Part 3 (2/2)

Hume,[76] the historian, was never done with his manifold corrections; his sense of responsibility was unlimited, and his appreciation of his calling was grand. Fenelon and Gibbon were absolutely correct in their first efforts; and so was Adam Smith, though he dictated to an amanuensis.

We are by no means without sympathy for those writers who dread and avoid the reperusal and correction of their ma.n.u.scripts. Only those who are familiar with the detail of book-making can possibly realize its trying minutiae. When one has finished the composition and writing of a chapter, his work is only begun; it must be read and re-read with care, to be sure of absolute correctness. When once in type, it must be again carefully read for the correction of printer's errors, and again revised by second proof; and finally a third proof is necessary, to make sure that all errors previously marked have been corrected. By this time, however satisfactory in composition, the text becomes ”more tedious than a twice-told tale.” Any author must be singularly conceited who can, after such experience, take up a chapter or book of his own production and read it with any great degree of satisfaction. G.o.deau, Bishop of Venice, used to say that ”to compose is an author's heaven; to correct, an author's purgatory; but to revise the press, an author's h.e.l.l!”

Guido Reni, whose superb paintings are among the gems of the Vatican, in the height of his fame would not touch pencil or brush except in full dress. He ruined himself by gambling and dissolute habits, and became lost as to all ambition for that art which had been so grand a mistress to him in the beginning. He finally arrived at that stage where he lost at the gaming-table and in riotous living what he earned by contract under one who managed his affairs, giving him a stipulated sum for just so much daily work in his studio. Such was the famous author of that splendid example of art, the ”Martyrdom of Saint Peter,” in the Vatican.

Parmigiano, the eminent painter, was full of the wildness of genius. He became mad after the philosopher's stone, jilting art as a mistress, though his eager creditors forced him to set once more to work, though to little effect.

Great painters, like great writers, have had their peculiar modes of producing their effects. Thus Domenichino was accustomed to a.s.sume and enact before the canvas the pa.s.sion and character he intended to depict with the brush. While engaged upon the ”Martyrdom of Saint Andrew,”

Caracci, a brother painter, came into his studio and found him in a violent pa.s.sion. When this fit of abstraction had pa.s.sed, Caracci embraced him, admitting that Domenichino had proved himself his master, and that he had learned from him the true manner of expressing sentiment or pa.s.sion upon the canvas.

Richard Wilson, the eminent English landscape-painter, strove in vain, he said, to paint the motes dancing in the suns.h.i.+ne. A friend coming into his studio found the artist sitting dejected on the floor, looking at his last work. The new-comer examined the canvas and remarked critically that it looked like a broad landscape just after a shower.

Wilson started to his feet in delight, saying, ”That is the effect I intended to represent, but thought I had failed.” Poor Wilson possessed undoubted genius, but neglected his art for brandy, and was himself neglected in turn. He was one of the original members of the Royal Academy.

Undoubtedly, genius is at times nonplussed and at fault, like plain humanity, and is helped out of a temporary dilemma by accident,--as when Poussin the painter, having lost all patience in his fruitless attempts to produce a certain result with the brush, impatiently dashed his sponge against the canvas and brought out thereby the precise effect desired; namely, the foam on a horse's mouth.

Was.h.i.+ngton Allston[77] is recalled to us in this connection, one of the most eminent of our American painters, and a poet of no ordinary pretensions. ”The Sylphs of the Seasons and other Poems” was published in 1813. He was remarkable for his graphic and animated conversational powers, and was the warm personal friend of Coleridge and Was.h.i.+ngton Irving. Irving says, ”His memory I hold in reverence and affection as one of the purest, n.o.blest, and most intellectual beings that ever honored me with his friends.h.i.+p.” While living in London he was elected a.s.sociate of the Royal Academy. Bostonians are familiar with Allston's half-finished picture of ”Belshazzar's Feast,” upon which he was engaged when death s.n.a.t.c.hed him from his work.

CHAPTER IV.

It has been said that the first three men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; while all political economists admit that the real wealth and stamina of a nation must be looked for among the cultivators of the soil. Was it not Swift who declared that the man who could make two ears of corn or two blades of gra.s.s grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, deserved better of mankind than the whole race of politicians? Bacon, Cowley, Sir William Temple, Buffon, and Addison were all attached to horticulture, and more or less time was devoted by them to the cultivation of trees and plants of various sorts; nor did they fail to record the refined delight and the profit they derived therefrom. Daniel Webster was an enthusiastic agriculturist; so were Was.h.i.+ngton, Adams, Jefferson, Walter Scott, Horace Greeley, Gladstone, Evarts,[78] Wilder, Loring, Poore, and a host of other contemporaneous and noted men. ”They who labor in the earth,” said Jefferson, ”are the chosen people of G.o.d.”

But the habits and mode of composition adopted by literary men still crowd upon the memory. Hobbes, the famous English philosopher, author of a ”Treatise on Human Nature,” a political work ent.i.tled the ”Leviathan,”

etc., was accustomed to compose in the open air. The top of his walking-stick was supplied with pen and inkhorn, and he would pause anywhere to record his thoughts in the note-book always carried in his pocket. Virgil rose early in the morning and wrote at a furious rate innumerable verses, which he afterwards pruned and altered and polished, as he said, after the manner of a bear licking her cubs into shape. The Earl of Roscommon, in his ”Essay on Translated Verse,” declared this to be the duty of the poet,--

”To write with fury and correct with phlegm.”

Dr. Darwin, the ingenious English poet, wrote his works, like some others of whom we have spoken, on sc.r.a.ps of paper with a pencil while travelling. His old-fas.h.i.+oned sulky was so full of books as to give barely room for him to sit and to carry a well-stored hamper of fruits and sweetmeats, of which he was immoderately fond.

Rousseau tells us that he composed in bed at night, or else out of doors while walking, carefully recording his ideas in his brain, arranging and turning them many times until they satisfied him, and then he committed them to paper perfected. He said it was in vain for him to attempt to compose at a table surrounded by books and all the usual accessories of an author. Irving wrote most of the ”Stout Gentleman” mounted on a stile at Stratford-on-Avon, while his friend Leslie, the painter, was engaged in taking sketches of the interesting locality. Jane Taylor, the English poetess and prose writer, began to produce creditable work at a very early age, and used at first to compose tales and dramas while whipping a top, committing them to paper at the close of that somewhat trivial exercise. As she grew older she said that she could find mental inspiration only from outdoor exercise.

Petavius, the learned Jesuit, when composing his ”Theologica Dogmata”

and other works, would leave his table and pen at the end of every other hour to twirl his chair, first with one hand, then with the other, for ten minutes, by way of exercise. Cardinal Richelieu resorted to jumping in his garden, and in bad weather leaped over the chairs and tables indoors,--an exercise which seemed to have a special charm for him.

Samuel Clark, the English philosopher and mathematician, adopted Richelieu's plan of exercise when tired of continuous writing. Pope says, with regard to exercise, ”I, like a poor squirrel, am continually in motion, indeed, but it is only a cage of three feet: my little excursions are like those of a shopkeeper, who walks every day a mile or two before his own door, but minds his business all the while.”

We are told that Douglas Jerrold, when engaged in preparing literary matter, used to walk back and forth before his desk, talking wildly to himself, occasionally stopping to note down his thoughts. Sometimes he would burst forth in boisterous laughter when he hit upon a droll idea.

He was always extremely restless, would pa.s.s out of the house into the garden and stroll about, carelessly picking leaves from the trees and chewing them; then suddenly hastening back to his desk, he recorded any thoughts or sentences which had formed themselves in his mind. Jerrold wrote so fine a hand, forming his letters so minutely, that his ma.n.u.script was hardly legible to those not accustomed to it. He was very fastidious about his writing-desk, permitting nothing upon it except pen, ink, and paper. Like most persons who habitually resort to stimulants, he could not be content with a single gla.s.s of spirits or wine, but consumed many, until he was only too often unfitted for mental labor. Jerrold's wit was of a coa.r.s.er texture than that of Sheridan, but, unlike his, it came with spontaneous force; it was always ready, though it had not the polish which premeditation is able to impart.

Oftentimes his wit was severely sarcastic, but as a rule it was only genial and mirth-provoking.

It was asked in Jerrold's club, on a certain occasion, what was the best definition of dogmatism. ”There is but one,” he instantly replied,--”the maturity of puppyism.” A member remarked one day that the business of a mutual acquaintance was going to the devil. ”All right,” said Jerrold; ”then he's sure to get it back again.” Another member who was not very popular with the club, hearing a certain melody spoken of, said, ”That always carries me away when I hear it.” ”Cannot some one whistle it?”

asked Jerrold. Another member, who was rather given to boasting, said: ”Very singular! I dined at the Marchioness of So-and-so's last week, and we actually had no fish.” ”Easily explained,” said Jerrold; ”no doubt they had eaten it all upstairs.” When Heraud, a somewhat bombastic versifier, asked him if he had read his ”Descent into h.e.l.l,” Jerrold instantly replied, ”No; I had rather see it.” Being asked what was the idea of Harriet Martineau's rather atheistical book, he answered that it was plain enough,--”There is no G.o.d, and Harriet is his Prophet.” This is even better than the remark of another wit who, when asked what was the outcome of a meeting before which three of the ablest and most dogmatic Positivists in England made speeches, replied that the result arrived at was this: that there were three persons and no G.o.d. Jerrold could not confine himself to any regular system of work, but drove the quill at such times and only to such purpose as his erratic mood indicated, jumping from one subject to another like one crossing a brook upon stepping-stones. This, however, was a habit by no means peculiar to Douglas Jerrold. There are some ludicrous stories told of him; like that of his being pursued by a printer's boy about the town, from house to club, from club to the theatre, and so on, and finally of his being overtaken, getting into a corner and writing an admirable article with pencil and paper on the top of his hat.

Aga.s.siz,[79] the great Swiss naturalist, who became an adopted and honored son of this country, was singularly unmethodical in his habits of professional labor. If he was suddenly seized with an interest in some scientific inquiry, he would pursue it at once, putting by all present work, though it might be that he had just got fairly started in another direction. ”I always like to take advantage,” he would say, ”of my productive moods.” The rule that we must finish one thing before we begin another, had no force with him. An individual connected with the lyceum of a neighboring city called upon Aga.s.siz to induce him to lecture on a certain occasion, but was courteously informed by the scientist that he could not comply with the request. ”It will be a great disappointment to our citizens,” suggested the caller. ”I am sorry for that,” replied Aga.s.siz. ”We will cheerfully give you double the usual price,” added the agent, ”if you will accommodate us.” ”Ah, my dear sir,” replied the scientist, with that earnest but genial expression so natural to his manly features, ”I cannot afford to waste time in making money.”

A very similar habit of composition or study possessed Goldsmith, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Pope, and some others of the poets, who not infrequently laid by a half-constructed composition for two or three years, then finally took up the neglected theme, finished and published it. This unmethodical style of doing things is but one of the many eccentricities of genius. Scott said he never knew a man of much ability who could be perfectly regular in his habits, while he had known many a blockhead who could. Southey and Coleridge were at complete antipodes in regard to regularity of habits and punctuality: the former did everything by rule, the latter nothing. Charles Lamb said of Coleridge, ”He left forty thousand treatises on metaphysics and divinity, not one of them complete.” Neither Aga.s.siz, Coleridge, nor any of similar irregularity in work, is to be imitated in those respects. Had it not been for Aga.s.siz's far-seeing and vigorous powers,--in short, for his great genius, he could never have accomplished his remarkable mission.

The deduction which we naturally draw is, that method is a good servant but a bad master. If genius were to be trammelled by system and order, it would suffocate. Perhaps Montaigne was nearly right when he thought that individuals ought sometimes to cross the line of fixed rules, in order to awaken their vigor and keep them from growing musty.

Coleridge was much addicted to the habit of marginal writing; which, though sadly wasteful on his own part, was very enriching to those friends who loaned him from their libraries.[80] Charles Lamb, who was not inclined to spare book-borrowers as a tribe, had no reflections to cast upon Coleridge for this habit. The depth, weight, and originality of his comments as hastily and carelessly penned on the margins of books were wonderful, and if collected and cla.s.sified would form several volumes, not only of captivating interest, but of rare critical value, as the few which have been brought together abundantly prove. In one volume which he returned to Lamb is this memorandum: ”I shall die soon, my dear Charles Lamb, and then you will not be vexed that I have be-scribbled your book. S. T. C., May 2d, 1811.” ”Elia” valued these marginal notes beyond price, and said that to lose a volume to Coleridge carried some sense and meaning with it. These critical notes often nearly equalled in quant.i.ty of matter the original text. In his article upon the subject, Lamb says, ”I counsel thee, shut not thy heart nor thy library against S. T. C.” As we have already said, while this erratic expenditure of Coleridge's rare literary taste and judgment enriched others, it in a degree impoverished himself; for had the same time and thought been expended upon consecutive literary work, it would have produced volumes of inestimable value to the world at large, and have proved monumental to their author.

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