the publisher, who, solely on Johnson's recommendation, gave him sixty pounds for the ma.n.u.script and threw it into his desk, where it remained undisturbed for two years.[59]

A voluminous writer once explained to Goldsmith the advantage of employing an amanuensis. ”How do you manage it?” asked Goldsmith. ”Why, I walk about the room and dictate to a clever man, who puts down very correctly all that I tell him, so that I have nothing to do but to look it over and send it to the printers.” Goldsmith was delighted with the idea, and asked his friend to send the scribe to him. The next day the penman came with his implements, ready to catch his new employer's words and to record them. Goldsmith paced the room with great thoughtfulness, just as his friend had described to him, back and forth, back and forth, several times; but after racking his brain to no purpose for half an hour, he gave it up. He handed the scribe a guinea, saying, ”It won't do, my friend; I find that my head and hand must work together.”

Milton dictated that immortal poem, ”Paradise Lost,” his daughters being his amanuenses; but Milton was then blind. It is said of Julius Caesar that while writing a despatch he could at the same time dictate seven letters to as many clerks. This seems almost miraculous; but in our own day Paul Morphy has performed quite as difficult a feat at chess, playing several games at once, blindfolded.

One of the most eminent and eloquent of American preachers and lecturers, Thomas Starr King, was accustomed to dictate to an amanuensis; but when a difficulty would occur in developing his thought, he would take the pen in his own hand, and, abstracting himself entirely from the wondering reporter by his side, would spend perhaps half an hour in deeper thinking and more exact expression than when he dictated.

Those who have examined his ma.n.u.script since his death easily perceive that the portions of a sermon or a lecture which he personally wrote are better than those which he poured forth to his amanuensis as he walked the room. On one occasion a friend who was in favor of making the pen and brain work together went to hear Mr. King deliver a lecture on Pope Gregory VII. (Hildebrand), and at its conclusion told the lecturer that he could distinguish, without seeing the ma.n.u.script, the portions he wrote with his own hand from those he dictated. He succeeded so well, in the course of half an hour's conversation, as to surprise the orator by hitting on the pa.s.sages in dispute, and proving his case.

To write an acceptable book, poem, or essay, is quite as much of a trade as to make a clock or shoe a horse. To produce easy-flowing sentences, as they finally appear before the reader's eye, has cost much careful thought, long and patient practice, and even with some famous authors, as we have seen, many hours of writing and re-writing. So far as it is applied to authors.h.i.+p, we are not surprised at Hogarth's remark: ”I know no such thing as genius; genius is nothing but labor and diligence.”

Buffon's definition is nearly the same; he says, ”Genius is only great patience.” Authors are generally very commonplace representatives of humanity, and remarkably like the average citizen whom we meet in our daily walk. Rogers, in his ”Table Talk,” says: ”When literature is the sole business of life, it becomes a drudgery; when we are able to resort to it only at certain hours, it is a charming relaxation. In my early years I was a banker's clerk, obliged to be at the desk every day from ten to five o'clock, and I shall never forget the delight with which, on returning home, I used to read and write during the evening.” He was a great reader, but said that ”a man who attempts to read all the new publications must often do as a flea does--skip.”[60]