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diff --git a/32328-8.txt b/32328-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..353715d --- /dev/null +++ b/32328-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4319 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Methods of Authors, by Hugo Erichsen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Methods of Authors + +Author: Hugo Erichsen + +Release Date: May 11, 2010 [EBook #32328] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK METHODS OF AUTHORS *** + + + + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + +METHODS OF AUTHORS + +ERICHSEN + +WP Co + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1894, + BY WILLIAM H. HILLS. + + _All Rights Reserved._ + + + + + _To + + R. E. FRANCILLON, + + who is admired and loved by novel-readers on + both sides of the Atlantic, + + THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED, + + by his permission, with sincere regard, by + the Author._ + + + + +PREFACE. + + +When I began to gather the material for this volume I was quite doubtful +as to whether the public would be interested in a work of this kind or +not. As my labor progressed, however, it became evident that not only +the body of the people, but authors themselves, were deeply interested +in the subject, and would welcome a book treating of it. Not only M. +Jules Claretie, the celebrated Parisian literarian, but the late Dr. +Meissner and many others assured me of this fact. + +Nor is this very surprising. Who, after reading a brilliant novel, or +some excellent treatise, would not like to know how it was written? + +So far as I know, this volume is a novelty, and Ben Akiba is outwitted +for once. Books about authors have been published by the thousands, but +to my knowledge, up to date, none have been issued describing their +methods of work. + +In the preparation of this book I have been greatly aided by the works +of Rev. Francis Jacox, an anonymous article in _All the Year Round_, and +R. E. Francillon's essay on "The Physiology of Authorship," which +appeared first in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. + +I was also assisted in my labor by numerous newspaper clippings and many +letters from writers, whose names appear in this volume, and to all of +whom I return my sincere thanks. + + H. E. + DETROIT, Mich. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + I. Eccentricities in Composition. + + II. Care in Literary Production. + + III. Speed in Writing. + + IV. Influence upon Writers of Time and Place. + + V. Writing under Difficulties. + + VI. Aids to Inspiration--Favorite Habits of Work. + + VII. Goethe, Dickens, Schiller, and Scott. + + VIII. Burning Midnight Oil. + + IX. Literary Partnership. + + X. Anonymity in Authorship. + + XI. System in Novel Writing. + + XII. Traits of Musical Composers. + + XIII. The Hygiene of Writing. + + XIV. A Humorist's Regimen. + + + + +METHODS OF AUTHORS. + + +I. + +Eccentricities in Composition. + + +The public--that is, the reading world made up of those who love the +products of authorship--always takes an interest in the methods of work +adopted by literary men, and is fond of gaining information about +authorship in the act, and of getting a glimpse of its favorite, the +author, at work in that "sanctum sanctorum"--the study. The modes in +which men write are so various that it would take at least a dozen +volumes to relate them, were they all known, for:-- + + "Some wits are only in the mind + When beaux and belles are 'round them prating; + Some, when they dress for dinner, find + Their muse and valet both in waiting; + And manage, at the self-same time, + To adjust a neckcloth and a rhyme. + + "Some bards there are who cannot scribble + Without a glove to tear or nibble; + Or a small twig to whisk about-- + As if the hidden founts of fancy, + Like wells of old, were thus found out + By mystic tricks of rhabdomancy. + + "Such was the little feathery wand, + That, held forever in the hand + Of her who won and wore the crown + Of female genius in this age, + Seemed the conductor that drew down + Those words of lightning to her page." + +This refers to Madame de Staël, who, when writing, wielded a "little +feathery wand," made of paper, shaped like a fan or feather, in the +manner and to the effect above described. + +Well may the vivacious penman of "Rhymes on the Road" exclaim:-- + + "What various attitudes, and ways, + And tricks we authors have in writing! + While some write sitting, some, like Bayes, + Usually stand while they're inditing. + Poets there are who wear the floor out, + Measuring a line at every stride; + While some, like Henry Stephens, pour out + Rhymes by the dozen while they ride. + Herodotus wrote most in bed; + And Richerand, a French physician, + Declares the clockwork of the head + Goes best in that reclined position. + If you consult Montaigne and Pliny on + The subject, 'tis their joint opinion + That thought its richest harvest yields + Abroad, among the woods and fields." + +M. de Valois alleges that Plato produced, like Herodotus, "his glorious +visions all in bed"; while + + "'Twas in his carriage the sublime + Sir Richard Blackmore used to rhyme." + +But little is known of the habits of the earliest writers. The great +Plato, whose thoughts seemed to come so easy, we are told, toiled over +his manuscripts, working with slow and tiresome elaboration. The opening +sentence of "The Republic" on the author's tablets was found to be +written in thirteen different versions. When death called him from his +labor the great philosopher was busy at his desk, "combing, and curling, +and weaving, and unweaving his writings after a variety of fashions." +Virgil was wont to pour forth a quantity of verses in the morning, which +he decreased to a very small number by incessant correction and +elimination. He subjected the products of his composition to a process +of continual polishing and filing, much after the manner, as he said +himself, of a bear licking her cubs into shape. Cicero's chief pleasure +was literary work. He declared that he would willingly forego all the +wealth and glory of the world to spend his time in meditation or study. + +The diversity in the methods adopted by authors is as great as the +difference in their choice of subjects. A story is often cited in +illustration of the different characteristics of three great +nationalities which equally illustrates the different paths which may be +followed in any intellectual undertaking. + +An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a German, competing for a prize offered +for the best essay on the natural history of the camel, adopted each his +own method of research upon the subject. The German, providing himself +with a stock of tobacco, sought the quiet solitude of his study in order +to evolve from the depths of his philosophic consciousness the primitive +notion of a camel. The Frenchman repaired to the nearest library, and +overhauled its contents in order to collect all that other men had +written upon the subject. The Englishman packed his carpet-bag and set +sail for the East, that he might study the habits of the animal in its +original haunts. + +The combination of these three methods is the perfection of study; but +the Frenchman's method is not unknown even among Americans. Nor does it +deserve the condemnation it usually receives. The man who peruses a +hundred books on a subject for the purpose of writing one bestows a real +benefit upon society, in case he does his work well. But some excellent +work has been composed without the necessity either of research or +original investigation. Anthony Trollope described his famous +archdeacon without ever having met a live archdeacon. He never lived in +any cathedral city except London; Archdeacon Grantly was the child of +"moral consciousness" alone; Trollope had no knowledge, except +indirectly, about bishops and deans. In fact, "The Warden" was not +intended originally to be a novel of clerical life, but a novel which +should work out a dramatic situation--that of a trustworthy, amiable man +who was the holder, by no fault of his own, of an endowment which was in +itself an abuse, and on whose devoted head should fall the thunders of +those who assailed the abuse. + +Bryan Waller Proctor, the poet (who, I believe, is better known under +the name of "Barry Cornwall"), had never viewed the ocean when he +committed to paper that beautiful poem, "The Sea." Many of his finest +lyrics and songs were composed mentally while he was riding daily to +London in an omnibus. Schiller had never been in Switzerland, and had +only heard and read about the country, when he wrote his "William Tell." +Harrison Ainsworth, the Lancashire novelist, when he composed "Rookwood" +and "Jack Sheppard," depended entirely on his ability to read up and on +his facility of assimilation, for during his lifetime he never came in +personal contact with thieves at all. It is said that when he wrote the +really admirable ride of Turpin to York he only went at a great pace +over the paper, with a road-map and description of the country in front +of him. It was only when he heard all the world say how faithfully the +region was pictured, and how truly he had observed distances and +localities, that he actually drove over the ground for the first time, +and declared that it was more like his account than he could have +imagined. + +Erasmus composed on horseback, as he pricked across the country, and +committed his thoughts to paper as soon as he reached his next inn. In +this way he composed his "Encomium Moriæ," or "Praise of Folly," in a +journey from Italy to the land of the man to whose name that title bore +punning and complimentary reference, his sterling friend and ally, Sir +Thomas More. + +Aubrey relates how Hobbes composed his "Leviathan": "He walked much and +mused as he walked; and he had in the head of his cane a pen and +inkhorn, and he carried always a note-book in his pocket, and 'as soon +as the thought darted,' he presently entered it into his book, or +otherwise might have lost it. He had drawn the design of the book into +chapters, etc., and he knew whereabouts it would come in." Hartley +Coleridge somewhere expresses his entire conviction that it was Pope's +general practice to set down in a book every line, half-line, or lucky +phrase that occurred to him, and either to find or make a place for +them when and where he could. Richard Savage noted down a whole tragedy +on scraps of paper at the counters of shops, into which he entered and +asked for pen and ink as if to make a memorandum. + +"A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket, and write down the +thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought are generally the most +valuable, and should be secured, because they seldom return." This was +the advice of Lord Bacon, whose example has been followed by many +eminent men. Miss Martineau has recorded that Barry Cornwall's favorite +method of composition was practised when alone in a crowd. He, like +Savage, also had a habit of running into a shop to write down his +verses. Tom Moore's custom was to compose as he walked. He had a table +in his garden, on which he wrote down his thoughts. When the weather was +bad, he paced up and down his small study. It is extremely desirable +that thoughts should be written as they rise in the mind, because, if +they are not recorded at the time, they may never return. "I attach so +much importance to the ideas which come during the night, or in the +morning," says Gaston Plante, the electrical engineer, "that I have +always, at the head of my bed, paper and pencil suspended by a string, +by the help of which I write every morning the ideas I have been able +to conceive, particularly upon subjects of scientific research. I write +these notes in obscurity, and decipher and develop them in the morning, +pen in hand." The philosopher Emerson took similar pains to catch a +fleeting thought, for, whenever he had a happy idea, he wrote it down, +and when Mrs. Emerson, startled in the night by some unusual sound, +cried, "What is the matter? Are you ill?" the philosopher softly +replied, "No, my dear; only an idea." + +George Bancroft, the historian, had a similar habit. His bedroom served +also as a library. The room was spacious, and its walls were lined, +above and below, with volumes. A single bed stood in the middle of the +apartment, and beside the bed were paper, pencil, two wax candles, and +matches; so that, like Mr. Pecksniff, Mr. Bancroft might not forget any +idea that came into his mind in a wakeful moment of the night. + +As curious a mode of composition as perhaps any on record, if the story +be credible, is that affirmed of Fuller--that he used to write the first +words of every line near the margin down to the foot of the paper, and +that then, beginning again, he filled up the blanks exactly, without +spaces, interlineations, or contractions, and that he would so connect +the ends and beginnings that the sense would appear as complete as if it +had been written in a continued series after the ordinary manner. + +Several distinguished American writers have the habit of jotting a +sentence, or a line or two here and there, upon a long page, and then +filling up the outline thus made with persistent revision. + +With some great writers, it has been customary to do a vast amount of +antecedent work before beginning their books. It is related of George +Eliot that she read one thousand books before she wrote "Daniel +Deronda." For two or three years before she composed a work, she read up +her subject in scores and scores of volumes. She was one of the masters, +so called, of all learning, talking with scholars and men of science on +terms of equality. George Eliot was a hard worker, and, like many gifted +writers, she was often tempted to burn at night the lines she had +written during the day. Carlyle was similarly tempted, and it is to be +regretted that the great growler, in many instances, did not carry out +the design. Carlyle spent fifteen years on his "Frederick the Great." +Alison perused two thousand books before he completed his celebrated +history. It is said of another that he read twenty thousand volumes and +wrote only two books. "For the statistics of the negro population of +South America alone," says Robert Dale Owen, "I examined more than 150 +volumes." David Livingstone said: "Those who have never carried a book +through the press can form no idea of the amount of toil it involves. +The process has increased my respect for authors a thousandfold. I think +I would rather cross the African continent again than to undertake to +write another book." + +Thackeray confessed that the title for his novel, "Vanity Fair," came to +him in the middle of the night, and that he jumped out of bed and ran +three times around the room, shouting the words. Thackeray had no +literary system. He wrote only when he felt like it. Sometimes he was +unable to write two lines in succession. Then, again, he could sit down +and write so rapidly that he would keep three sheets in the wind all the +time. While he was editor of the _Cornhill Magazine_ he never succeeded +in getting copy enough ahead for more than five issues. In this +negligence he fell far behind the magazine editors of the present time. +They always have bundles of copy on hand. + + + + +II. + +Care in Literary Production. + + +Indolence, that is to say, chronic fatigue, appears to be the natural +habit of imaginative brains. It is a commonplace to note that men of +fertile fancy, as a class, have been notorious for their horror of +formulating their ideas even by the toil of thought, much more by +passing them through the crucible of the ink-bottle. In many cases they +have needed the very active stimulant of hunger. The _cacoëthes +scribendi_ is a disease common, not to imaginative, but to imitative, +minds. Probably no hewer of wood or drawer of water undergoes a tithe of +the toil of those whose work is reputed play, but is, in fact, a battle, +every moment, between the flesh and the spirit. Campbell, who at the age +of sixty-one could drudge at an unimaginative work for fourteen hours a +day like a galley-slave, "and yet," as he says in one of his letters, +"be as cheerful as a child," speaks in a much less happy tone of the +work which alone was congenial to him: "The truth is, I am not writing +poetry, but projecting it, and that keeps me more idle and abstracted +than you can conceive. I pass hours thinking about what I am to compose. +The actual time employed in composition is but a fraction of the time +lost in setting about it." "At Glasgow," we read of him even when a +young man, "he seldom exercised his gift except when roused into action +either by the prospect of gaining a prize or by some striking incident." +Campbell, if not a great man, was a typical worker. + +A playwright, who had written five hundred lines in three days, taunted +Euripides because he had spent as much time upon five lines. "Yes," +replied the poet, "but your five hundred lines in three days will be +forgotten, while my five will live forever." + +It is said of one of Longfellow's poems that it was written in four +weeks, but that he spent six months in correcting and cutting it down. +Longfellow was a very careful writer. He wrote and rewrote, and laid his +work by and later revised it. He often consulted his friends about his +productions before they were given to the world. Thus he sent his work +out as perfect as great care and a brilliant intellect could make it. +The poet's pleasant surroundings must have acted as a stimulus upon his +mind. His library was a long room in the northeastern corner of the +lower floor in the so-called Craigie House, once the residence of +General Washington. It was walled with handsome bookcases, rich in +choice works. The poet's usual seat here was at a little high table by +the north window, looking upon the garden. Some of his work was done +while he was standing at this table, which reached then to his breast. + +Emerson wrote with great care, and would not only revise his manuscript +carefully, but frequently rewrite the article upon the proof-sheets. + +John Owen was twenty years on his "Commentary on the Epistle of the +Hebrews." + +The celebrated French critic, Sainte-Beuve, was accustomed to devote six +days to the preparation of a single one of his weekly articles. A large +portion of his time was passed in the retirement of his chamber, to +which, on such occasions, no one--with the exception of his favorite +servant--was allowed to enter under any circumstances whatever. Here he +wrote those critical papers which carried captive the heart of France, +and filled with wonder cultivated minds everywhere. + +The historian Gibbon, in speaking of the manner in which he wrote his +"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," said: "Many experiments were +made before I could hit the middle tone between a dull tone and a +rhetorical declamation. Three times did I compose the first chapter, and +twice the second and third, before I was tolerably satisfied with their +effect." Gibbon spent twenty years on his immortal book Lamb toiled +most laboriously over his essays. These papers, which long ago took +their place in the English classical language and which are replete with +the most delicate fancies, were composed with the most exacting nicety, +yet their author is regarded the world over as possessed of genius of a +high order. + +La Rochefoucauld was occupied for the space of fifteen years in +preparing for publication his little work called "Maximes," rewriting +many of them more than thirty times. + +Honoré de Balzac had just completed his teens when he arrived in Paris, +and till 1830, some nine years, he lived, not in a garret, but in the +apartment over that, called a _grenier_; his daily expenses amounted to +about half a franc--three sous for bread, three for milk, and the rest +for firewood and candles. He passed his days in the public library of +the Arsenal, devouring books. In the evening he transcribed his notes, +and during the nights he took his walks abroad, and so gained an insight +into the depths of human depravity. + +After his first novel, in 1830, he commenced earning money. Balzac, who +had the disease of creative genius in its most outrageous form, +"preached to us," says Théophile Gautier, "the strangest hygiene ever +propounded among laymen. If we desired to hand our names down to +posterity as authors, it was indispensable that we should immure +ourselves absolutely for two or three years; that we should drink +nothing but water, and eat only soaked beans, like Protogenes; that we +should go to bed at sunset and rise at midnight, to work hard till +morning; that we should spend the whole day in revising, amending, +extending, pruning, perfecting, and polishing our night's work, in +correcting proofs or taking notes, or in other necessary study." If the +author happened to be in love, he was to see the lady of his heart only +for one half-hour a year, but he might write to her, for the +cold-blooded reason that letter-writing improves the style. Not only did +Balzac preach this austere doctrine, but he practised it as nearly as he +could without ceasing altogether to be a man and a Frenchman. Léon +Gozlan's account of the daily life of the author of the "Comédie +Humaine" has often been quoted. On the average he worked eighteen hours +a day. He began his day with dinner at six in the afternoon, at which, +while he fed his friends generously, he himself ate little besides fruit +and drank nothing but water. At seven o'clock he wished his friends +good-night, and went to bed. At midnight he rose and worked--till +dinner-time next day: and so the world went round. George Sand calls +him, "Drunk on water, intemperate in work, and sober in all other +passions." Jules Janin asks, "Where has M. de Balzac gained his +knowledge of woman--he, the anchorite?" As it was, love and death came +to him hand-in-hand. He married a wealthy Polish lady in 1848. They +travelled over the battlefields of Europe, to collect notes for a work, +and then settled down in a luxurious mansion in the Champs Elysées. +Nothing was wanting in that palatial residence, for every fancy of +Balzac had been gratified. Three months after the house-warming Balzac +was dead. + +Balzac, after he had made a plan of a novel, and had, after the most +laborious research, gathered together the materials which he was to +embody in it, locked himself in his private apartment, shut out all the +light of day, and then, by the aid of his study lamp, he toiled day and +night. His servants, knowing so well his peculiar habits, brought him +food and drink. Finally, with his task completed, as he thought, he came +forth from his retirement looking more dead than alive. But invariably +his task was not altogether satisfactory to him, after all, for again he +would seek the seclusion of his chamber to rearrange and make more +perfect that which he had before supposed wholly complete. Then, too, +when his work was in the hands of the printer, he was as apt as not to +alter, in one way and another, the manuscript, until both printer and +publisher were on the verge of despair. He corrected up to as many as +twelve proofs, and many of his "corrections" consisted in rewriting +whole pages. What "copy" he must have produced during the twenty years +in which he brought out ninety-seven volumes! Like Voltaire, Balzac had +a passion for coffee, more to keep him awake than as a stimulant. That +beverage shortened his life, which ended by hypertrophy of the heart. +When he sat down to his desk, his servant, who regarded a man that +abstained even from tobacco as scarcely human, used to place coffee +within reach, and upon this he worked till his full brain would drive +his starved and almost sleepless body into such forgetfulness that he +often found himself at daybreak bareheaded, in dressing gown and +slippers, in the Place du Carrousel, not knowing how he came there, +miles away from home. Now, coffee acts upon some temperaments as +laudanum acts upon others, and many of the manners and customs of Balzac +were those of a confirmed opium-eater. He had the same strange +illusions, the same extravagant ideas, the same incapacity for +distinguishing with regard to outward things, between the possible and +the impossible, the false and the true. His midnight wanderings, his +facility in projecting himself into personalities utterly unlike his +own, belong to the experiences of the "English Opium-eater." + +Kinglake's beautiful "Eothen" was rewritten half a dozen times before it +was given to a publisher. + +Tennyson's song, "Come Into the Garden, Maud," was rewritten some fifty +times before it gave complete satisfaction to the author. + +Coming to the gifted Addison, whose diction is full of such grace and +simplicity, so much so as to create envy, yet admiration, in the mind of +every writer who has flourished since his day, we find that the great +author wrote with the most painful deliberation. It is narrated that the +press was stopped again and again, after a whole edition of the +_Spectator_ had been thrown off, in order that its author might make a +slight change in a sentence. + +Tom Moore, with all his wonderful brilliancy, considered it doing very +well if he wrote fifty lines of his "Lalla Rookh" in a week. + +Hawthorne was slow in composing. Sometimes he wrote only what amounted +to half a dozen pages a week, often only a few lines in the same space +of time, and, alas! he frequently went to his chamber and took up his +pen, only to find himself wholly unable to perform any literary work. + +The author of "Pleasures of Hope" was slow of thought, and consequently +his mode of composition was toilsome in the highest degree. He wrote +with extreme caution, weighing and shaping the effect of each +particular line before he permitted it to stand. + +Bret Harte, whose creations read as if they had come from his brain +without a flaw or hindrance, showing brilliancy of thought with the +grace of the artist, is still another writer who passes days and weeks +on a short story or poem before he is ready to deliver it into the hands +of the printer. So it was with Bryant. Though in reality the sum total +of his poetry might be included in a small volume, so few are his +lyrics, we cannot fail to be impressed with the truth of the statement +when we are told that even these few gems of verse cost our late +Wordsworth hard toil to bring into being, and endow with the splendor of +immortality. + +Bernardine de St. Pierre copied his sweet and beautiful "Paul and +Virginia" nine times to make it more perfect. + +Béranger _composait toutes ses chansons dans sa tête_. "Once made, I +committed them to writing in order to forget them," he said. He tells of +having dreamt for ten years of a song about the taxes that weigh down +the rural population. In vain he tapped his brain-pan,--nothing came of +it. But one night he awoke with the air and the refrain _tout trouvés_: + + "Jacques, lève-toi; + Voici venir l'huissier du roi"; + +and in a day or two the song was a made thing. + +The laborious pains bestowed by Alfieri on the process of composition +may seem at first sight hard to reconcile with his impulsive character. +If he approved his first sketch of a piece,--after laying it by for some +time, not approaching it again until his mind was free of the +subject,--he submitted it to what he called "development," _i. e._, +writing out in prose the indicated scenes, with all the force at his +command, but without stopping to analyze a thought or correct an +expression. "He then proceeded to versify at his leisure the prose he +had written, selecting with care the ideas he thought best, and +rejecting those which he deemed" unworthy of a place. Nor did he ever +yet regard this work as finished, but "incessantly polished it verse by +verse and made continual alterations," as might seem to him expedient. + +Hartley Coleridge so far resembled Alfieri that it was his custom to put +aside what he had written for some months, till the heat and excitement +of composition had effervesced, and then he thought it was in a fair +condition to criticise. But he seldom altered. "Strike the nail on the +anvil," was his advice; he never "kneaded or pounded" his thoughts, +which have been described as always coming out _cap-à-pie_, like a troop +in quick march. He used to brandish his pen in the act of composition, +now and then beating time with his foot, and breaking out into a shout +at any felicitous idea. + + + + +III. + +Speed in Writing. + + +Dr. Johnson was a very rapid writer. A modern critic says of him: "He +had but to dip his pen in ink, and there flowed out a current of thought +and language wide and voluminous as the Ganges in flood." Some of the +best papers in the _Rambler_ were written "_currente calamo_." Johnson +struck off his _Ramblers_ and _Idlers_ at a heat when the summons of the +press forbade his indolence to put off his work another moment: he did +not give himself even a minute to read over his papers before they went +to the printers. Often he sent a portion of the copy of an essay, and +wrote the remainder while the earlier part was printing. His "Life of +Savage" was dashed off at one sitting. Sir Joshua Reynolds was so +fascinated with this eloquent and touching narrative, that he could not +lay it down until he had finished it. Johnson would not have written +"Rasselas" except for the necessity of paying the costs of his mother's +funeral. He was an extremely indolent man, and yet he was a laborious +worker where the imagination was not concerned. After spending the +evening at the literary club in the society of Burke, Goldsmith, and +other friends, he returned home between midnight and sunrise, went to +bed, and was seldom seen before noon. Bennet Langton was so delighted +with the _Rambler_, that he went to London to be introduced to Johnson. +He called upon him about twelve o'clock, but the great doctor was not +yet visible. After waiting some time, the author of the _Rambler_ made +his appearance. The visitor expected to see a neatly dressed +philosopher, but, instead, a huge, uncouth figure rolled into the room +in a soiled morning-gown, with an ill-arranged wig, and stockings +falling over his shoes. + +The elder Dumas, in order to get any work done at all, had to forbid +himself, by an effort of will, to leave his desk before a certain number +of pages were written. Victor Hugo is said to have locked up his clothes +while writing "Notre-Dame," so that he might not escape from it till the +last word was written. In such cases the so-called "pleasures of +imagination" look singularly like the pains of stone-breaking. The +hardest part of the lot of genius, we suspect, has been not the +emotional troubles popularly--and with absurd exaggeration--ascribed to +it, but a disgust for labor during the activity of the fancy, and the +necessity for labor when it is most disgusting. + +Victor Hugo composed with wonderful rapidity. He wrote his "Cromwell" in +three months, and his "Notre Dame de Paris" in four months and a half. +But even these have been his longest periods of labor, and as he grew +older he wrote faster. "Marion Delorme" was finished in twenty-four +days, "Hernani" in twenty-six, and "Le Roi s'amuse" in twenty. Although +the poet wrote very quickly, he often corrected laboriously. He rarely +rewrote. Mme. Drouet, who was his literary secretary for thirty years, +copied all his manuscripts. Otherwise the printers would have found him +one of the most difficult authors to put into type. Mme. Drouet saved +them much worry, and himself or his publishers much expense in the way +of composition. She also assisted in the correction of the proofs. He +generally had several works in the stocks at the same time. Hugo +considered a change of subject a recreation. He would go from poetry to +fiction, from fiction to history, according to his mood. As a rule, he +rose at six o'clock in the morning, took a cold bath, then took a raw +egg and a cup of black coffee, and went to work. He never sat down to +write, but stood at a high desk, and refreshed himself by an occasional +turn across the room, and a sip of _eau sucrée_. He breakfasted at +eleven. One of his recreations was riding on the top of an omnibus, a +habit he contracted during a short visit to London, when he was advised +that "the knife-board" was a good place from which to see the street +life of the English metropolis. The "knife-board," indeed, was his +favorite point of observation, whence he gathered inspiration from the +passing crowds below. Many of his famous characters have been caught in +his mind's eye while taking a three-sou drive from the Arc de Triomphe +to the Bastile. + +It is on record that Bulwer wrote his romance of "Harold" in less than a +month, resting not at all by day, and scarcely at night. In a private +letter Lord Lytton says: "The novel of 'Harold' was written in rather +less than four weeks. I can personally attest this fact, as I was with +my father when he wrote it--on a visit to his friend, the late Mr. +Tennyson D'Eyncourt. D'Eyncourt was a great collector of Norman and +Anglo-Saxon chronicles, with which his library was well stored. The +notes of research for 'Harold' fill several thick commonplace books.... +While my father was writing 'Harold' I do not think he put down his pen +except for meals and half an hour's run before dinner 'round the +terrace. He was at work the greater part of every night, and again early +in the morning." + +It is an interesting fact in regard to Lord Tennyson's drama on the same +subject--with a dedication to the late Lord Lytton, in reconciliation of +an old literary feud with his father--that the first sketch of "Harold" +took the form of a drama, entitled "William the Norman." It was +probably not written for publication, as the writer's way of composing +many of his prose romances was to sketch them out first as dramas. + +The "Lady of Lyons" was written in ten days. It was by no means uncommon +with Bulwer to have two books in hand at once, and live alternate +periods with the beings of his creation, as if he were passing in +society from one company to another. Thus "Lucretia" and "The Caxtons," +"Kenelm Chillingly" and "The Parisians," were written simultaneously. +But despite his literary facility, Bulwer rewrote some of his briefer +productions as many as eight or nine times before their publication. +Another author tells us that he wrote paragraphs and whole pages of his +book as many as fifty times. + +Byron wrote the "Bride of Abydos" in a single night, and the quill pen +with which he performed this marvellous feat is still preserved in the +British Museum. + +Dryden wrote "Alexander's Feast" in two days. + +"The Merry Wives of Windsor" was composed in a fortnight. + +Beckford finished "Vathek" in two days and nights. + +Henry Ward Beecher's publishers have favored the world with an account +of his habits in composition. "He wrote," they tell us, "with +inconceivable rapidity, in a large, sprawling hand, lines wide apart, +and words so thinly scattered about that some of the pages remind one of +the famous description of a page of Napoleon's manuscript--a scratch, a +blot, and a splutter." This is, indeed, remarkable, but is far exceeded +by the performance in that line of a famous Chinese novelist, who wrote +with such fearful speed, that, throwing the finished sheets over his +head, they soon accumulated to a pile large enough to darken his +windows, and threaten him with suffocation. + +Horace, in one of his satires, makes fun of a contemporary poet, whose +chief claim to distinction was that he could compose two hundred verses +standing on one leg. Horace did not think much of the verses, and, we +suspect with good reason. + +There are all conceivable habits of composition, and they range from the +slow elaboration of John Foster to the race-horse speed of our doughty +Southern countryman, Henry A. Wise, whose prodigious gubernatorial +compositions are still remembered by a suffering world. Once, sitting by +James Parton, he observed, tersely, "The best writing distils from the +pen drop by drop." Sheridan once said to a friend who had a fatal +facility with his pen, "Your easy writing makes terribly hard reading." + +I would not, for the world, have the young men of the country believe +that in writing speed is all. One should not be ambitious to write or do +anything else any faster than he can do it well. It was Henry Wadsworth +Longfellow who once gave this excellent advice to a young author: +"Always write your best; remember, your best." + +Wilkie Collins' book, "Heart and Science," so mercilessly excited him +that he says he continued writing week after week without a day's +interval or rest. "Rest was impossible. I made a desperate effort; +rushed to the sea; went sailing and fishing, and was writing my book all +the time 'in my head,' as the children say. The one wise course to take +was to go back to my desk and empty my head, and then rest. My nerves +are too much shaken for travelling. An armchair and a cigar, and a +hundred and fiftieth reading of the glorious Walter Scott,--King, +Emperor, and President of Novelists,--there is the regimen that is doing +me good. All the other novel-writers I can read while I am at work +myself. If I only look at the 'Antiquary' or 'Old Mortality,' I am +crushed by the sense of my own littleness, and there is no work possible +for me on that day." + +Wilkie Collins made the skeleton of a novel and then proceeded to put +the flesh on it. He was the greatest plotter that ever lived. He created +no truly great characters, but his stories are full of thrilling +pitfalls, into which the reader lunges. + +Hugo Rosenthal-Bonin, the editor of _Ueber Land und Meer_ (one of the +most prominent of the illustrated journals of Germany), and the author +of many successful novels, writes for two hours immediately after +breakfast and dinner, and within this time regularly composes five +columns of reading matter, never rewriting a single line. While writing, +he has a piece of looking-glass lying beside him, the glittering of +which (so he says) stimulates and refreshes him; he also smokes cigars +during working hours, otherwise seldom. He works with ease and rapidity, +just as if he were speaking. Therefore, a novel of ten columns is +finished within two days, and a romance of one hundred columns is +completed in less than a month. He has never written more than one long +novel a year, his literary productiveness being limited by his duties as +editor. + +Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson ("H. H.") composed with great rapidity, writing +on large sheets of yellow post-office paper, eschewing pen and ink, and +insisting that a lead pencil alone could keep pace with the swiftness of +her thoughts. + +Emil Ritterhaus, the poet who "dwells by the castled Rhine," turns out +lyrical poems without any difficulty, and with wonderful rapidity. That +poem of his which was read at the consecration of the cathedral at +Cologne was composed in a few minutes, in the presence of his friend, +Ferdinand Hiller, not a line being changed afterward. When he is in the +proper mood, many a speech of his turns involuntarily into an +improvisation. Verses he pens in person, but he dictates all other +literary work. When at work, a good Havana cigar, a glass of first-class +wine, or a cup of strong coffee are agreeable to him. When dictating, he +is in the habit of lying on a sofa or walking slowly up and down the +room. The poet makes it a rule not to write unless disposed to. + +Gray found fault with Mason for fancying he should succeed best by +writing hastily in the first fervors of his imaginations, and, +therefore, never waiting for epithets if they did not occur at the time +readily, but leaving spaces for them, and putting them in afterward. +This enervated his poetry, said Gray, and he says the same thing of the +same method by whomsoever adopted, for nothing is done so well as at the +first concoction. One of Shelley's biographers came upon the poet in a +pine forest, writing verses on a guitar, and, picking up a fragment, saw +a "frightful scrawl," all smear, and smudge, and disorder--such a +dashed-off daub as conceited artists are apt to mistake for genius. +Shelley said: "When my brain gets heated with thought, it soon boils, +and throws off images and words faster than I can skim them off. In the +morning, when cooled down, out of that rude sketch, as you justly call +it, I shall attempt a drawing." + + + + +IV. + +Influence upon Writers of Time and Place. + + +Nathaniel Hawthorne made innumerable notes of every fleeting, quaint +fancy, strange anecdote, or eccentric person. These notes he afterward +worked into his stories. Julian Hawthorne, his son, states in the +_Century Magazine_: "The new husband and wife, Adam and Eve, as they +liked to call themselves, were almost as poor in money as their +prototypes, and in spite of their orchard and their vegetable garden, a +good deal less able to get on without occasional remittances. +Accordingly, the future author of the 'Scarlet Letter' was compelled to +alternate his hoeing and digging, his rambles over the hills and his +paddling on the river, with periods of application to pen and paper in +his study, where he would sit with locked doors, clad in a long and +ancient flowered dressing-gown, upon the lining of the left-hand skirt +of which he was in the habit of wiping his pen. His wife noticed this +habit, and said nothing about it; but one day, on bringing his pen to +the accustomed spot, Hawthorne found stitched on there a pretty +pen-wiper, in the shape of a butterfly with red and black wings, and +this butterfly was ever after renewed from time to time, as necessity +required. What was written in that little sunny-hued study, readers +know, but nobody, not even the author's wife, ever saw him in the act of +writing. He had to be alone." + +Burns usually composed while walking in the open air, influenced, +perhaps, Dr. Currie suggests, by habits formed in early life. Until he +was completely master of a tune, he never could write words for it; so +his way was to consider the poetic sentiment corresponding to his idea +of the musical expression; then choose his theme; begin one stanza; when +that was composed,--which was generally the most difficult part of the +task,--to walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in +nature around him, such as harmonized with the cogitations of his fancy, +humming occasionally the air, with the verses already framed. When he +felt his "muse beginning to jade," he retired to the solitary fireside +of his study, and there committed his thoughts to paper; swinging at +intervals on the hind leg of his elbow-chair, "by way," he says, "of +calling forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on." Sometimes, +and more than once too often, he composed, to use his own expression, +"by the leeside of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in +company, except the hautbois and the muse." + +Whether in town or country, Landor reflected and composed habitually +while walking, and, therefore, preferred at all times to walk alone. So +did Buckle. Wordsworth was accustomed to compose his verse in his +solitary walks, carry it in his memory, and get wife or daughter to +write it down on his return. He used to compose aloud while walking in +the fields and woods. Sometimes he would use a slate pencil and the +smooth side of a rock to jot down his lines. His excursions and peculiar +habits gave rise to some anxious beliefs among the ignorant peasantry. +Even his sanity was questioned. The peasantry of Rydal thought him "not +quite hissel," because he always walked alone, and was met at odd times +in odd places. Some poets have been in the habit of humming or repeating +their verses aloud as they composed them. Southey, for instance, boomed +his verses so as to be mistaken by Wilson, who was a keen sportsman, for +a bittern booming. If this is true, Southey's voice must not have been +very harmonious, for the bittern's cry is Shakespeare's "night-raven's +dismal voice." + +Douglas Jerrold worked at a desk without a speck upon it, using an +ink-stand in a marble shell clear of all litter, his little dog at his +feet. If a comedy was in progress, he would now and then walk rapidly up +and down the room, talking wildly to himself. "If it be _Punch_ copy, +you shall hear him laugh presently as he hits upon a droll bit." And +then, abruptly, the pen would be put down, and the author would pass +out into the garden, and pluck a hawthorn leaf, and go, nibbling it and +thinking, down the side walks; then "in again, and vehemently to work," +unrolling the thought that had come to him along little blue slips of +paper, in letters smaller than the type in which they were presently to +be set. + +Dr. Channing had the same habit of taking a turn in the garden, during +which he was a study for the calm concentration of his look, and the +deliberateness of his step: "Calmer, brighter, in a few moments he is +seated again at his table, and his rapidly flying pen shows how full is +the current of his thoughts." + +Jane Taylor, who commenced authorship as a very little girl indeed, and +who used at that early stage to compose tales and dramas while whipping +a top,--committing them to paper at the close of that exercise,--was in +the habit, her brother Isaac tells us, of rambling for half an hour +after breakfast, "to seek that pitch of excitement without which she +never took up the pen." + +Of Dickens we are told that "some quaint little bronze figures on his +desk were as much needed for the easy flow of his writing as blue ink or +quill pens." + +Emanuel Kant, the philosopher, lived the life of a student; in fact, his +life may be taken as the type of that of a scholar. Kant, like Balzac, +gave a daily dinner-party; but when his guests were gone he took a walk +in the country instead of seeking broken slumbers in a state of hunger. +He came home at twilight, and read from candle-light till bedtime at +ten. He arose punctually at five, and, over one cup of tea and part of a +pipe, laid out his plan of work for the day. At seven he lectured, and +wrote till dinner-time at about one. The regularity of his life was +automatic. He regulated his diet with the care of a physician. During +the blind-man's holiday between his walk and candle-light he sat down to +think in twilight fashion; and while thus engaged, he always placed +himself so that his eyes might fall on a certain old tower. This old +tower became so necessary to his thoughts that, when some poplar trees +grew up and hid it from his sight, he found himself unable to think at +all, until, at his earnest request, the trees were cropped and the tower +was brought into sight again. + +Kant's old tower recalls Buffon's incapability of thinking to good +purpose except in full dress, and with his hair in such elaborate order +that, by way of external stimulus to his brain, he had a hairdresser to +interrupt his work twice, or, when very busy, thrice a day. To Aubrey we +owe this account of Prynne's method of study: "He wore a long quilt cap, +which came two or three inches at least over his eyes, and served him +as an umbrella to defend his eyes from the light. About every three +hours his man was to bring him a roll and a pot of ale, to refocillate +his wasted spirits; so he studied and drank and munched some bread; and +this maintained him till night, and then he made a good supper." +Refocillation is a favorite resource--whatever the word may be--with +authors not a few. Addison, with his bottle of wine at each end of the +long gallery at Holland House,--and Schiller, with his flask of old +Rhenish and his coffee laced with old Cognac, at three in the +morning,--occur to the memory at once. Shelley attempted to ruin his +digestion by way of exciting the brain by continually munching bread +while composing. + +The venerable Leopold von Ranke, one of the most eminent historians of +the age, composed in the night as well as in the daytime, and even when +more than ninety years of age sometimes worked till midnight. He had two +secretaries. He was a late riser, as most night-workers are. After +getting up late, he worked with his first amanuensis from ten in the +morning until three in the afternoon. Thereupon, if the weather was +fine, he took a walk in the public promenades, always accompanied by a +servant. He dined at five P. M., and then dictated to his second +secretary from six in the evening until, occasionally, one or two +o'clock in the morning. He neither took stimulants nor smoked. He never +worked when disinclined; in fact, the disinclination to write was +foreign to his nature. He always felt like writing. + +J. T. Trowbridge, the author of "The Vagabonds," always prefers daytime +to night for literary work, but sometimes can compose verse only at +night. He always sets out with a tolerably distinct outline in his +mind--rarely on paper--of what he intends to write. But the filling in +he leaves to the suggestions of thought in the hour of composition, and +often gets on to currents which carry him into unexpected by-ways. He +seldom begins a story that he would not like to make twice as long as +his contract allows, so many incidents and combinations suggest +themselves as he goes on. He never works under the influence of +stimulants. Verse he never composes with a pen in his hand. It is seldom +that he can compose any that is in the least satisfactory to himself; +when he can, he walks in pleasant places, if the weather is favorable, +or lounges on rocks or banks, or in the woods; or he lies on a sofa in a +dimly-lighted room at night; or in bed, where he elaborates his lines, +which he retains in his memory, to be written down at the first +convenient season. He rarely puts pen to paper at night. When fairly +launched in a prose composition, he writes from two to four hours a day, +seldom five. The mere act of writing is a sad drudgery to him, and he +often has to force himself to begin. Then he usually forgets the +drudgery in the interest excited by the development of his thoughts. But +he never thinks it wise to continue writing when he cannot do so with +pleasure and ease. In his younger days he used to think he must do a +certain amount of work each day, whether he felt like it or not. But now +he is of the opinion that it might have been better for his readers and +himself if he had been governed more by his moods. + +Robert Hamerling, the Austrian novelist, loved to compose in bed in the +early hours of morning. He was an expert stenographer, and, therefore, +made use of stenography when committing his thoughts to paper, thereby +saving much time, which, of course, facilitated the mental labor. For +this reason, he could also correct and improve the manuscript, as well +as make additions to the same, with the least waste of time. He did not +require refreshments at work, and wrote with remarkable facility. The +duration of the time which he spent at the writing-desk depended upon +the state of his health and the temper of his mind. + +Frederick Friedrich, well known in Germany as a novelist, prefers the +evening for literary work, although he conceives the plots of his +stories in the course of the day. He asserts that the nerves are more +stimulated and that the imagination is more lively in the evening. His +novels are sent to the printer as they were written; he hardly ever +makes corrections. While at work Friedrich fills the air with cigar +smoke and drinks several glasses of Rhine-wine. He must be alone, and +the writing-table must be in the customary order; any new arrangement of +the things on the table makes the author feel uncomfortable, so much so +at times that it prevents him from writing. He is a facile writer, and +composes with great speed. He never writes unless inclined to, and is +governed by moods. Therefore, a week or two sometimes passes before he +pens a line, being in perfect health, but lacking the inclination to +perform intellectual work. He never devotes more than three hours a day +to literary labor, generally less than that, but spends almost all day +in thinking over the plots of his novels. He never begins a story until +it is elaborated in his mind, and never makes notes. When once engaged +in the composition of a novel, he keeps at it day after day until it is +finished. While writing his own he is unable to read the novels of +anybody else. + +Celia Thaxter evolves her graceful verses in the daytime. She sometimes +makes a skeleton of her work first, not always; and very often forces +herself to work in spite of disinclination. + +The Austrian poet, Rudolph Baumbach, is partial to daylight, and never +writes at night. He always makes an outline of his work before beginning +in good earnest. When meditating on his poems he walks up and down the +room, but gives the open air the preference. He likes much light; when +the sun does not shine his work does not progress favorably. In the +evening he lights up his room by a large number of candles. Literary +labor is pleasure to him when the weather is fine, but it is extremely +hard when clouds shut out the sunlight. The poet has no fixed rule as +regards working-hours; sometimes he exerts himself a great deal for +weeks, and then again he does not write at all for a long time. + +Otto von Leixner, German historian, poet, novelist, and essayist, +composes prose, which requires logical thinking, in the daytime, but +does poetical work, which taxes principally the imagination, in the +evening. He makes a skeleton of all critical and scientific +compositions, indeed of all essays, and then writes out the "copy" for +the press, seldom making alterations. But he files away at poems from +time to time until he thinks them fit for publication. He is a smoker, +but does not smoke when at work. Whether promenading the shady walks of +a wood or perambulating the dusty streets of the city, Leixner +constantly thinks about the works he has in hand. Literary work has no +difficulties for this author; he penned one of his poems, "The Vision," +consisting of five hundred and eighty lines, in three hours and a half +and sent it to the printer as it was originally written; and he composed +the novel "Adja," thirty-nine and one-half octavo pages in print, in +nine hours. But he often meditates over the topics which go to make up +his novels, etc., for years and years until he has considered them from +every standpoint. After composition he often locks up his manuscript in +his desk for half a year, until it is almost forgotten, when he takes it +from its place of concealment and examines it carefully to detect +possible errors. If at such an examination the work does not prove +satisfactory to him, he throws it into the stove. Being the editor of a +journal of fiction, he is often compelled to work whether he wants to or +not. From 1869 to 1870 he worked sixteen hours a day; from 1877 till +1882 about thirteen hours, even Sundays; at present he spends from ten +to eleven hours every day at the writing-table, unless kept from work by +visitors. He retains his health by taking a daily walk, rain or shine, +to which he devotes two hours. Leixner lives a very temperate life and +hardly ever imbibes stimulating drinks. + +The greatest of all Southern poets, Paul Hamilton Hayne, had no +particular time for composition, writing as often in the daytime as at +night. Whether he made an outline or skeleton of his work first, +depended upon the nature of the poem. When the piece was elaborate, he +outlined it, and subsequently filled up, much as a painter would do. The +poet used to smoke a great deal in composing, but was obliged to abandon +tobacco, having had attacks of hemorrhage. He used tea instead of coffee +sometimes, but took little even of that. Wine he did not use. Hayne +composed best when walking, or riding upon horseback, and as he was +seldom without a book in hand, wrote a great deal on the fly-leaves of +any volume he chanced to be consulting. He frequently had to force +himself to work when he did not have an inclination to do so. + + + + +V. + +Writing under Difficulties. + + +It is an exceptional mind that enables an author to write at his ease +amid interruptions and distractions, lets and hindrances, of a domestic +kind. Héloise gave this singular reason for her constant refusal to +become Abelard's wife--that no mind devoted to the meditations of +philosophy could endure the cries of children, the chatter of nurses, +and the babble and coming and going in and out of serving men and women. +Of Abelard himself, however, we are told that he had a rare power of +abstracting himself from all outward concerns; that no one knew better +how to be alone, though surrounded by others; and that, in fact, his +senses took no note of outward things. When Cumberland was composing any +work, he never shut himself up in his study, but always wrote in the +room where his family sat, and did not feel in the least disturbed by +the noise of his children at play beside him. The literary habits of +Lord Hailes, as Mr. Robert Chambers remarks, were hardly such as would +have been expected from his extreme nicety of diction: it was in no +secluded sanctum, or "den," that he composed, but by the "parlour +fireside," with wife and bairns within very present sight and sound. + +Cowper describes himself at Weston (1791) as working in a study exposed +to all manner of inroads, and in no way disconcerted by the coming and +going of servants, or other incidental and inevitable impediments. A +year or two later he writes from the same spot, "amidst a chaos of +interruptions," including Hayley spouting Greek, and Mrs. Unwin talking +sometimes to them, sometimes to herself. Francis Horner relates a visit +he and a friend paid to Jeremy Bentham at Ford Abbey, one spacious room +in which, a tapestried chamber, the utilitarian philosopher had utilized +for what he called his "scribbling shop"--two or three tables being set +out, covered with white napkins, on which were placed music desks with +manuscripts; and here the visitors were allowed to be "present at the +mysteries, for he went on as if we had not been with him." + +The fourth of Dr. Chalmers' Astronomical Discourses was penned in a +small pocket-book, in a strange apartment, where he was liable every +moment to interruption; for it was at the manse of Balmerino, +disappointed in not finding the minister at home, and having a couple of +hours to spare,--and in a drawing-room at the manse of Kilmany, with all +the excitement of meeting for the first time, after a year's absence, +many of his former friends and parishioners,--that he penned paragraph +after paragraph of a composition which, as his son-in-law and +biographer, Dr. Hanna, says, bears upon it so much the aspect of high +and continuous elaboration. + +His friend,--and sometimes associate in pastoral work,--Edward Irving, +on the other hand, could not write a sermon if any one was in the room +with him. Chalmers appears to have been specially endowed with that +faculty of concentrated attention which is commonly regarded as one of +the surest marks of the highest intellect, and which Alison so much +admired in Wellington--as, for instance, on the day when he lay at San +Christoval, in front of the French army, hourly expecting a battle, and +wrote out, in the field, a long and minute memorial on the establishment +of a bank at Lisbon on the principles of the English ones. + +We read of Ercilla, whose epic poem, the _Arancana_, has admirers out of +Spain, that he wrote it amidst the incessant toils and dangers of a +campaign against barbarians, without shelter, and with nothing to write +on but small scraps of waste paper, and often only leather; struggling +at once against enemies and surrounding circumstances. + +Louis de Cormantaigne, the distinguished French engineer, composed his +treatise on fortification from notes written in the trenches and on the +breaches, even under the fire of the enemy. + +Delambré was in Paris when it was taken by the allies in 1814, and is +said to have worked at his problems with perfect tranquility from eight +in the morning till midnight, in the continued hearing of the cannonade. +"Such self-possession for study under that tremendous attack, and such +absence of interest in the result of the great struggle, to say nothing +of indifference to personal danger," is what one of his biographers +confesses himself unable to understand. Small sympathy would the +philosopher have had with the temperament of such a man, say, as Thomas +Hood, who always wrote most at night, when all was quiet and the +children were asleep. "I have a room to myself," exclaims Hood, +triumphantly, in a letter describing a change of lodgings, "which will +be worth £20 a year to me,--for a little disconcerts my nerves." Mrs. +Hood brought up the children, we learn from one of them, in a sort of +Spartan style of education, on her husband's account, teaching them the +virtues of silence and low voices. + +Washington Irving was of a less morbid temperament, and his genial +nature could put up with obstacles and obstructions neither few nor +small; but even in his Diary we meet with such entries as this at +Bordeaux, in 1825: "Harassed by noises in the house, till I had to go +out in despair, and write in Mr. Guestier's library." It was upon the +Essay on American Scenery that he was then engaged. + +Unlike Maturin, who used to compose with a wafer pasted on his forehead, +which was the signal that if any of his family entered the sanctum they +must not speak to him, Scott allowed his children (like their mute +playmates, Camp and the greyhounds) free access to his study, never +considered their talk as any disturbance, let them come and go as +pleased their fancy, was always ready to answer their questions, and +when they, unconscious how he was engaged (writes the husband of one of +them), entreated him to lay down his pen and tell them a story, he would +take them on his knee, repeat a ballad or a legend, kiss them, and set +them down again to their marbles or ninepins, and resume his labor as if +refreshed by the interruption. There was nothing in that manly, sound, +robust constitution akin to the morbid irritability of Philip in the +poem:-- + + "When Philip wrote, he never seemed so well-- + Was startled even if a cinder fell, + And quickly worried." + +Biographers of Mistress Aphra Behn make it noteworthy of that too facile +penwoman that she could write away in company and maintain the while +her share in the talk. Madame Roland managed to get through her memoirs +with a semblance at least of unbroken serenity, though so often +interrupted in the composition of them by the cries of victims in the +adjoining cells, whom the executioners were dragging thence to the +guillotine. + +Madame de Staël, "even in her most inspired compositions," according to +Madame Necker de Saussure, "had pleasure in being interrupted by those +she loved." She was not, observed Lord Lytton, of the tribe of those who +labor to be inspired; who darken the room and lock the door, and entreat +you not to disturb them. Rather, she came of the same stock as George +Sand's Olympe, who "se mit à écrire sur un coin de la table, entre le +bouteille de bière et le sucrier, au bruit des verres et de la +conversation aussi tranquillement que si elle eût été dans la solitude. +Cette puissance de concentration était une de ses facultés les plus +remarquables." + +That Lord Castlereagh was able to write his despatches at the common +table in the common room of a country house is not unjustly among the +admiring reminiscences of a Septuagenarian (Countess Brownlow): "Once +only we found the talking and laughter were too much for his power of +abstraction, and then he went off into his own room, saying next morning +at breakfast, 'You fairly beat me last night; I was writing what I may +call the metaphysics of politics.'" + +Celebrated in the "Noctes Ambrosianæ" is the Glasgow poet, Sandy Rogers, +not less for his lyrics, one at least of which is pronounced by +Christopher North to be "equal to anything of the kind in Burns," than +for the fact that his verses--some of them, too, of a serious +character--were thought out amidst the bustle and turmoil of factory +labor, the din of the clanking steam-engine, and the deafening rattle of +machinery, while the work of committing them to paper was generally +performed amidst the squalling and clamor of children around the hearth, +now in the noise of fractious contention, and anon exuberant with fun +and frolic. + +Tannahill, too, composed while plying the shuttle,--humming over the +airs to which he meant to adapt new words; and, as the words occurred to +him, jotting them down at a rude desk which he had attached to his loom, +and which he could use without rising from his seat. But no more +noteworthy example of the pursuit of authorship under difficulties--the +difficulties of a narrow home--_res augusta domi_--is probably on +record, in its simple, homely way, than that of Jean Paul, as Döring +pictures him, sitting in a corner of the room in which the household +work was being carried on--he at his plain writing-desk, with few or no +books about him, but merely with a drawer or two containing excerpts and +manuscripts; the jingle and clatter that arose from the simultaneous +operations at stove and dresser no more seeming to disturb him than did +the cooing of the pigeons which fluttered to and fro in the chamber, at +their own sweet will. + +Dr. Johnson delved at his dictionary in a poor lodging-house in London, +with a cat purring near, and orange peel and tea at hand. + +Molière tested the comic power of his plays by reading them to an old +servant. + +Dr. William E. Channing used to perambulate the room while composing; +his printers report that he made many revisions of the proof of his +writings, so that before the words met the eyes of the public on the +printed page the sentences were finished with the most elaborate +minuteness. + +Bloomfield, the poet, relates of himself that nearly one-half of his +poem, "The Farmer's Boy," was composed without writing a word of it, +while he was at work, with other shoemakers, in a garret. + +Sharon Turner, author of the valuable "History of the Anglo-Saxons," who +received a pension of $1,500 from the British government for his +services to literature, wrote the third volume of "The Sacred History of +the World" upon paper that did not cost him a farthing. The copy +consisted of torn and angular fragments of letters and notes, of covers +of periodicals and shreds of curling papers, unctuous with pomatum and +bear's grease. + +Mrs. Lizzie W. Champney writes absolutely without method. Her stories, +she admits, have been penned in her nursery, with her baby in her lap, +and a sturdy little boy standing on the rails of her chair and +strangling her with his loving little arms. She works whenever and +wherever she can find the opportunity; but the children are always put +first. + +George Ticknor, the Bostonian, found William Hazlitt living in the very +house in which Milton dictated "Paradise Lost," and occupying the room +where the poet kept the organ on which he loved to play. It was an +enormous room, but furnished only with a table, three chairs, and an old +picture. The most interesting thing that the visitor from Boston saw, +except the occupant himself, was the white-washed walls. Hazlitt had +used them as a commonplace book, writing on them in pencil scraps of +brilliant thoughts, half-lines of poetry, and references. Hazlitt +usually wrote with the breakfast things on the table, and there they +remained until he went out, at four or five o'clock, to dinner. His pen +was more to him than a mechanical instrument; it was also the +intellectual wand by which he called up thoughts and opinions, and +clothed them in appropriate language. + +It was in a bookseller's back-shop, M. Nisard tells us, on a desk to +which was fastened a great Newfoundland dog (who, by-the-bye, one day +banged through the window of an upper room, desk and all, to join his +master in the street below), that Armand Carrel, one moment absorbed in +English memoirs and papers, another moment in caressing his four-footed +friend, conceived and wrote his "History of the Counter Revolution in +England." Mr. Walker, in this as in other respects "The Original," +adopted a mode of composition which, says he, "I apprehend to be very +different from what could be supposed, and from the usual mode. I write +in a bedroom at a hotel, sitting upon a cane chair, in the same dress I +go out in, and with no books to refer to but the New Testament, +Shakespeare, and a pocket dictionary." Now and then, when much pressed +for time, and without premeditation, and with his eye on the clock, he +wrote some of his shorter essays at the Athenæum Club, at the same table +where other members were writing notes and letters. + + + + +VI. + +Aids to Inspiration. + + +Washington Irving's literary work was generally performed before +noon. He said the happiest hours of his life were those passed +in the composition of his different books. He wrote most of +"The Stout Gentleman" while mounted on a stile, or seated on +a stone, in his excursions with Leslie, the painter, 'round +about Stratford-on-Avon,--the latter making sketches in the +mean time. The artist says that his companion wrote with the +greatest rapidity, often laughing to himself, and from time to +time reading the manuscript aloud. + +Dr. Darwin wrote most of his works on scraps of paper with a pencil as +he travelled. But how did he travel? In a worn and battered "sulky," +which had a skylight at the top, with an awning to be drawn over it at +pleasure; the front of the carriage being occupied by a receptacle for +writing-paper and pencils, a knife, fork, and spoon; while on one side +was a pile of books reaching from the floor nearly to the front window +of the carriage; on the other, by Mrs. Schimmel-penninck's account, a +hamper containing fruit and sweetmeats, cream and sugar,--to which the +big, burly, keen-eyed, stammering doctor paid attentions as devoted as +he ever bestowed on the pile of books. + +Alexander Kisfaludy, foremost Hungarian poet of his time, wrote most of +his "Himfy" on horseback or in solitary walks; a poem, or collection of +poems, that made an unprecedented sensation in Hungary, where, by the +same token, Sandor Kisfaludy of that ilk became at once the Great +Unknown. + +Cujas, the object of Chateaubriand's special admiration, used to write +lying flat on his breast, with his books spread about him. + +Sir Henry Wotton is our authority for recording of Father Paul Sarpi +that, when engaged in writing, his manner was to sit fenced with a +castle of paper about his chair, and overhead; "for he was of our Lord +of St. Albans' opinion, that 'all air is predatory' and especially +hurtful when the spirits are most employed." + +Rousseau tells us that he never could compose pen in hand, seated +at a table, and duly supplied with paper and ink; it was in his +promenades,--the _promenades d'un solitaire_,--amid rocks and woods, +and at night, in bed, when he was lying awake, that he wrote in his +brain; to use his own phrase, "_J'écris dans mon cerveau_." Some of +his periods he turned and re-turned half a dozen nights in bed before +he deemed them fit to be put down on paper. On moving to the Hermitage +of Montmorency, he adopted the same plan as in Paris,--devoting, as +always, his mornings to the pen-work _de la copie_, and his afternoons +to _la promenade_, blank paper, book, and pencil in hand; for, says he, +"having never been able to write and think at my ease except in the open +air, _sule dio_, I was not tempted to change my method, and I reckoned +not a little on the forest of Montmorency becoming--for it was close to +my door--my _cabinet de travail_." In another place he affirms his sheer +incapacity for meditation by day, except in the act of walking; the +moment he stopped walking, he stopped thinking, too, for his head worked +with, and only with, his feet. "_De jour je ne puis méditer qu'en +marchant; sitôt que je m'arrête je ne pense plus, et ma tête ne va +qu'avec mes pieds._" _Salvitur ambulando_, whatever intellectual problem +is solved by Jean Jacques. His strength was not to sit still. His +Réveries, by the way, were written on scraps of paper of all sorts and +sizes, on covers of old letters, and on playing cards--all covered with +a small, neat handwriting. He was as economical of material as was +"Paper-sparing Pope" himself. + +In some points Chateaubriand was intellectually, or, rather, +sentimentally, related to Rousseau, but not in his way of using ink and +paper. + +Chateaubriand sat at a table well supplied with methodically arranged +heaps of paper cut in sizes; and as soon as a page was blotted over in +the biggest of his big handwriting,--according to M. de Marcullus, with +almost as many drops of ink as words,--he tossed it aside, without using +pounce or blotting-paper, to blot and be blotted by its accumulating +fellows. Now and then he got up from this work, to look out of the +window, or to pace the room, as if in quest of new ideas. The chapter +finished, he collected all the scattered leaves, and revised them in due +form--more frequently adding to than curtailing their fair proportions, +and paying very special attention to the punctuation of his sentences. + +Lessing's inherent nobility of intellect is said to have been typified +in his manner of study. When in the act of composition he walked up and +down till his eye was caught by the title of some book. He would open +it, his brother tells us, and, if struck by some sentence which pleased +him, he would copy it out; in so doing, a train of thought would be +suggested, and this would be immediately followed up--provided his mood +was just right. + +The early morning would lure Jean Paul Richter to take out his ink-flask +and write as he walked in the fragrant air. Such compositions as his +"Dream of a Madman" he would set about by first seating himself at the +harpsichord, and "fantasying" for a while on it, till the ideas, or +"imaginings," came--which presently they would do with a rush. + +Tradition, as we get it through the historian of the Clapham Sect, +informs us that Wilberforce wrote his "Practical View" under the roof of +two of his best friends, in so fragmentary and irregular a manner, that +one of them, when at length the volume lay complete on the table, +professed, on the strength of this experience, to have become a convert +to the opinion that a fortuitous concourse of atoms might, by some +felicitous chance, combine themselves into the most perfect of forms--a +moss-rose or a bird of paradise. + +Coleridge told Hazlitt that he liked to compose in walking over uneven +ground, or breaking through the straggling branches of a copse-wood. + +Sheridan composed at night, with a profusion of lights around him, and a +bottle of wine by his side. He used to say: "If a thought is slow to +come, a glass of good wine encourages it; and when it does come, a glass +of good wine rewards it." + +Lamartine, in the days of his prosperity, composed in a studio with +tropical plants, birds, and every luxury around him to cheer the senses. + +Berkeley composed his "Minute Philosopher" under the shade of a rock on +Newport Beach. + +Burns wove a stanza as he ploughed the field. + +Charlotte Brontë had to choose her favorable days for writing,--sometimes +weeks, or even months, elapsing before she felt that she had anything +to add to that portion of her story which was already written; then some +morning she would wake up, and the progress of her tale lay clear and +bright before her, says Mrs. Gaskell, in distinct vision; and she set +to work to write out what was more present to her mind at such times +than her actual life was. She wrote on little scraps of paper, in a +minute hand, holding each against a piece of board, such as is used +in binding books, for a desk,--a plan found to be necessary for one so +short-sighted,--and this sometimes as she sat near the fire by twilight. + +While writing "Jane Eyre" she became intensely concerned in the fortunes +of her heroine, whose smallness and plainness corresponded with her own. +When she had brought the little Jane to Thornfield, her enthusiasm had +grown so great that she could not stop. She went on incessantly for +weeks. At the end of this time she had made the minute woman conquer +temptation, and in the dawn of the summer morning leave Thornfield. +"After Jane left Thornfield, the rest of the book," says Miss Martineau, +"was written with less vehemence and with more anxious care"--the world +adds, "with less vigor and interest." + +"Ouida" (Louise de la Ramée) writes in the early morning. She gets up +at five o'clock, and, before she begins, works herself up into a sort of +literary trance. + +Professor Wilson, the Christopher North of _Blackwood's Magazine_, +jotted down in a large ledger "skeletons," from which, when he desired +an article, he would select one and clothe it with muscle and nerve. He +was a very rapid writer and composer, but worked only when he liked and +how he liked. He maintained that any man in good health might write an +entire number of _Blackwood's_. He described himself as writing "by +screeds"--the fit coming on about ten in the morning, which he +encouraged by a caulker ("a mere nut-shell, which my dear friend the +English opium-eater would toss off in laudanum"); and as soon as he felt +that there was no danger of a relapse, that his demon would be with him +the whole day, he ordered dinner at nine, shut himself up within triple +doors, and set manfully to work. "No desk! An inclined plane--except in +bed--is my abhorrence. All glorious articles must be written on a dead +flat." His friend, the Ettrick Shepherd, used a slate. + +Dr. Georg Ebers, professor at the University of Leipzig, Saxony, who is +known all over the world as the author of novels treating of ancient +Egyptian life, and as the writer of learned treatises on the country of +the Khedives, prefers to work in the late evening hours until midnight +when composing poetry, but favors daylight for labor on scientific +topics. He makes a rough draft of his work, has this copied by an +amanuensis, and then polishes and files it until it is satisfactory to +him, that is, as perfect as he possibly can make it. He finds that +tobacco stimulates him to work, and, therefore, he uses it when engaged +in literary production. When he writes poetry, he is in the habit of +sitting in an arm-chair, supporting a lap-board on his knee, which holds +the paper; in this position he pens his lyrics. He imagines that he is +more at liberty in this posture than when behind a writing desk. +Ordinarily he writes with great ease, but sometimes the composition of a +stirring chapter so mercilessly excites him that great beads of sweat +appear upon his forehead, and he is compelled to lay down his pen, +unable to write another line. He never writes unless he is in a suitable +frame of mind, except it be on business matters. Sometimes, when +laboring on topics of science, he works from ten to twelve hours at a +stretch; he never spends more than three or four hours in succession on +poetry. + +Charles Reade's habit of working was unique. When he had decided on a +new work he plotted out the scheme, situations, facts, and characters on +three large sheets of pasteboard. Then he set to work, using very large +foolscap to write on, working rapidly, but with frequent references to +his storehouse of facts, in the scrap-books, which were ready at his +hand. The genial novelist was a great reader of newspapers. Anything +that struck him as interesting, or any fact which tended to support one +of his humanitarian theories, was cut out, pasted in a large folio +scrap-book, and carefully indexed. Facts of any sort were his hobby. +From the scrap-books thus collected with great care he used to elaborate +the "questions" treated of in his novels. + +Like Charles Reade, Miss Anna Katherine Green is a believer in +scrap-books, and culls from newspapers accounts of strange events. Out +of such material she weaves her stories of crime and its detection. + +Emile Zola, the graphic author of realistic fiction, carefully makes +studies from life for his sensational works. He writes rapidly, smoking +cigarettes the while. He is an inveterate smoker, and, if there is +anything he likes better than tobacco, it is his beautiful country-house +near Paris, where he receives daily a large circle of admiring friends. + +Edward P. Roe, who, if we may rate success by the wide circulation of an +author's books, was our most successful novelist, preferred the daytime +for literary work, and rarely accomplished much in the evening beyond +writing letters, reading, etc. When pressed with work he put in long +hours at night. In the preface to "Without a Home," Rev. Mr. Roe +presents some extremely interesting matter in regard to the causes which +led to his authorship, and the methods of work by which he turned out so +many well-constructed stories in so short a time. "Ten years ago," he +says, "I had never written a line of a story, and had scarcely +entertained the thought of constructing one. The burning of Chicago +impressed me powerfully, and, obedient to an impulse, I spent several +days among its smoking ruins. As a result, my first novel, 'Barriers +Burned Away,' gradually took possession of my mind. I did not +manufacture the story at all, for it grew as naturally as do the +plants--weeds, some may suggest--on my farm. In the intervals of a busy +and practical life, and also when I ought to have been sleeping, my +imagination, unspurred and almost undirected, spun the warp and woof of +the tale and wove them together.... I merely let the characters do as +they pleased, and work out their own destiny. I had no preparation for +the work beyond a careful study of the topography of Chicago and the +incidents of the fire. For nearly a year my chief recreation was to +dwell apart among the shadows created by my fancy, and I wrote when and +where I could--on steamboats and railroad cars, as well as in my +study.... When the book appeared I suppose I looked upon it much as a +young father looks upon his first child. His interest in it is intense, +but he knows well that its future is very doubtful." Mr. Roe always +wrote from a feeling that he had something to say; and never +"manufactured" a novel in his life. While writing he was absorbed in his +work; and made elaborate studies for his novels. "I have visited," said +he, in reference to "Without a Home," "scores of typical tenements. I +have sat day after day on the bench with the police judges, and have +visited the station-houses repeatedly. There are few large retail shops +that I have not entered many times, and I have conversed with both +employers and employees." + +Mr. Roe did not make "outlines" or "skeletons" to any great extent, and +when he did so, he did not follow them closely. Indeed, he often +reversed his plan, satisfied that following an arbitrary outline makes +both story and characters wooden. He held that the characters should +control the author, not he them. He usually received the suggestion of a +story unexpectedly, and let it take form in his mind and grow naturally, +like a plant, for months, more often for years, before he began to +write. He averred that after his characters were introduced he became +merely the reporter of what they do, say, and think. He imagined that it +was this spontaneity which, chiefly, made his books popular, and said +that to reach intelligent people through fiction, the life portrayed +must seem to them real and natural, and that this can scarcely be true +of his characters if the author is forever imposing his arbitrary will +upon them. Mr. Roe wrote in bound blank-books, using but one side of a +sheet. This allowed ample space for changes and corrections, and the +manuscript was kept in place and order. The novelist used tea, and +especially coffee, to some extent as a stimulant, and smoked very mild +cigars. But he rarely took coffee at his dinner, at six P.M., as it +tended to insomnia. The author of "Barriers Burned Away" worked three or +four hours before and two or three hours after lunch. On this point, +however, he varied. When wrought up and interested in a scene, he +usually completed it. In the after part of the day, when he began to +feel weary, he stopped, and, if hard pressed, began work again in the +evening. Once, many years ago, he wrote twenty-four hours at a stretch, +with the aid of coffee. He did not force himself to work against +inclination beyond a certain point. At the same time he fought against a +tendency to "moods and tenses." + +The German lyric poet, Martin Greif, writes only in the daytime, because +he can conceive poetry only when walking in the woods, meadows, and +lanes that form the environs of the Bavarian capital--Munich. During his +excursions into the surrounding country, he notes down his thoughts, +which he elaborates when he reaches his quiet study. He is not a ready +versifier, and is compelled to alter a poem repeatedly before it +receives his approbation. At work in the afternoon, he loves to smoke +moderately; but he never uses stimulants. Generally work is hard to him, +but sometimes--that is, rarely--he writes with unusual rapidity. As a +professional writer, he must sometimes force himself to work and must +mount the Pegasus in spite of disinclination, as when, for instance, a +product of his pen has to be delivered on a certain date. + +Emile Mario Vacano composed his writings at all times that gave him the +impulse for doing so: at daybreak or in the night. With him it was the +"whereabouts," not the hour, that made the essence. There was a mill +belonging to a good friend of his, where he found his best inspirations +amidst all the hubbub of horses, peasants, poultry, cows, pigeons, and +country life. And he asserted that the name of his friend, Harry Salzer, +of Stattersdorf, near St. Poelten, Lower Austria, ought to be joined to +his. He said that his friend merited a great share of his "glories" by +his hospitality as well as on account of his bright ideas. Vacano never +made a plan in advance, but penned his novels, stories, essays, etc., +as one writes a letter,--_prima vista_,--never perusing again what he +had written, be it good or bad. When writing he imbibed a good deal of +beer, and was in the habit of using snuff. He did not regard writing as +work. For him it was like a chat in pen and ink with friends. As for an +inclination to work; as for a feeling that he had something to say, and +_must_ say it, come what will,--there was nothing of the sort in him. He +said he hated romances, tales, and all the like, and wrote only to gain +his "_pain quotidien_" and that he detested the humbug with all his +heart and despised the mob that would read it. He declared that if he +were a millionaire or simply wealthy, "he'd never take a pen in hand for +bullying a stupid public with his nonsense." + +Emile Richebourg writes his fascinating novels in a plain style, but, +despite the absence of flowery language, is capable of expressing much +feeling. The novel or drama is completed in his head before he writes a +line. As the plot develops, the dialogues and events suggest themselves. +When he has got to work he keeps right on, seldom re-reading what he has +composed. He makes an outline of his book before beginning. He is in the +habit of noting down on a piece of paper the names, ages, lodgings, +etc., of the persons who are pictured in his novels, also the title of +each chapter. Formerly he worked from eight to twelve hours a day, but +never at night. Now he labors only five or six hours at the most, and +always in the morning. Richebourg is an early riser, and goes to bed +early in the evening. He gets up at six in the morning. At eight o'clock +he drinks a bowl of warm milk without sugar, which constitutes his sole +nourishment until dinner at noon. With him this is the principal meal of +the day; and during its progress, according to his own confession, he +finds a bottle of wine very agreeable. He eats but little in the +evening. When at work he smokes continuously; always a pipe. He works +with difficulty, yet with pleasure, and identifies himself, that is, +when composing, with the personages whom he describes. During the +afternoon he promenades in his garden, attends to his roses and other +flowers, and trims the shrubs. + +The study of Maurice Jokai, the great Hungarian romancer, is a perfect +museum of valuable souvenirs and rare antiquities. Books, journals, and +pamphlets cover tables, chairs, and walls; busts and statuettes, which +stand about here and there, give the room the appearance of picturesque +disorder. The portrait of his wife, in various sizes, adorns the space +on the walls not taken up by the books. The top of his writing-table is +full of bric-à-brac, which leaves only sufficient room for the quarto +paper upon which he pens his entertaining romances. He writes with +little, fine pens, of so good a workmanship that he is enabled to write +a four-volume novel with one pen. He always makes use of violet ink, to +which he is so accustomed that he becomes perplexed when compelled, +outside of his house, to resort to ink of another color. He claims that +thoughts are not forthcoming when he writes with any other ink. When +violet ink is not within reach, he prefers to write with a lead pencil, +but he does so only when composing short stories and essays. For the +composition of his romances, which generally fill from one to five +volumes when printed, violet ink is indispensable. He rarely corrects +his manuscripts, and they generally go to the printer as they were +originally composed; they are written in a plain, legible hand; and are +what one of the typographic fraternity would call "beautiful copy." One +of the corners of his writing-desk holds a miniature library, consisting +of neatly-bound note-books, which contain the outlines of his novels as +they originated in his mind. When he has once begun a romance, he keeps +right on till he puts down the final period; that is, he writes day by +day till the novel is completed. Jokai says: "It often happens that I +surround my hero with dangers, that enemies arise on all sides, and +escape seems impossible. Then I often say to myself: 'I wonder how the +fellow will get out of the scrape?'" + +In his home, at Hartford, Conn., Mark Twain's workshop is in his +billiard-room, at the top of the house, and when he grows tired of +pushing the pen he rises and eases his muscles by doing some scientific +strokes with the cue. He is a hard worker, and, like Trollope, believes +that there is nothing like a piece of shoemaker's wax on the seat of +one's chair to encourage good literary work. Ordinarily he has a fixed +amount of writing for each day's duty. He rewrites many of his chapters, +and some of them have been scratched out and interlined again and again. + +Robert Waldmueller, a leading German novelist, who writes under the +pseudonym of "Charles Eduard Duboc," works mostly from eight, nine, or +ten o'clock in the morning until two o'clock in the afternoon, but never +writes at night. Generally he does not plan his work beforehand. When at +work he must be unmolested. In composition, he loves to change off, now +producing poetry, now plays and essays, as his mood may direct. He +writes with great ease and swiftness; and the many books which he has +composed testify that he cannot justly be accused of indolence. He +attributes his facility of expression to the discrimination which he has +always exercised in the choice of books. In early boyhood he was +already disgusted with Florian's sickly "Guillaume Tell," while +Washington Irving's "Sketch-book" delighted him very much; he was also +deeply impressed by the perusal of Homer's immortal epics. He adopted +authorship when twenty-five years of age, and has followed it +successfully ever since. Until then he was especially fond of composing +music and of drawing and painting, but he lacked the time to perfect +himself in these accomplishments. Yet, even to-day, he practices both +arts occasionally as a pastime and for recreation. + +The evening finds Dr. Johann Fastenrath, the poet, who writes as elegant +Spanish as he does German, and who is as well-known in Madrid as he is +in Cologne on the Rhine, at the writing-table. He never makes a skeleton +beforehand of essays in his mother-tongue; but for compositions in +French or Spanish he invariably makes an outline. One peculiarity which +he has is to scribble his poems upon little scraps of paper. When +writing prose in Spanish he divides the manuscript-paper in halves, so +as to be able to make additions and to lengthen any particular sentence, +for in the Spanish language artfully long periods are considered +especially beautiful. He does not regard literary composition as work, +and conceives poems faster than he can write them down. When he is at +work absolute quiet must reign about him; he cannot bear noise of any +kind. During the winter he works day for day at home, but in the summer +he tolerates confinement no longer, and whenever he composes at this +time it is always in the open air. From autumn till spring he writes +from six to seven hours a day. + +Adolf Streckfusz, a German novelist, prefers to write in the afternoon +and evening, and attains the greatest speed in composition at night. He +makes no plan beforehand, but revises his manuscript at least twice +after completion. He often allows the cigar which he smokes when at work +to go out, but lights it mechanically from time to time, so that the +floor of his study is sometimes covered with dozens of thrown-away +lucifers after working hours. When writing, his cigar is as +indispensable to him as his pen. He can do without neither. Formerly he +could work with extraordinary facility, but now, with increasing age, a +few hours' work at times tires him out so much that he must, of +necessity, take a rest. As with many other authors, a sense of duty +often impels him to work; but almost always, after a beginning is made, +he composes with pleasure. The time which he devotes daily to literary +work varies. He never works more than eight hours, but rarely less than +three or four hours a day. + +The author of "The Lady or the Tiger" and many other short +stories--Frank R. Stockton--always works in the morning, and not at any +other time. In writing a short story, such as is published in a single +number of a magazine, he usually composes the whole story, description, +incident, and even the dialogue, before writing a word of it. In this +way the story is finished in his mind before it is begun on paper. While +engaged in other writing he has carried in his memory for several months +as many as three stories, each ready to be put upon paper as soon as he +should have an opportunity. When he is writing a longer story, he makes +in his mind a general outline of the plot, etc.; and then he composes +three or four chapters before he begins to write; when these are +finished, he stops writing until some more are thought out: he never +composes at the point of the pen. He does not write any of his +manuscripts himself; they are all written from his dictation. Stockton +is very fond of working in the summer in the open air, and a great many +of his stories have been dictated while lying in a hammock. He usually +works from about ten in the morning until one P. M., but he spends no +time at the writing-desk, except when he writes letters, which he never +does in his working hours. Some years ago he used to work very +differently, being occupied all day with editorial work, and in the +evening with literary work; but his health would not stand this, and he, +therefore, adopted his present methods. He works regularly every day, +whether he feels like it or not; but when he has set his mind on a +subject, it is generally not long before he does feel like it. + +Dr. Leopold Chevalier de Sacher-Masoch generally used to work at night +in former years, but now writes by daylight only, preferably in the +morning. He is the author of a great many graphic stories about Galicia, +and lives at Leipsic, surrounded by a coterie of admiring friends. He +makes an accurate outline; then pens his novel word for word till it is +finished, whereupon it is handed to the printer as it is, not a word +being altered, added, or erased. He is not in the habit of using +stimulating drinks or tobacco when at work, and leads altogether a +temperate life. He has an innate predilection for fur, and declares that +fur worn by a beautiful woman exercises a magic spell over him. Formerly +he had a pretty black cat that used to lie on his knees or sleep on his +writing-desk when he was at work. Now, when he writes, a red velvet +lady's-jacket, with a fur lining of sable and borders of the same +material, lies near at hand upon a divan. Although he is ordinarily +good-natured, his anger is easily provoked by any disturbance during +working hours. Composition is mere play to him after he has begun, but +the first lines of a new work always are penned with difficulty. When he +writes without an inclination, he is, as a rule, dissatisfied with the +result. Generally he spends from three to four hours at the writing-desk +and devotes the rest of the day to recreation. + +Dr. Julius Stinde, who is responsible for that excellent German satire, +"Die Familie Buchholz," never works by lamplight, if he can possibly +avoid it. He writes on large sheets, of quarto size, and never makes an +outline; the compositor gets the manuscript as it was written, with a +few, but not many, alterations. Whatever is not satisfactory to the +author is thrown into the waste-paper basket, which, in consequence, is +pretty large. While at work he takes a pinch of snuff from time to time, +which, he asserts, has a beneficial action on the eyes that are taxed by +incessant study and composition. When he treats of scientific topics, a +few glasses of Rhine wine tend to induce the proper mood; he finds the +"Johannisgarten," a wine grown at Musbach in the palatinate of the +Rhine, especially valuable for this purpose. He composes humorous work +most easily after a very simple breakfast, consisting of tea and bread. +He is in the habit of often changing the kinds of paper, pens, +pen-holders, ink, and even ink-stands, which he uses; and loves to see +fresh flowers on his writing-desk. He writes with greater facility in +fine, sunny weather than on dark, gloomy days. That is the reason why he +prefers, on cloudy days, to write in the evening. He declares that he +would rather stop writing for days and weeks than to compose without +inclination, and he tells us that whenever he attempts to work "_sans +inclination_" as the French say, the result is unsatisfactory, and the +effort strains both mind and body. He seldom spends more than eight +hours a day at the writing-table. + +To the many with whom it is customary to do literary work in the daytime +must be added Johannes Nordmann, one of Vienna's most able novelists and +newspaper men. He writes more during the winter than in the summer time, +most of which he spends in travelling. He never recopies prose. For +poems, however, he first makes an outline, and then files the verse till +it receives his approbation. While driving the "quill," he smokes +cigars. He writes with remarkable speed and ease after the subject in +hand has ripened in his thoughts. He often forces himself to do +newspaper work, when he would fain do anything else; and is totally +unable to compose fiction or poetry when not disposed to. + +Moncure D. Conway burns daylight, never the midnight oil, and rarely the +evening oil. Generally he works with his pen eight hours a day, tries +to take two walks, and in the evening to get some amusement,--billiards +or the theatre, of which he is very fond. He smokes as he begins work, +but does not keep it up, and uses no other stimulant at work. He loves +work, and never has had to force himself to labor. He generally makes +some outline of what he means to write, but often leaves it, finding his +thoughts developed by stating them. Conway has to be alone when writing, +but does not care for noise outside of his study. He is a slow writer, +and is always waiting on a nursery of slowly-maturing subjects. + +Kate Field, the well-known editor and lecturer, prefers the daytime for +literary work, for the reason, she says, that the brain is far clearer +in the morning than at any other time. This refers, of course, to a +normal brain, independent of stimulants. She thinks that, under +pressure, night work in journalism is often more brilliant than any +other; but that it is exceptional. She makes no outline in advance; and +never uses stimulants, hot water excepted. She has no particular habit +when at work, except the habit of sticking to it; and has no specified +hours for work. She spends no time at a desk, as she writes in her lap, +a habit which was also a peculiarity of Mrs. Browning. Miss Field +maintains that it is far easier for her, and prevents round shoulders, +and is also better for the lungs. She has forced herself to write at +times, and does not believe in waiting for ideas "to turn up." + +E. Vely, one of the best of the female novelists of Germany, however, +believes in inspirations, and does not take a pen in hand unless +disposed to write. Four hours in the forenoon are spent in composition, +while the afternoon and evening are given up to pastime, exercise, and +study. While at work she hates to be interrupted, and insists upon +absolute stillness about her. She always sends her original manuscript +to the printer. + +And now we come to one who recently joined the great majority, one who, +although he has gone the way of all mortals, still lives, whose name is +not only found on the long list of the illustrious dead, but is also +graven in golden letters on the record of the age: Dr. Alfred Meissner. +It was his wont to do the imaginative part of his work in the stillness +of the night, either in an easy chair--smoking a cigar--or in bed, in +which he used to pass several hours sleepless almost every day. He used +to sit down to write in the morning and quit at noon. Early in his +literary career this distinguished Austrian novelist discovered that +composition in the night-time, that is, the mechanical part of it, would +not agree with him, that it was too great a strain on his nervous +system, and so wisely concluded to write only by daylight. He was +unable to comprehend how anybody could write a novel--a very intricate +work--without making alterations and erasures subsequently in the +original manuscripts. It appeared to him as if an artist would not make +a sketch of his projected picture first, but would begin immediately to +paint in oil and make no changes afterward. He cited the example of +Raphael and Titian, who, although they were talented artists, made +numerous sketches before they began a painting. Dr. Meissner first made +a detailed outline of his work, which he elaborated with great care. +While copying this second manuscript he was enabled to make a great many +alterations, and to strike out everything that was unsuitable. +Practically every production of his pen was written three times. + +Sometimes Meissner would work with great ease, sometimes with +difficulty. The composition of chapters that were full of stirring +incidents, violent passions, or perilous situations used to excite him +intensely, and progressed by degrees; whereas other chapters were +written with great facility and swiftness. He wrote only when he was +compelled to by his creative faculty, that urged him to set down what he +had to say. He was a very diligent author, and left many books to keep +his memory green and constantly endear him to the hearts of the people. + +Dr. A. Glaser, the German novelist, dictates all his stories to a +private secretary, a luxury which few Teutonic authors can afford. +Ordinarily he writes in the daytime, but when deeply interested in some +new work he keeps right on till late at night. Music, especially classic +music, exerts a great influence on the products of his pen. When his +work progresses slowly, a complication is not easily solved, or a +character becomes somewhat indistinct, music, that is, oratorios and +symphonies, invariably sets all matters right and dispels all +difficulties. He never writes with greater facility or rapidity than +when he has heard the music of Handel, Bach, or Beethoven just before +sitting down to write. + +What little literary work John Burroughs does is entirely contingent +upon his health. If he is not feeling absolutely well, with a good +appetite for his food, a good appetite for sleep, for the open air, for +life generally, there is no literary work for him. If his sleep has been +broken or insufficient, the day that follows is lost to his pen. He +leads a sane and simple life: goes to bed at nine o'clock and gets up at +five in summer and at six in winter; spends half of each day in the open +air; avoids tea and coffee, tobacco, and all stimulating drinks; +adheres mainly to a fruit and vegetable diet, and always aims to have +something to do which he can do with zest. He is fond of the mild +excitement of a congenial talk, of a conversation with friends, of a +walk in the fields or woods, of a row on the river, of the reading of a +good book. During working-hours he likes to regale himself with good +buttermilk, in which, he avers, there is great virtue. He writes for the +most part only in fall and winter; writing best when his chimney draws +best. He composes only when writing is play. His working hours, when he +does write, are from nine or ten A. M. to two or three P. M. Then he +wants his dinner, and after that a brisk walk of four or five miles, +rain or shine. In the evening he reads or talks with his friends. + +When Charles Deslys, the French novelist, begins to write he has a very +indistinct idea of what he is about to compose; but after a while, +becoming interested in the work, he writes with increasing pleasure, and +the clouds which shut out the subject from view quickly clear away. He +never makes an outline beforehand. He does not use stimulating drinks, +but smokes much; and seldom works more than four or five hours at a +time. At Nice, where he spends his winters now, he writes all the +morning, from eight o'clock until noon, at the window, which is opened +wide to let in the sunlight. In summer he always works in the open air, +preferably at the seashore or in the woods. In this way he composed his +first romances, novels, and songs, writing them down first in a +note-book, which he always carried with him. Sometimes he dictated to a +secretary. He has lost that faculty, and now must write down everything +himself, either at his table or his writing-desk. + +John Fiske, the evolutionist, describes himself as follows:-- + +"I am forty-three years old; six feet in height, girth of chest, +forty-six inches; waist, forty-four inches; head, twenty-four inches; +neck, eighteen inches; arm, sixteen inches; weight, 240 pounds; +complexion, florid; hair, auburn; beard, red." + +Professor Fiske is a fine specimen of manhood: he is alert and active, +possesses a voracious appetite, a perfect digestion, and ability to +sleep soundly. He works by day or night indifferently. His method, like +General Grant's, is to "keep hammering." Sometimes he makes an outline +first; but scarcely ever changes a word once written. He very seldom +tastes coffee or wine, or smokes a cigar; but he drinks beer freely, and +smokes tobacco in a meerschaum pipe nearly all the time when at work. He +has been in the habit of working from twelve to fifteen hours daily +since he was twelve years old. John Fiske is one of the healthiest of +men, and never has a headache or physical discomfort of any sort. He +prefers to work in a cold room, 55° to 60° F., and always sits in a +draft when he can find one. He wears the thinnest clothes he can find, +both in winter and summer. Despite this absence of precautions, he +catches cold only once in three or four years, and then not severely. He +never experienced the feeling of disinclination for work, and, +therefore, has never had to force himself. If he feels at all dull when +at work, he restores himself by a half-hour at the piano. + +Ernest Wichert, who, besides being an honored member of the bar of +Germany, is a celebrated novelist, courts the muses from eight o'clock +in the morning until two in the afternoon. After five P. M. he attends +to his correspondence and daily professional duties. Only two forenoons +in the week are taken up by his duties as judge of the superior court at +Koenigsberg, Prussia. He never copies a romance or novel once written, +but leaves a margin for alterations and additions. When a sentence--not +a judicial one--presents any difficulty, he writes it out hastily on a +small piece of paper before he puts it down in the manuscript. He is in +the habit of revising and copying dramatic work at least three times +before he submits it to a stage-manager. He is very much addicted to the +use of tobacco, and smokes a pipe and a cigar alternately. He smokes at +all times of the day, even during working-hours. Generally he sits down +to write; but cannot bear to have a pen in hand when thinking about the +subject of his work. He is accustomed to walk up and down the room until +his thoughts have assumed a definite form. He works sometimes from five +to six hours successively. He cannot write when anybody is in the room, +and, therefore, always locks the doors before he sits down to his work. +Literary labor is such a necessity to Wichert that he invariably feels +uncomfortable when he has finished one work without beginning another +immediately. + +Many of the friends of Jules Claretie, the famous novelist, often are at +a loss to account for his great fertility, and cannot see how he manages +to do all that he succeeds in doing. When this question was once asked +of the author, he replied, smilingly: "I am used to working, love to +work, and work regularly--without excess, and with constant pleasure. +Work is, with certain natures, one of the forms of health." Claretie's +pen is put in motion only in the daytime; at night it rests, like the +genial man himself. When the author feels indisposed, he does not write +except for journals to which matter must be supplied on a certain date; +attacks of neuralgia and nervous headache often interfere with his work. +When at work he is in the habit of humming various tunes without being +conscious of it. When work is easy to him, he sings; but when it is +difficult, a dead silence reigns in his study. Sometimes work proves +exceedingly hard to be done in the beginning, but the longer he writes +the easier it becomes. Claretie notes down all ideas that come to his +mind, utilizing them afterward for his novels. He also makes a detailed +outline of his romances; but his journalistic articles are composed at +the point of the pen. He is a very fast writer, and the ink on one page +is often not quite dry before another is begun. + +Hermann Rollet, a distinguished Austrian author, writes on scientific +topics in the evening as well as in the day-time. With him poetry is +evolved, almost without exception, in the dead of night, when he lies +awake after having slept a few hours. He invariably makes an outline, +and when his manuscript is finished he improves it as much as possible. +There must be no noise in the room where he works; outside din, however, +does not affect him. When Rollet has a clear conception of the subject +in hand, work is mere play to him; otherwise, it is difficult indeed. +The author has one great peculiarity, which is seldom met with, and has, +I think, never been noted before. When composing poetry, it appears to +him as if he only removes by the act of writing the covering from +something that has been concealed, and he looks upon the resulting poem +as if he had not produced it, as if it had been in existence before, and +as if he had but revealed it. Thus generally his best songs are +produced. Sometimes he dreams of a poem, verse for verse, line for line. +If he happens to wake up at the time, and strikes a light, he is able to +write down literally the poem of which he dreamt. Frequently he forgets +all about his dream after it is written down, and is then greatly +astonished in the morning to find a finished poem on his writing-table. +He says that he could more easily split wood or break stones than to +write without inclination. He has to force himself merely to copy what +he has written. + + + + +VI. + +Favorite Habits of Work. + + +John G. Whittier, our noble Quaker poet, used to say that he never had +any method. "When I felt like it," he said once, "I wrote, and I neither +had the health nor the patience to work afterward over what I had +written. It usually went as it was originally completed." + +Whittier preferred the daytime--and the morning, in fact--for writing, +and used no stimulants whatever for literary labor. He made no outline +or skeleton of his work--and claimed that his verses were made as the +Irishman made his chimney--by holding up one brick and putting another +under. He was subject to nervous headache all his life, and for this +reason often had to force himself to work when he would rather have +rested, especially while he was associate editor of the _National Era_ +and other papers. + +Philipp Galen, the German novelist, composes during the daytime, and +sometimes labors till ten o'clock in the evening. He makes an outline of +his story before he prepares the "copy" for the press. He requires no +stimulants at work, but when he is through he relishes a glass of wine. +He has a habit of perambulating the room when engaged in meditation +about a new book, and he writes with remarkable rapidity. He never puts +pen to paper without inclination, because, as he says, he always feels +disposed to do literary work. Formerly he worked daily from twelve to +fourteen hours; now he spends only from six to eight hours at the +writing-desk every day. + +W. D. Howells always keeps his manuscript six or seven months ahead of +the time for publication. Being of a nervous disposition, he could not +rely on himself to furnish matter at short notice. When it is possible, +he completes a book before giving a page of it to a magazine. He finds +the morning to be the best time for brain-labor. He asserts that the +first half of the day is the best part of a man's life, and always +selects it for his working hours. He usually begins at nine and stops at +one, and manages in that time to write about a dozen manuscript pages. +After that he enjoys his leisure; that is, he reads, corrects proof, +walks about, and pays visits. When he went to Venice as the United +States consul he soon threw off the late-hour habits to which he was +accustomed as a journalist. There was so little to keep him employed, +and the neighborhood was so quiet and delightful, that he began doing +his work in the morning, and he has continued the habit ever since. He +does not generally make a "skeleton" of his work; in fact, he almost +never does. He says that he leans toward indolence, and always forces +himself more or less to work, keeping from it as long as he can invent +any excuse. He often works when he is dull or heavy from a bad night, +and finds that the indisposition wears off. Howells rarely misses a day +from any cause, and, for a lazy man, as he calls himself, is extremely +industrious. + +Georgiana M. Craik never, except on the rarest occasions, wrote at +night. She did not always make an outline of her books beforehand, but +generally did so. She wrote from nine A. M. until two P. M. in winter, +and in summer she seldom wrote at all. When she once began to write a +book, she worked at it steadily four or five hours every day, without +any regard to inclination. + +Dr. Alfred Friedmann, a witty Austrian journalist, writes his brilliant +articles at one sitting. He makes few corrections, and, sometimes, +before the ink is dry on the "copy," off it goes to the printer. +Whenever he feels in need of refreshment, he gets up from his +writing-desk and has recourse to a wine-bottle near by. He never +performs literary labor unless he is inclined to work. Sometimes he does +not write for weeks, and then again he writes half a book at a time. + +J. Scherr, the noted professor of the University of Zürich, Switzerland, +who is a novelist as well as an historian, spends his forenoon at his +writing-desk. He works standing, and writes, when in good health, with +wonderful facility. Formerly, he often used to work as long as ten +hours, but now he devotes only three or four hours a day to literary +work. + +Thomas Wentworth Higginson composes always in the daytime, never at +night. He sometimes makes an outline. He uses no stimulants while at +work, or at any time. He writes for from three to five hours a day. He +sometimes forces himself to "drive the quill," but rarely, generally +enjoying literary work very much. + +Ludwig Auzengruber, the Austrian storyteller, never writes at night. He +always makes an outline of his work at the beginning, and is addicted to +tobacco, which he consumes when at work. He is in the habit of walking +up and down the room when elaborating a new story, and never writes down +a sentence before he has pronounced it aloud. Auzengruber is a very +industrious man, and sometimes writes for as many as eleven hours a day. + +Gerhard von Amyntor, who is one of the best known of German authors, is +also a very diligent writer. He composes for from three to four hours +every morning, but rarely in the evening, and never at night. The +afternoon and evening are spent in reading or conversation, or in +revising that which he has written in the forenoon. He never makes a +skeleton of his work, but his manuscripts are copied before they reach +the printer. Tobacco is indispensable to him when he is producing +poetry. He works standing, and in solitude. The production, in the mind, +of novels and fiction generally is easy to him, but the mechanical labor +of writing down the product of his imagination he deems sad drudgery, +because he is affected by writers' cramp, and he never sets pen to paper +unless he feels disposed to. + +Walt Whitman closely adhered to his home and rooms. His income was just +sufficient to make both ends meet, but he used to say it was adequate to +the wants of a poet. He declared that wealth and luxury would destroy +his working force. The poet once wrote: "Twelve years ago I came to +Camden to die; but every day I went into the country, and, naked, bathed +in sunshine, lived with the birds and the squirrels, and played in the +water with the fishes. I recovered my health from Nature. Strange how +she carries us through periods of infirmity, into the realms of freedom +and health." + +In contradistinction to the majority of authors, Hermann Herberg, German +novelist and journalist, drives the pen at night. He invariably makes +an outline of his work to start with, and when he is engaged in writing, +he sips coffee and smokes. To him literary work is a holiday task; yet +he never writes unless he is in the proper frame of mind, spending on +the average three hours a day at the writing table. + +The method of Louisa May Alcott was a very simple one. She never had a +study; and an old atlas on her knee was all the desk she cared for. Any +pen, any paper, any ink, and any quiet place contented her. Years ago, +when necessity drove her hard, she used to sit for fourteen hours at her +work, doing about thirty pages a day, and scarcely tasting food until +her daily task was done. She never copied. When the idea was in her +head, it flowed into words faster than she could write them down, and +she seldom altered a line. She had the wonderful power of carrying a +dozen plots for months in her mind, thinking them over whenever she was +in the mood, to be developed at the proper time. Sometimes she carried a +plan thus for years. Often, in the dead of night, she lay awake and +planned whole chapters, word for word, and when daylight came she had +only to write them down. She never composed in the evening. She +maintained that work in the early hours gives morning freshness to both +brain and pen, and that rest at night is a necessity for all who do +brain work. She never used stimulants of any kind. She ate sparingly +when writing, and only the simplest food, holding that one cannot preach +temperance if one does not practice it. Miss Alcott affirmed that the +quality of an author's work depends much on his habits, and that sane, +wholesome, happy, and wise books must come from clean lives, +well-balanced minds, spiritual insight, and a desire to do good. + +Very few of the stories of the author of "Little Women" were written in +Concord, her home. This peaceful, pleasant place, the fields of which +are classic ground, utterly lacked inspiration for Miss Alcott. She +called it "this dull town," and when she had a story to write she went +to Boston, where she shut herself up in a room, and emerged only when +she could show a completed work. + +August Niemann, the German novelist, devotes the forenoon to literary +work, but never burns midnight-oil on his writing-desk. He prepares his +manuscript at the outset for the press, never making a plan beforehand. +He writes with great facility, but only when he feels like it; when +disinclined, he does not touch a pen--sometimes he will not write for +weeks. When he is especially interested in a topic, he is apt to write +for from four to six hours at a stretch; ordinarily he spends two, or, +at the most, three, hours a day at the writing-table. + +Victor Blüthgen, one of the most noted German authors, prefers the +daytime, especially the early morning, for literary labor; and whenever +he is compelled to work at night, in order to meet engagements, he does +so after ten o'clock. He never makes a skeleton of his work, but when +the manuscript is completed, he files away at it, and even makes +alterations in the proof-sheets. While at work he smokes incessantly, +and is so accustomed to the stimulating effects of tobacco that he +cannot get along without it. He walks up and down the room while +meditating on the plots of his stories. When he elaborates them +everything must be quiet about him, for every loud noise, especially +music, agitates him, and renders work impossible. Blüthgen is a ready +writer, and conception and composition are both easy to him. He always +forces himself to write. When he is beginning, he struggles hard to +overcome his repugnance, until he is interested in the work, when he +composes with increasing pleasure and rapidity. On the average, he +writes for from three to six hours daily, but never more than three +hours at a time. When he sits down to the desk he has but a faint idea +of the novel which he is about to write, being incapable of working out +the details of a story in his mind, as some authors are able to do; but +with the ink the thoughts begin to flow, and all difficulties are +surmounted. + +Lucy Larcom declared that she never thought of herself as an author, and +during most of her life her occupation was that of a teacher. She wrote +always before she taught, and in the intervals of leisure she had,--she +used to say because her head and pen would not keep still. She always +wished for more leisure to write, but was obliged to do something that +insured an immediate return in money,--in fact, she had always to "work +for a living." So, it was her habit to take a book or a portfolio in her +lap, and write when and where she could. She did not write at night, +because, she said, she had learned that she must sleep. She often forced +herself to write, sometimes through an entire day, although the result +was not usually so satisfactory to herself. She used to keep writing, +even if she felt a little ill and tired, because of the imperative +"must," and because she could forget her bad feelings in her subject. +She began to write as a little child,--verses chiefly,--and always +preferred writing to doing anything else. Most of the things she wrote +seemed to her to come of themselves, poems especially. + +To the large number of those who prefer the daytime to the artificial +light of the evening or the night must be added Rudolf von Gottschall, +German historian, novelist, and essayist. While at work he is in the +habit--that is at times--of chewing paper. He writes with ease and +great speed. He often composes when disinclined to work, compelled by +his occupation as a critic and journalist. Only when he is writing +poetry he must be in good spirits. He devotes about five hours a day to +literary work, exclusive of letter-writing and the discharge of his +editorial duties. + +Before committing her manuscripts to the press, the novelist, Marian +Tenger (a pseudonym which stands for the name of a lady of the highest +German aristocracy), reads them over repeatedly, and makes many +alterations. It seems incredible to her that any author, who is attached +to his profession, should write fair copy at once, making no skeleton of +his work whatever. She invents dialogues most easily when she is +perambulating the room. When disinclined to write, she refrains from +touching a pen. Sometimes weeks elapse before she resumes her usual +occupation--writing; but when she does so, it is with delight. She never +writes for more than five hours daily. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes prefers the morning from nine o'clock until noon +for work. He used to write evenings, but of late he has not done so. He +sometimes plans his work beforehand, but is apt to deviate more or less +from the outline he has laid down. He uses no stimulants at his work, +unless his cup of coffee is so considered. He spends sometimes two or +three, sometimes four or five, hours a day at his writing-table. He very +often forces himself to write when he has an uncompleted task before +him. He must have a pen in his hand when he is composing in prose or +verse--it seems a kind of conductor, without which his thoughts will not +flow continuously in proper order. + +Julius Wolffe, the German poet, belongs to those who never work at +night. He writes from early in the morning until the late hours of the +afternoon. He makes an outline, which, however, is almost equivalent to +fair copy, since very few additions and alterations are ever made. While +at work he moderately smokes cigars. When he is absorbed in cogitation +on a subject in hand, he often walks up and down his room. He writes +with great facility, for he never treats of topics that are not +congenial to him. He is a very industrious man; every day finds him at +his writing-desk, where he spends from eight to nine hours out of the +twenty-four. + +The work of Edmund Gosse being multiform and very pressing, he has no +choice between the daytime and the night, and must use both. The central +hours of the day being given up to his official business for the +government, which consists of translation from the various European +languages, only the morning and the evening remain for literary work. +His books have mainly been written between eight and eleven P. M., and +corrected for the press between nine and ten A. M. He finds the +afternoon almost a useless time. In his estimation, the physical +clockwork of the twenty-four hours seems to run down about four P. +M.,--at least, such is his experience. He makes no written skeleton or +first draft. His first draft is what goes to the printers, and commonly +with very few alterations. He rounds off his sentences in his head +before committing them to paper. He uses no stimulant at work. He drinks +wine twice a day, but after dinner he neither eats nor drinks. He has +found this habit essential to his health and power of work. The only +exception he makes is that, as he is closing for the night,--a little +before eleven o'clock,--he takes several cups of very strong tea, which +he has proved by experience to be by far the best sedative for his +nerves. If he goes to bed immediately after this strong tea, at the +close of a hard day's work, he generally sleeps soundly almost as soon +as his head is on the pillow. Coffee keeps him awake, and so does +alcohol. He has tried doing without wine, but has always returned to it +with benefit. He has entirely given up tobacco, which never suited him. +He can work anywhere, if he is not distracted. He has no difficulty in +writing in unfamiliar places--the waiting-room of a railway station or a +rock on the seashore suits him as well (except for the absence of books +of reference) as the desk in his study. He cannot do literary or any +other brain-work for more than three hours on a stretch, and believes +that a man who will work three hours of every working-day will +ultimately appear to have achieved a stupendous result in bulk, if this +is an advantage. But, then, he must be rapid while he is at work, and +must not fritter away his resources on starts in vain directions. Gosse +is utterly unable to write to order,--that is to say, on every occasion. +He can generally write, but there are occasions when for weeks together +he is conscious of an invincible disinclination, and this he never +opposes. Consequently, he is by temperament unfitted for journalism, in +which he has, he thinks, happily, never been obliged to take any part. +As for Mr. Gosse's verse, it gets itself written at odd times, wholly +without rule or precedent, and, of course, cannot be submitted to rule; +But his experience is that the habit of regular application is +beneficial to the production of prose. + +Felix Dahn, whose fertile fancy conjures up romances of life in ancient +Rome, always writes by the light of day. He writes with great facility +and rapidity; and devotes nine hours a day to literary work. His +manuscript goes to the printer as it is originally composed, and he +seldom alters a line after it is once committed to paper. + +Albert Traeger, a celebrated German poet, writes in the +afternoon,--after three o'clock, by preference. When composing prose, he +writes fair copy at once; for poems, however, he makes an outline, which +is hardly ever altered, since he completes every line in his head before +he writes it down. While at work he constantly smokes very strong +cigars, and is in the habit of sipping black coffee from time to time. +The poet is a ready writer, but never pens a single sentence unless he +feels disposed to work. Sometimes months pass before he takes up the +neglected pen again. + +That excellent writer of short stories, Sarah Orne Jewett, composes in +the afternoon. She does not make a formal outline of her work, but has a +rough plan of it in her own head, depending most upon a knowledge of the +chief characters. She writes for about four hours a day, and often finds +the first ten or fifteen minutes' work an effort, but after that she can +almost always go on easily. + +Thomas Hardy prefers the night for working, but finds the use of daytime +advisable, as a rule. He follows no plan as to outline, and uses no +stimulant excepting tea. His habit is to remove boots or slippers as a +preliminary to work. He has no definite hours for writing, and only +occasionally works against his will. + +W. H. Riehl, who, besides being a professor at the University of Munich, +is a famous novelist, always writes by daylight. He carefully outlines +his work beforehand, and repeatedly revises it before it is printed. +When engaged in the labor of composition, he smokes one cigar--no more. +He invents easily, but is very painstaking when writing down his +thoughts, mercilessly erasing whatever does not suit him. He takes a pen +to hand whenever he has a leisure moment, sometimes in the morning, +sometimes in the afternoon, as circumstances permit. + +The renowned divine, Karl Gersk, who is the author of by far the best +German religious poems, as a rule makes an outline before composing +poetry, but writes down prose at once. When his attention is taken up by +an interesting topic, he is in the habit of curling, absent-mindedly, +one of his occipital locks about the left index finger. He rarely writes +for more than six hours a day, and then only when he feels especially +disposed to work. + +The author of "St. Olave" always writes in the daytime; namely, from +nine A. M. to one P. M.; and does not make any outline first, but only +two copies, which are improved afterward, the first copy being written +in pencil, and the second in ink. The second manuscript is revised and +corrected. Day by day, this knight of the pen writes during the stated +time, unless prevented by illness or unexpected engagements, and does +not wait for "feeling disposed," but goes steadily on. + +R. E. Francillon prefers working at night, when both ideas and words +come most fluently. He always works at night, and sometimes all night, +when he works against time. He has not then to conquer an unwillingness +to work which besets him at other hours. Next to the night-time, he +prefers the afternoon, to which circumstances practically confine him. +This refers to imaginative work. With regard to journalistic and +critical work and study, it is just the reverse, and he prefers the +morning. He never makes a skeleton of his work. He has tried the +skeleton method, but found it useless, and broke away from it soon after +starting. He finds that incident suggests incident, and characters +develop themselves. Of course, he starts with a motive (in the technical +sense), and a general drift and color, and the salient points of leading +characters. He uses no stimulant when at work, except tobacco in the +form of cigarettes, which he smokes all the time, whatever he is doing, +even when writing a letter. Pen and cigarette are inseparable; but he +smokes very little when not working, and next to nothing when taking a +holiday. His hours of work depend very much on necessity. He is engaged +on a newspaper from nine A. M. till one P. M. The afternoon and evening +are devoted to fiction or whatever other work he has on hand. +Practically he is at his desk all day, an industry which is rendered +possible by frequent change of work. He constantly forces himself to +work, dead against inclination; and, though it may seem strange, it +constantly happens that the less the original inclination, the better +the result, and _vice versa_. Francillon has no faith whatever in +writing upon inclination, and maintains that even if little comes of +working when disinclined, the little is something and prevents the want +of inclination lasting, besides preventing one from yielding easily. He +is perfectly indifferent to outside noise, and, indeed, to almost +everything that most people find a trial to the nerves--except +conversation in the same room. He has worked with music playing in the +same room, and has not even noticed it. + +Hubert H. Bancroft, the historian of the Pacific coast, works day and +evening, with little interruption, except as he takes a walk or rides +for exercise occasionally in the afternoon. He determines that a certain +amount of work shall be accomplished within so many hours, days, and +weeks, and so is always stimulated and successfully accomplishes the +allotted task. He frequently writes when not disposed to work. + +Richard Schmidt Cabanis, the German humorist, has often spent whole +nights at the writing-desk. When composing poetry he makes an outline +beforehand, otherwise not. Before his manuscript goes to press he +carefully revises it and strikes out a great deal. He is very fond of +French red wine, which he imbibes occasionally when writing, but which +he must often forego in obedience to the advice of his physicians. The +only peculiarity of which he is possessed is that he cannot compose +unless he is alone, and he scorns even dumb company during working +hours. + +Margaret Eytinge very much prefers the morning for writing, and +generally spends from eight o'clock until eleven or twelve at her desk. +Of course, she often works in the afternoon, and sometimes, though very +rarely, at night. But at those times she only revises and copies. She +makes a slight sketch of her poem or story first--a sketch written so +hastily that it would be impossible for anybody but herself to decipher +it, and she has found trouble in making it out herself at times. Then +she proceeds to clothe this skeleton, an operation which is never +completed satisfactorily until after at least three times trying. She +always makes it a point to produce clean manuscripts. She cannot write +at all with people about her, or in an unfamiliar place, and must be in +her own room, at her own desk, and secure from interruption. + +That astute author of innumerable novels, Charlotte M. Yonge, never +works at night. She does not write any outline of her tales. She has +such an outline in her mind, but is guided by the way the characters +shape themselves. She generally composes from about 10.30 A. M. to 1.30 +P. M., taking odd times later in the day for proofs and letters. Having +good health, she is seldom indisposed for work; if she is, she takes +something mechanical, such as translating or copying. + +Dr. Karl Frenzel, editor of one of the leading Berlin newspapers, has to +struggle hard at first to overcome his unwillingness to compose, but +after he has written for some time any aversion which he may have +experienced disappears. He rarely works at night, never after midnight, +but prefers the evening to the afternoon for literary production. He +sometimes rewrites whole pages of his novels two or three times, but +never makes a plan beforehand. He has the queer habit of making bread +pellets while at work; that is, whenever he is absorbed in thought. He +writes with facility and swiftness, devoting from three to four hours a +day to literary labor. + +Dr. Otto Franz Gensichen, German dramatist, poet, and essayist, always +writes in the daytime, almost exclusively in the forenoon, from eight +till twelve o'clock. He makes an exception in the case of lyrical poems, +which, of course, must be written down whenever they occur to the mind. +After his manuscript is done, he polishes it here and there, and then +copies it; for while slowly transcribing he can most easily detect +mistakes. While at work in the morning he smokes a mild cigar, which is, +however, sometimes omitted. When writing, he likes to have as much light +and silence about him as he can possibly attain. While the manuscript +lies on the writing table, and the author is meditating on the subject +in hand, he is in the habit of pacing up and down the room. At first he +repeats the words aloud to test their euphonism and smoothness; he then +commits the spoken words to paper. He can boast of himself that he has +never written a line "_invita Musa_," without being fully inclined to +composition. Sometimes he does not write for months, but when the proper +mood takes possession of him, he is very industrious. Even then, +however, he does most of his work before midday, and, exceptionally, +from five till eight in the afternoon. As he is a bachelor and given up +altogether to authorship, he is governed entirely by his moods. + +Paul Burani, the brilliant Parisian journalist and dramatist, is forty +years of age, married and father of one daughter,--Michelette,--owner +of the house he lives in, and, altogether, the perfect type of a +successful literarian. Before writing a play, he makes a very elaborate +outline, which is developed afterward. Ordinarily he rewrites a play +three times, but being both a ready and a rapid writer, the task is +quickly accomplished. When compelled to stop writing in consequence of +fatigue or a lack of interest, he takes up something else, promenades in +his garden, or smokes a cigar. He is indifferent to noise, and can +compose almost anywhere. The great number of books which he has written +has given him the reputation of being one of the most productive authors +of the times, but he does not write for more than five or six hours a +day. + +Ludwig Habicht, a German novelist, loves to write by the light of the +sun, and invariably works in the daytime, never at night. When his +manuscript is finished and corrected, he has it copied by a professional +copyist, whereupon it goes to the compositor. Habicht prefers to write +in the open air, and does not use a writing-desk. The duration of his +working hours depends entirely upon his health and moods, but he never +writes for more than four or five hours a day; and sometimes does not +pen a line for months. + +Formerly, when the world--that is to say, the German world--used to +know Karl Stelter, the poet, as a merchant, he was in the habit of +spending his leisure hours in the evening in the production of poetry, +and, strange though it may seem, his best poems were made after a hard +day's work. Now, since he has retired from business and is in prosperous +circumstances, he versifies whenever and wherever he wants to, in the +evening as well as in the daytime. He writes his poems with a lead +pencil, and polishes them for weeks before they are published. He works +with great ease, and is a ready improviser; but he never writes against +his inclination. + +Brander Matthews does his work between breakfast and lunch, as a rule; +and works at night only occasionally. He makes elaborate notes, and then +writes at white heat, revising at his leisure. + +André Theuriet, the Parisian novelist, makes an outline of his work +first; he delineates each chapter of his novel, indicating the +situations, personages, dialogues, and so on. Thereupon the novel soon +assumes a definite form. Theuriet spends six hours a day at his +writing-desk, but always in the morning. He does not believe in night +work. In the afternoon he revises the work of the previous day. During +working hours the author drinks two cups of tea and smokes one or two +pipes of tobacco. Theuriet retires early in the evening, between ten +and eleven o'clock, and rises in the morning at a quarter before six. +This regular mode of life explains why the novelist is able to write so +much, and is a key to the productiveness which has astonished his +contemporaries. + +Paul Lindau, another German novelist, critic, and journalist, dictates a +great deal, sometimes without inclination, and sometimes after hasty +lead-pencil sketches. When he writes himself only one manuscript is +made. He incessantly smokes cigarettes while at work. Only when he has +labored uninterruptedly a long time does he refresh himself with coffee, +tea, wine, and water. As a rule, Lindau writes with ease. He declares +that dictating tires him out more than if he should write himself, but +by dictation he is enabled to do twice as much work as he could +otherwise accomplish. Generally, he writes for from four to five hours a +day, but sometimes he has spent ten or even eleven hours in literary +work. + +A. v. Winterfeld, the German humorist, devotes the day only to literary +work. His original manuscript is committed to the press, for he never +copies what he has written. He composes with great ease and swiftness, +and spends four hours a day at the writing-desk. + +Hector Malot, the Parisian novelist, makes an outline of his romances +beforehand, faintly indicating all important incidents of his work. He +does not take stimulating drinks, either when at work or when at rest; +with him the work itself acts as a stimulant. He rises at five o'clock +in the morning, and writes till eleven. After breakfast he takes a walk. +At two o'clock in the afternoon he resumes work and keeps at it until +seven o'clock in the evening; but he never composes at night. Nine +months of the year are devoted to literary labor, but the remaining +three months he spends in travel, study, and recreation. + +Victorien Sardou, the dramatist, writes his play twice; first on little +scraps of paper, then on foolscap. The first draft, when it is finished, +is a maze of alterations and delineations. + +Mezerai, the famous historian, used to study and write by candle-light, +even at noonday in summer, and, as if there had been no sun in the +world, always waited upon his company to the door with a candle in his +hand. + +"The method of Buckle, the historian," so says his biographer, "was +chiefly remarkable for careful, systematic industry, and punctilious +accuracy. His memory appeared to be almost faultless, yet he took as +much precaution against failure as if he dared not trust it. He +invariably read with "paper and pencil in his hand, making copious +references for future consideration. How laboriously this system was +acted upon can be appreciated only by those who have seen his +note-books, in which the passages so marked during his reading were +either copied or referred to under proper heads. Volume after volume was +thus filled, everything being written with the same precise neatness +that characterizes his manuscript for the press, and indexed with care, +so that immediate reference might be made to any topic. But, carefully +as these extracts and references were made, there was not a quotation in +one of the copious notes that accompanied his work that was not verified +by collation with the original from which it was taken." + +Joaquin Miller says that he has always been so poor, or, rather, has had +so many depending on his work, that he has "never been able to indulge +the luxury of habits," and that he has worked in a sort of +"catch-as-catch-can" way. Having been mostly on the wing since he began +writing, he has done his work in all kinds of ways, and hours, and +houses. However, now, since he has a little home, his life has become +regulated. He rises at daylight, so as to save candles, and never works +at night. After he has made and imbibed his coffee, he digs or pulls +weeds, and cultivates his flowers, or works in some way about the +greens, for an hour or so, and at length, when he feels compelled to +literary work, and can no longer keep from it, he writes whatever he +feels that he must set down; and then he writes only as long as he +feels impelled. Holding, as he does, that all modern authors think too +little and write too much, he never writes as long as he can keep from +it. He looks forward with hope and pleasure to the day when he shall be +able to stop writing entirely. As for stimulants, he never takes them. +Yet he often smokes a cigar about the greens before beginning work. But +he would be ill if he attempted to drink while writing. As for making an +outline of his work, he generally jots down a lot of sketches or +pictures, one each day; then he puts these together, and the play, poem, +or novel is finished. He works for from three to five hours every day, +then goes out till dinner time. He once lived in a rude log cabin, built +on an eminence overlooking the city of Washington, D. C. There his +latch-string was always out. He now lives near Oakland, Calif., not in +one cabin, but in three, each as rude as that of any settler in the +Sierras. + +George Manville Fenn, during a period of some eighteen years, has tried +a good many plans, with the result of settling down for the last twelve +or fourteen years to one alone. He prefers the daytime decidedly for +mental work, because the brain is fresh and vigorous from the rest of +the past few hours, and because the work produced is lighter and better +and can be sustained longer; and the writer is not exhausted when he +leaves his table. Brilliant work has often been done at night; but when +Fenn has made the trial he has found the results of a month's day-work +better, and there has been more in quantity. He invariably makes an +outline or skeleton of his work, and often with his story first in a +dramatic form, which, he thinks, adds much to the vigor and effect of a +tale. He is in the habit of using tobacco, but has never looked upon it +as a stimulus, regarding it rather as a soothing aid to reflection. He +dines early, so as to have the evenings free. The afternoon is spent in +work, a visit to town, or a chat with friends; he takes tea early,--at +six,--and afterward often writes for two or three hours. For years Mr. +Fenn has been trying to solve this problem: Why can one write easily and +fairly well one day, and have the next be almost a blank? After long +study and much musing, he has come to the determination that he knows +nothing whatever about it, and that the only thing to do is to lead as +quiet and temperate a life as one can. Of course, the stimulated and +excited brain will produce a few weird and powerful bits of work; but, +judging from what Mr. Fenn has seen, the loaded mind soon breaks down. + + + + +VII. + +Goethe, Dickens, Schiller, and Scott. + + +Goethe was a believer in the pleasant doctrine that the highest and +freest work can be done under the healthiest conditions of fresh air, +early hours, daylight, and temperance--which does not mean abstinence. +He and Balzac are at precisely opposite pales in their method of +working. Here is the account of Goethe's days at Weimar, according to G. +H. Lewes: He rose at seven. Till eleven he worked without interruption. +A cup of chocolate was then brought, and he worked on again till one. At +two he dined. His appetite was immense. Even on the days when he +complained of not being hungry, he ate much more than most men. He sat a +long while over his wine, chatting gayly; for he never dined alone. He +was fond of wine, and drank daily his two or three bottles. There was no +dessert--Balzac's principal meal--nor coffee. Then he went to the +theatre, where a glass of punch was brought to him at six, or else he +received friends at home. By ten o'clock he was in bed, where he slept +soundly. Like Thorwaldsen, he had a talent for sleeping. + +No man of business or dictionary maker could make a more healthy +arrangement of his hours. The five or six hours of regular morning work, +which left the rest of the day open for society and recreation, the +early habits, the full allowance of sleep, and the rational use of food +are in glaring contrast to Balzac's short and broken slumbers, his night +work, and his bodily starvation. Goethe differed from almost every other +great poet in not doing his greatest work at a white heat; and not only +so, but he differed also in constantly balancing his reasoning against +his creative faculties. Those long mornings of early work were not +always spent in the fever of creation. He was a physiologist, a +botanist, a critic; and the longer he lived, the more of a savant he +became, if not less of a poet. His imagination was most fertile before +he settled down into these regular ways, but not before he settled down +into a full appreciation of wine. Balzac would write the draft of a +whole novel at a sitting, and then develop it on the margins of proofs, +revises, and re-revises. Goethe acted as if while art is long, life were +long also. Till the contrary is proved, we must consistently hold that +Goethe was the philosopher before dinner-time, and the poet in the +theatre, or during those long after-dinner hours over his two or three +bottles of wine. That these later hours were often spent socially proves +nothing, one way or the other. Some men need such active influences as +their form of mental stimulus. Alfieri found, or made, his ideas while +listening to music or galloping on horseback. Instances are common in +every-day life of men who cannot think to good purpose when shut up in a +room with a pen, and who find their best inspiration in wandering about +the streets and hearing what they want in the rattle of cabs and the +seething of life around them, like the scholar of Padua, whose +conditions of work are given by Montaigne as a curiosity: "I lately +found one of the most learned men in France studying in the corner of a +room, cut off by a screen, surrounded by a lot of riotous servants. He +told me--and Seneca says much the same himself--that he worked all the +better for this uproar, as, if overpowered by noise, he was obliged to +withdraw all the more closely into himself for contemplation, while the +storm of voices drove his thoughts inward. When at Padua he had lodged +so long over the clattering of the traffic and the tumult of the +streets, that he had been trained not only to be indifferent to noise, +but even to require it for the prosecution of his studies." + +Goethe abominated smoking, though he was a German. Bayard Taylor says +that he tolerated the use of the pipe by Schiller and his sovereign, +Carl August, but otherwise he was very severe in denouncing it. Goethe +himself somewhere says that "with tobacco, garlic, bed-bugs, and +hypocrites he should wage perpetual war." + +We learn from Mr. Forster that "method in everything was Dickens' +peculiarity, and between breakfast and luncheon, with rare exceptions, +was his time of work. But his daily walks were less of rule than of +enjoyment and necessity. In the midst of his writing they were +indispensable, and especially, as it has been shown, at night." When he +had work on hand he walked all over the town furiously, and in all +weathers, to the injury of his health; and his walks, be it observed, +were frequently what Balzac's always were--at night; so that, in the +matter of hours, he must be taken as having conformed in some important +respects to Balzac's hygiene. Now, Goethe was also an essentially +out-of-doors man by nature--not one to let his pen do his imagining for +him. He was no slave of the ink-bottle, as some are, who cannot think +without the feather of a goose in their hands, by way of a sometimes +appropriate talisman. There is a well-known passage in one of the Roman +elegies to the effect that inspiration is to be sought more directly +than within the four walls of a study, and that the rhythm of the +hexameter is not best drummed with the fingers on a wooden table; and if +it is true, as the author tells, that "youth is drunkenness without +wine," it seems to follow, according to his experience, that those two +or three bottles of wine are not altogether needless as an aid to +inspiration when youth is gone by. + +Schiller could never leave off talking about his poetical projects, and +thus he discussed with Goethe all his best pieces, scene after scene. On +the other hand, it was contrary to Goethe's nature, as he told +Eckermann, to talk over his poetic plans with anybody--even with +Schiller. He carried everything about with him in silence, and usually +nothing of what he was doing was known to any one until the whole was +completed. + +Sir Walter Scott was one of the most industrious of writers. He rose +early, and accomplished a good day's literary work before half the world +was out of bed. Even when he was busiest, he seldom worked as late as +noon. His romances were composed with amazing rapidity; and it is an +astonishing fact, that in less than two weeks after his bankruptcy Scott +wrote an entire volume of "Woodstock." His literary labors yielded him +$50,000 a year. Two thousand copies of "The Lady of the Lake" were sold +within a few months. + +Many of the more energetic descriptions in "Marmion," and particularly +that of the battle of Flodden, were struck off, according to Mr. +Skene's account, while Scott was out with his cavalry, in the autumn of +1807. In the intervals of drilling, we are told, Scott used to delight +"in walking his powerful black steed up and down by himself upon the +Portobello sands, within the beating of the surge; and now and then you +would see him plunge in his spurs, and go off as if at the charge, with +the spray dashing about him. As we rode back to Musselburgh, he often +came and placed himself beside me, to repeat the verses that he had been +composing during these pauses of our exercise." + +In after years, Mr. Cadell, then a guest at Abbotsford, observing how +his host was harassed by lion-hunters, and what a number of hours he +spent daily in the company of his work-people, expressed his wonder that +Scott should ever be able to work at all while in the country. "Oh," +said Sir Walter, "I lie simmering over things for an hour or so before I +get up; and there's the time I'm dressing to overhaul my half-sleeping, +half-waking _projet de chapitre_, and when I get the paper before me, it +commonly runs off pretty easily. Besides, I often take a doze in the +plantations, and while Tom [Purdie] marks out a dyke or a drain as I +have directed, one's fancy may be running its ain rigs in some other +world." + +By far the greater portion of "The Bride of Lammermoor," the whole of +"The Legend of Montrose," and almost the whole of "Ivanhoe" were +dictated under the terrible stimulus of physical pain, which wrung +groans from the author between the words. The very two novels wherein +the creative power of the arch-master of romance shows itself most +strongly were composed in the midst of literal birth-throes. Laidlaw +would often beseech Sir Walter affectionately to stop dictating, when +his audible suffering filled every pause. It was then he made that +grimmest of all bad puns: "Nay, Willie," addressing Laidlaw, who wrote +for him and implored him to rest, "only see that the doors are fast. I +would fain keep all the cry, as well as all the wool, to ourselves; but +as to giving over work, that can be done only when I am in woollen." +John Ballantyne, his other faithful amanuensis, after the first day, +took care to have always a dozen of pens made before he seated himself +opposite the sofa on which Scott lay, the sufferer usually continuing +his sentence in the same breath, though he often turned himself on his +pillow with a groan of anguish. "But when a dialogue of peculiar +animation was in progress, spirit seemed to triumph altogether over +matter: he arose from his couch and walked up and down the room, raising +and lowering his voice, and, as it were, acting the parts." + +In this last particular we are reminded of the celebrated Russian +author, Gogol, whose practice it is said to have been in composing a +dialogue to recite all the different speeches in character before +committing them to paper, to assure himself of their being in complete +consonance with what the character and situation required. + +So far from affording any argument to the contrary, the history of the +years during which Sir Walter's hand was losing its cunning seems to +illustrate the penalty of trying to reconcile two irreconcilable +things--the exercise of the imagination to its fullest extent, and the +observance of conditions that are too healthy to nourish a fever. +Apropos of his review of Ritson's "Caledonian Annals," he himself says: +"No one that has not labored as I have done on imaginary topics can +judge of the comfort afforded by walking on all-fours, and being grave +and dull." There spoke the man who habitually, and without artificial +help, drew upon his imagination at the hours when instinct has told +others they should be employing, not their fancy, but their reason. The +privilege of being healthily dull before breakfast must have been an +intense relief to one who compelled himself to do unhealthy or abnormal +work without the congenial help of abnormal conditions. Herder, in like +manner, is accused by De Quincey, in direct terms, of having broken +down prematurely because he "led a life of most exemplary temperance. +Surely, if he had been a drunkard or an opium-eater, he might have +contrived to weather the point of sixty years." This is putting things +pretty strongly; but it is said of a man of great imaginative power by a +man of great imaginative power, and may, therefore, be taken as the +opinion of an expert, all the more honest because he is prejudiced. A +need must be strongly felt to be expressed with such daring contempt for +popular axioms. + +The true working-life of Scott, who helped nature by no artificial +means, lasted for no more than twelve years, from the publication of +"Waverley" until the year in which his genius was put into harness; so +that, of the two men, Scott and Balzac, who both began a literary life +at nearly the same age, and were both remarkable for splendid +constitutions, the man who lived abnormally surpassed the man who lived +healthily by fully eight years of good work, and kept his imagination in +full vigor to the end. + +It is amusing to read Sir Walter's candid avowal, when beginning the +third volume of "Woodstock," that he "had not the slightest idea how the +story was to be wound up to a catastrophe." He declares he never could +lay down a plan--or that, if he had laid one down, he never could stick +to it. "I tried only to make that which I was writing diverting and +interesting, leaving the rest to fate. This habnab at a venture is a +perilous style, I grant, but I cannot help it." + + + + +VIII. + +Burning Midnight Oil. + + +That night, and not morning, is most appropriate to imaginative work is +supported by a general consent among those who have followed instinct in +this matter. Upon this question, which can scarcely be called vexed, +Charles Lamb is the classical authority: "No true poem ever owed its +birth to the sun's light. The mild, internal light, that reveals the +fine shapings of poetry, like fires on the domestic hearth, goes out in +the sunshine. Milton's 'Morning Hymn in Paradise,' we would hold a good +wager, was penned at midnight, and Taylor's rich description of a +sunrise smells decidedly of a taper." "This view of evening and +candle-light," to quote his commentator, De Quincey, once more, "as +involved in the full delight of literature," may seem no more than a +pleasant extravaganza, and no doubt it is in the nature of such gayeties +to travel a little into exaggeration; but substantially it is certain +that Lamb's sincere feelings pointed habitually in the direction here +indicated. His literary studies, whether taking the color of tasks or +diversions, courted the aid of evening, which, by means of physical +weariness, produces a more luxurious state of repose than belongs to +the labor hours of day; they courted the aid of lamp-light, which, as +Lord Bacon remarked, "gives a gorgeousness to human pomps and pleasures, +such as would be vainly sought from the homeliness of day-light." Those +words, "physical weariness," if they do not contain the whole philosophy +of the matter, are very near it, and are, at all events, more to the +point than the quotation from Lord Bacon. They almost exactly define +that unnatural condition of the body which, on other grounds, appears to +be proper to the unnatural exercise of the mind. It will be remembered +that Balzac recommended the night for the artist's work, the day for the +author's drudgery. Southey, who knew as well as anybody who ever put pen +to paper how to work, and how to get the best and the most out of +himself, and who pursued the same daily routine through his whole +literary life, performed his tasks in the following order: From +breakfast till dinner, history, transcription for the press, and, in +general, all the work that Scott calls "walking on all-fours." From +dinner till tea, reading, letter-writing, the newspapers, and frequently +a siesta--he, also, was a heroic sleeper, and slept whenever he had the +chance. After tea, poetry, or whatever else his fancy chose--whatever +work called upon the creative power. It is true that he went to bed +regularly at half-past ten, so that his actual consumption of midnight +oil was not extravagant. But such of it as he did consume served as a +stimulant for the purely imaginative part of his work, when the labor +that required no stimulant was over and done. + +Blake was a painter by day and a poet by night; he often got out of bed +at midnight and wrote for hours, following by instinct the deliberate +practice of less impulsive workers. + +Schiller evolved his finest plays in a summer-house, which he built for +himself, with a single chamber, on the top of an acclivity near Jena, +commanding a beautiful prospect of the valley of the Saal and the fir +mountains of the neighboring forest. On sitting down to his desk at +night, says Döring, he was wont to keep some strong coffee or wine +chocolate, but more frequently a flask of old Rhenish or champagne, +standing by him: often the neighbors would hear him earnestly declaiming +in the silence of the night, and he might be seen walking swiftly to and +fro in his chamber, then suddenly throwing himself down into his chair +and writing, drinking at intervals from the glass that stood near him. +In winter he continued at his desk till four, or even five, o'clock in +the morning; in summer, till toward three. The "pernicious expedient of +stimulants" served only to waste the more speedily and surely, as Mr. +Carlyle says, his already wasted fund of physical strength. Schiller +used an artificial stimulus altogether peculiar to himself: he found it +impossible, according to the well-known anecdote, to work except in a +room filled with the scent of rotten apples, which he kept in a drawer +of his writing-table, in order to keep up his necessary mental +atmosphere. + +In the park at Weimar we have other glimpses of Schiller; frequently he +was to be seen there, wandering among the groves and remote +avenues,--for he loved solitary walks,--with a note-book in his hand; +now loitering along, now moving rapidly on; "if any one appeared in +sight, he would dart into another alley, that his dream might not be +broken." In Joerden's Lexicon we read that whatever Schiller intended to +write, he first composed in his head, before putting down a line of it +on paper; and he used to call a work "ready" so soon as its existence in +his spirit was complete: hence, there were often reports current of his +having finished such and such a work, when, in the common sense, it was +not even begun. + +Lord Byron was a late riser. He often saw the sun rise before he went to +bed. In his journals we frequently find such entries as these: "Got up +at two P. M., spent the morning," etc. He always wrote at night. While +he was the most brilliant star in London society, he was in the habit of +returning from balls, routs, the theatre, and opera, and then writing +for two or three hours before going to bed. In this way "The Corsair," +"Lara," "The Giaour," and "The Siege of Corinth" were composed. Byron +affords an illustration of a tendency to put himself out of working +condition in order to work the better. "At Disdati," says Moore, "his +life was passed in the same regular round of habits into which he +naturally fell." These habits included very late hours and +semi-starvation, the excessive smoking of cigars and chewing of tobacco, +and the drinking of green tea, without milk or sugar, in the evening. +Like Balzac, Byron avoided meat and wine, and so gave less natural +brain-food room for active play. + +The experience of P. K. Rosegger, the greatest novelist of Styria, whose +popular works are read not only in the palace, but also in the hut, is +contrary to that of most writers; he finds that with him lamp-light and +night-work are most conducive to literary fertility, and that he can +work with greater ease on dark, gloomy days than in fine weather. His +manuscripts are generally committed to the press as they were originally +composed, except for additions that fill the margins which the author +leaves for that purpose when writing. Poetry comes to him spontaneously +when he takes his exercise in the field or garden, so that all he has to +do when he gets home is to write it down; but he can compose prose only +at the writing-desk. After a rest of several days he writes with great +ease and velocity; in fact, writing is a necessity to him. On the +average, he writes three hours a day. He is often forced to write while +disinclined, to provide for the maintenance of a large family. + +George Parsons Lathrop thus speaks of the habits of work of Dr. William +A. Hammond, one of the more recent additions to our novel-writers: "Dr. +Hammond's habits of work are something which should interest all brain +laborers. At a moderately early hour in the morning he seats himself in +his consulting-room to receive patients, and he remains indoors until +two in the afternoon. Then he drives out and walks. On certain days he +has medical lectures to deliver. His spare time in the afternoon is +devoted to taking the air, reading, or diverting himself. After dinner +and any social recreation that may be in hand he sits down at his desk +again by ten or eleven o'clock, and writes until two in the morning. 'I +do it,' he says, 'because I like it. It amuses and refreshes me.' How he +manages to endure this constant sitting up is something of a marvel, +considering that so much of his energies must be consumed by +professional work. He seems to be always at leisure and unharassed, and +lives comfortably, not denying himself a reasonable portion of +stimulants and tobacco." + + + + +IX. + +Literary Partnership. + + +Literary partnerships are common in France, but in England they are +confined almost exclusively to dramatists. The one well-known exception +was that of Messrs. Besant and Rice. Mr. Rice's partnership with Mr. +Besant began in 1871, and ended with the death of Mr. Rice. "It arose," +explains Mr. Besant, "out of some slight articles which I contributed to +his magazine, and began with the novel called 'Ready-Money Mortiboy.' Of +this eleven years' fellowship and intimate, almost daily, intercourse, I +can say only that it was carried on throughout without a single shadow +of dispute or difference. James Rice was eminently a large-minded man, +and things which might have proved great rocks of offence to some, he +knew how to treat as the trifles they generally are." + +In France, the best example of literary partnership is found in that of +M. Erckmann and M. Chatrian. How these men worked in concert has been +described by the author of "Men of the Third Republic." "M. Chatrian is +credited with being the more imaginative of the two. The first outlines +of the plots are generally his, as also the love scenes, and all the +descriptions of Phalsbourg and the country around. M. Erckmann puts in +the political reflections, furnishes the soldier types, and elaborates +those plain speeches which fit so quaintly, but well, into the mouths of +his honest peasants, sergeants, watchmakers, and schoolmasters. A clever +critic remarked that Erckmann-Chatrian's characters are always hungry +and eating. The blame, if any, must lie on M. Chatrian's shoulders; to +his fancy belong the steaming tureens of soup, the dishes of browned +sausages and sauer-kraut, and the mounds of flowery potatoes, bursting +plethorically through their skins. All that M. Erckmann adds to the ménu +is the black coffee, of which he insists, with some energy, on being a +connoisseur. Habitually the co-authors meet to sketch out their plots +and talk them over amid much tobacco smoking. Then, when the story has +taken clear shape in their minds, one or the other of the pair writes +the first chapter, leaving blanks for the dialogues or descriptions +which are best suited to the competency of the other. Every chapter thus +passes through both writers' hands, is revised, recopied, and, as +occasion requires, either shortened or lengthened in the process. When +the whole book is written, both authors revise it again, and always with +a view to curtailment. Novelists who dash off six volumes of diluted +fiction in a year, and affect to think naught of the feat, would grow +pensive at seeing the labor bestowed by MM. Erckmann and Chatrian on the +least of their works, as well as their patient research in assuring +themselves that their historical episodes are correct, and their +descriptions of existing localities true to nature. But this careful +industry will have its reward, for the novels of MM. Erckmann and +Chatrian will live. The signs of vitality were discovered in them as +soon as the two authors, nerved by their first success, settled down and +produced one tale after another, all too slowly for the public demand. +'The Story of a Conscript,' 'Waterloo,' 'The History of a Man of the +People,' and, above all, 'The History of a Peasant,' were read with +wonder as well as interest." + + + + +X. + +Anonymity in Authorship. + + +The question of the authorship of certain popular works has given rise +to a great deal of speculation. A few years ago, it will be remembered, +we were puzzling our brains to discover the name of the author of "The +Breadwinners." Among other stinging charges against him, to induce him +to break the silence, was the fling that it was a base and craven thing +to publish a book anonymously. "My motive in withholding my name is +simple enough," said the unknown author to his furious critics. "I am +engaged in business in which my standing would be seriously compromised +were it known that I had written a novel. I am sure that my practical +efficiency is not lessened by this act, but I am equally sure that I +could never recover from the injury it would occasion me if known among +my own colleagues. For that positive reason, and for the negative one +that I do not care for publicity, I resolved to keep the knowledge of my +little venture in authorship restricted to as small a circle as +possible. Only two persons besides myself know who wrote 'The +Breadwinners.'" + +A far more serious dispute followed the publication of the "Vestiges of +Creation," forty years ago. The theologians of Scotland were wild with +rage at the audacity of the author, who would have been torn to pieces +almost had he been discovered. In scientific circles Robert Chambers was +credited with the authorship; and Henri Gréville seems to have had no +doubt upon the matter. In "Leaves from the Diary of Henri Gréville" +there is an entry under the date December 28, 1847, as follows: "I have +been reading a novel called 'Jane Eyre,' which is just now making a +great sensation, and which absorbed and interested me more than any +novel I can recollect having read. The author is unknown. Mrs. +Butler,--Miss Fannie Kemble,--who is greatly struck by the talent of the +book, fancies it is written by Chambers, who is the author of the +'Vestiges of Creation,' because she thinks that whoever wrote it must, +from its language, be a Scotchman, and from its sentiments be a +Unitarian; and Chambers, besides answering to all these peculiarities, +has an intimate friend who believes in supernatural agencies, such as +are described in the last volume of the book." Thackeray also had the +credit of the work. + +Nobody knew Charlotte Brontë; but she was unable to keep her secret very +long. The late R. H. Horne was present at that first dinner party given +by George Smith, the publisher, when Currer Bell, then in the first +flush of her fame, made her earliest appearance in a London dining-room. +She was anxious to preserve the anonymity of her literary character, and +was introduced by her true name. Horne, however, who sat next to her, +was so fortunate as to discover her identity. Just previously he had +sent to the new author, under cover of her publisher, a copy of his +"Orion." In an unguarded moment, Charlotte Brontë turned to him and +said:-- + +"I was so much obliged to you, Mr. Horne, for sending me your--" But she +checked herself with an inward start, having thus betrayed her Currer +Bell secret, by identifying herself with the author of "Jane Eyre." + +"Ah, Miss Brontë," whispered the innocent cause of the misfortune, "you +would never do for treasons and stratagems!" + +The late John Blackwood corresponded with George Eliot for some time +before he knew that she was a woman. He called her "Dear George," he +says, and often used expressions which a man commonly uses only to a +man. After he found out who "Dear George" was, he was naturally a little +anxious to recall some of the expressions he had used. Charles Dickens, +however, detected what escaped the observation of most people. Writing +to a correspondent in January, 1858, he said: "Will you, by such +roundabout ways and methods as may present themselves, convey this note +of thanks to the author of 'Scenes of Clerical Life,' whose two first +stories I can never say enough of, I think them so truly admirable. But, +if those two volumes, or a part of them, were not written by a woman, +then shall I begin to believe that I am a woman myself." + + + + +XI. + +System in Novel Writing. + + +Anthony Trollope was the most systematic of all the English novelists. +Sitting down at his desk, he would take out his watch and time himself. +His system is well known, but a singular explanation of his fertility +may be quoted: "When I have commenced a new book," he says, "I have +always prepared a diary divided into weeks, and carried it on for the +period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In +this I have entered day by day the number of pages I have written, so +that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the +record of that idleness has been there staring me in the face and +demanding of me increased labor, so that the deficiency might be +supplied. According to the circumstances of the time, whether any other +business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was +writing was or was not wanted with speed, I have allotted myself so many +pages a week. The average number has been about forty. It has been +placed as low as twenty and has risen to one hundred and twelve. And as +a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain two +hundred and fifty words, and as words, if not watched, will have a +tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went." + +Under the title of "A Walk in a Wood," Anthony Trollope thus describes +his method of plot-making and the difficulty the novelist experiences in +making the "tricksy Ariel" of the imagination do his bidding: "I have to +confess that my incidents are fabricated to fit my story as it goes on, +and not my story to fit my incidents. I wrote a novel once in which a +lady forged a will, but I had not myself decided that she had forged it +till the chapter before that in which she confesses her guilt. In +another a lady is made to steal her own diamonds, a grand _tour de +force_, as I thought; but the brilliant idea struck me only when I was +writing the page in which the theft is described. I once heard an +unknown critic abuse my workmanship because a certain lady had been made +to appear too frequently in my pages. I went home and killed her +immediately. I say this to show that the process of thinking to which I +am alluding has not generally been applied to any great effort of +construction. It has expended itself on the minute ramifications of +tale-telling: how this young lady should be made to behave herself with +that young gentleman; how this mother or that father would be affected +by the ill conduct or the good of a son or a daughter; how these words +or those other would be most appropriate or true to nature if used on +some special occasion. Such plottings as these with a fabricator of +fiction are infinite in number, but not one of them can be done fitly +without thinking. My little effort will miss its wished-for result +unless I be true to nature; and to be true to nature I must think what +nature would produce. Where shall I go to find my thoughts with the +greatest ease and most perfect freedom? + +"I have found that I can best command my thoughts on foot, and can do so +with the most perfect mastery when wandering through a wood. To be alone +is, of course, essential. Companionship requires conversation, for +which, indeed, the spot is most fit; but conversation is not now the +object in view. I have found it best even to reject the society of a +dog, who, if he be a dog of manners, will make some attempt at talking; +and though he should be silent, the sight of him provokes words and +caresses and sport. It is best to be away from cottages, away from +children, away as far as may be from chance wanderers. So much easier is +it to speak than to think, that any slightest temptation suffices to +carry away the idler from the harder to the lighter work. An old woman +with a bundle of sticks becomes an agreeable companion, or a little girl +picking wild fruit. Even when quite alone, when all the surroundings +seem to be fitted for thought, the thinker will still find a difficulty +in thinking. It is not that the mind is inactive, but that it will run +exactly whither it is not bidden to go. With subtle ingenuity, it will +find for itself little easy tasks, instead of setting itself down on +that which it is its duty to do at once. With me, I own, it is so weak +as to fly back to things already done, which require no more thinking, +which are, perhaps, unworthy of a place even in the memory, and to revel +in the ease of contemplating that which has been accomplished, rather +than to struggle for further performance. My eyes, which should become +moist with the troubles of the embryo heroine, shed tears as they call +to mind the early sorrow of Mr. ----, who was married and made happy +many years ago. Then, when it comes to this, a great effort becomes +necessary, or that day will for me have no results. It is so easy to +lose an hour in maundering over the past, and to waste the good things +which have been provided in remembering instead of creating! + +"But a word about the nature of the wood! It is not always easy to find +a wood, and sometimes when you have got it, it is but a muddy, plashy, +rough-hewn congregation of ill-grown trees,--a thicket rather than a +wood,--in which even contemplation is difficult, and thinking is out of +the question. He who has devoted himself to wandering in woods will +know at the first glance whether the place will suit his purpose. A +crowded undergrowth of hazel, thorn, birch, and elder, with merely a +track through it, will by no means serve the occasion. The trees around +you should be big and noble. There should be grass at your feet. There +should be space for the felled or fallen princes of the forest. A +roadway with the sign of wheels that have passed long since will be an +advantage, so long as the branches above your head shall meet or seem to +meet each other. I will not say that the ground should not be level, +lest by creating difficulties I shall seem to show that the fitting spot +may be too difficult to be found; but, no doubt, it will be an +assistance in the work to be done if occasionally you can look down on +the tops of the trees as you descend, and again look up to them as with +increasing height they rise high above your head. And it should be a +wood--perhaps a forest--rather than a skirting of timber. You should +feel that, if not lost, you are losable. To have trees around you is not +enough, unless you have many. You must have a feeling as of Adam in the +garden. There must be a confirmed assurance in your mind that you have +got out of the conventional into the natural, which will not establish +itself unless there be a consciousness of distance between you and the +next ploughed field. If possible, you should not know the east from the +west; or, if so, only by the setting of the sun. You should recognize +the direction in which you must return simply by the fall of water. + +"But where shall the wood be found? Such woodlands there are still in +England, though, alas! they are becoming rarer every year. Profit from +the timber merchant or dealer in fire-wood is looked to; or else, as is +more probable, drives are cut broad and straight, like spokes of a wheel +radiating to a nave or centre, good only for the purposes of the slayer +of multitudinous pheasants. I will not say that a wood prepared, not as +the home, but the slaughter-ground, of game, is altogether inefficient +for our purpose. I have used such, even when the sound of the guns has +been near enough to warn me to turn my steps to the right or to the +left. The scents are pleasant even in winter; the trees are there, and +sometimes even yet the delightful feeling may be encountered that the +track on which you are walking leads to some far-off, vague destination, +in reaching which there may be much of delight, because it will be +new;--something also of peril, because it will be distant. But the wood, +if possible, should seem to be purposeless. It should have no evident +consciousness of being there, either for game or fagots. The felled +trunk on which you sit should seem to have been selected for some +accidental purpose of house-building, as if a neighbor had searched for +what was wanting and had found it. No idea should be engendered that it +was let out at so much an acre to a contractor, who would cut the trees +in order and sell them in the next market. The mind should conceive that +this wood never had been planted by hands, but had come there from the +direct beneficence of the Creator--as the first woods did come, before +man had been taught to recreate them systematically, and as some still +remain to us, so much more lovely in their wildness than when reduced to +rows and quincunxes, and made to accommodate themselves to laws of +economy and order. + +"They will not come at once, those thoughts which are so anxiously +expected; and in the process of coming they are apt to be troublesome, +full of tricks, and almost traitorous. They must be imprisoned or bound +with thongs when they come, as was Proteus when Ulysses caught him +amidst his sea-calves,--as was done with some of the fairies of old, who +would, indeed, do their beneficent work, but only under compulsion. It +may be that your spirit should on an occasion be as obedient as Ariel; +but that will not be often. He will run backward,--as it were +downhill,--because it is so easy, instead of upward and onward. He will +turn to the right and to the left, making a show of doing fine work, +only not the work that is demanded of him that day. He will skip hither +and thither with pleasant, bright gambols, but will not put his shoulder +to the wheel, his neck to the collar, his hand to the plough. Has my +reader ever driven a pig to market? The pig will travel on freely, but +will always take the wrong turning; and then, when stopped for the tenth +time, will head backward and try to run between your legs So it is with +the tricksy Ariel,--that Ariel which every man owns, though so many of +us fail to use him for much purpose; which but few of us have subjected +to such discipline as Prospero had used before he had brought his +servant to do his bidding at the slightest word. + +"But at last I feel that I have him, perhaps by the tail, as the +Irishman drives his pig. When I have got him I have to be careful that +he shall not escape me till that job of work be done. Gradually, as I +walk or stop, as I seat myself on a bank or lean against a tree, perhaps +as I hurry on waving my stick above my head, till, with my quick motion, +the sweatdrops come out upon my brow, the scene forms itself for me. I +see, or fancy that I see, what will be fitting, what will be true, how +far virtue may be made to go without walking upon stilts, what +wickedness may do without breaking the link which binds it to humanity, +how low ignorance may grovel, how high knowledge may soar, what the +writer may teach without repelling by severity, how he may amuse without +descending to buffoonery; and then the limits of pathos are searched and +words are weighed which shall suit, but do no more than suit, the +greatness or the smallness of the occasion. We, who are slight, may not +attempt lofty things, or make ridiculous with our little fables the +doings of the gods. But for that which we do there are appropriate terms +and boundaries which may be reached, but not surpassed. All this has to +be thought of and decided upon in reference to those little plottings of +which I have spoken, each of which has to be made the receptacle of +pathos or of humor, of honor or of truth, as far as the thinker may be +able to furnish them. He has to see, above all things, that in his +attempts he shall not sin against nature; that in striving to touch the +feelings he shall not excite ridicule; that in seeking for humor he does +not miss his point; that in quest of honor and truth he does not become +bombastic and straitlaced. A clergyman in his pulpit may advocate an +altitude of virtue fitted to a millennium here or to a heaven hereafter; +nay, from the nature of his profession, he must do so. The poet, too, +may soar as high as he will, and if words suffice to him, he need never +fear to fail because his ideas are too lofty. But he who tells tales in +prose can hardly hope to be effective as a teacher, unless he binds +himself by the circumstances of the world which he finds around him. +Honor and truth there should be, and pathos and humor, but he should so +constrain them that they shall not seem to mount into nature beyond the +ordinary habitations of men and women. + +"Such rules as to construction have probably been long known to him. It +is not for them he is seeking as he is roaming listlessly or walking +rapidly through the trees. They have come to him from much observation, +from the writings of others, from that which we call study, in which +imagination has but little immediate concern. It is the fitting of the +rules to the characters which he has created, the filling in with living +touches and true colors those daubs and blotches on his canvas which +have been easily scribbled with a rough hand, that the true work +consists. It is here that he requires that his fancy should be +undisturbed, that the trees should overshadow him, that the birds should +comfort him, that the green and yellow mosses should be in unison with +him, that the very air should be good to him. The rules are there +fixed,--fixed as far as his judgment can fix them,--and are no longer a +difficulty to him. The first coarse outlines of his story he has found +to be a matter almost indifferent to him. It is with these little +plottings that he has to contend. It is for them that he must catch his +Ariel and bind him fast, but yet so bind him that not a thread shall +touch the easy action of his wings. Every little scene must be arranged +so that--if it may be possible--the proper words may be spoken and the +fitting effect produced. + +"Alas! with all these struggles, when the wood has been found, when all +external things are propitious, when the very heavens have lent their +aid, it is so often that it is impossible! It is not only that your +Ariel is untrained, but that the special Ariel which you may chance to +own is no better than a rustic hobgoblin or a pease-blossom, or mustard +seed at the best. You cannot get the pace of the racehorse from a +farmyard colt, train him as you will. How often is one prompted to fling +one's self down in despair, and, weeping between the branches, to +declare that it is not that the thoughts will wander, it is not that the +mind is treacherous! That which it can do, it will do; but the pace +required from it should be fitted only for the farmyard. Nevertheless, +before all be given up, let a walk in the wood be tried." + +Much has been said about the quality of Mr. Trollope's work. There seems +a consensus of opinion that it degenerated. "Mr. Trollope," says Mr. +Freeman, "had certainly gone far to write himself out. His later work is +far from being so good as his earlier. But, after all, his worst work is +better than a great many other people's best; and considering the way in +which it was done, it is wonderful that it was done at all. I, myself, +know what fixed hours of work are, and their value; but I could not +undertake to write about William Rufus or Appius Claudius up to a +certain moment on the clock, and to stop at that moment. I suppose it +was from his habits of official business that Mr. Trollope learned to do +it, and every man undoubtedly knows best how to do his own work. Still, +it is strange that works of imagination did not suffer by such a way of +doing." + +James Payn said that Trollope injured his reputation by publishing his +methods of writing. Likewise, the _Daily News_, in referring to Alphonse +Daudet's history of his own novels, doubted whether he acted wisely. As +the editor said, "An effect of almost too elaborate art, a feeling that +we are looking at a mosaic painfully made up of little pieces picked out +of real life and fitted together, has often been present to the +consciousness of M. Daudet's readers. That feeling is justified by his +description of his creative efforts." + +M. Daudet's earlier works were light and humorous, like "Tartarin," or +they were idyllic and full of Provençal scenery, the nature and the +nightingales of M. Daudet's birthplace, the south. One night at the +theatre, when watching the splendid failure of an idyllic Provençal sort +of play, M. Daudet made up his mind that he must give the public sterner +stuff, and describe the familiar Parisian scenery of streets and quais. +This wise determination was the origin of his novels, "Jack," "Fromont +jeune et Risler ainé," and the rest. Up to that time, M. Daudet, M. +Zola, M. Flaubert, and the brothers Goncourt had all been more or less +unpopular authors. It is not long since they had a little club of the +unsuccessful, and M. Daudet was the first of the company who began to +blossom out into numerous editions. + +M. Daudet's secret as a novelist, as far as the secret is communicable, +seems to be his wonderfully close study of actual life and his +unscrupulousness in reproducing its details almost without disguise. He +frankly confesses that not only the characters in his political novels, +but those in his other works, are drawn straight from living persons. +The scenery is all sketched from nature, M. Daudet describing the vast +factories with which he was familiar when, at the age of sixteen, he +began to earn his own living, or the interiors to which he was admitted +by virtue of his position under a great man of the late imperial +administration. Places about which he did not know much, and which +needed to be introduced into his tales, M. Daudet visited with his +note-book. + +M. Daudet's mode of work is, first, to see his plot and main incidents +clearly, to arrive at a full understanding of his characters, then to +map out his chapters, and then, he says, his fingers tingle to be at +work. He writes rapidly, handing each wet slip of paper to Madame Daudet +for criticism and approval. There is no such sound criticism, he says, +as that of this helpful collaborator, who withal is "so little a woman +of letters." + +When a number of chapters are finished M. Daudet finds it well to begin +publishing his novel in a journal. Thus he is obliged to finish within a +certain date; he cannot go back to make alterations; he cannot afford +time to write a page a dozen times over, as a conscientious artist often +wishes to do. + + + + +XII. + +Traits of Musical Composers. + + +A long chapter of instances might be penned on the habits of work of +musical composers; such as Gluck's habit of betaking himself with his +harpsichord on a fine day into some grassy field, where the ideas came +to him as fast again as within doors. + +Handel, on the contrary, claims to have been inspired for his grandest +compositions by the murmurous din of mighty London,--far from mighty as +the London of George the Second may seem to those with whom the +nineteenth century is waning. + +Sarti composed best in the sombre shadows of a dimly-lighted room. + +The Monsieur Le Maître commemorated in Rousseau's autobiography typified +a numerous section in his constant recourse, _en travaillant dans son +cabinet_, to a bottle, which was replenished as often as emptied, and +that was too often by a great deal. His servant, in preparing the room +for him, would no more have thought of omitting _son pot et son verre_ +than his ruled paper, ink, pens, and violoncello; and one serving did +for these,--not so for the drink. + +The learned artist Haydn could not work except in court-dress, and used +to declare that, if, when he sat down to his instrument, he had +forgotten to put on a certain ring, he could not summon a single idea. +How he managed to summon ideas before Frederick II. had given him the +said ring we are not informed. + +Charles Dibdin's method of composition, or, rather, the absence of it, +is illustrated in the story of his lamenting his lack of a new subject +while under the hair-dresser's hand in a cloud of powder, at his rooms +in the Strand, preparing for his night's "entertainment." The friend who +was with him suggested various topics, but all of a sudden the jar of a +ladder sounded against the lamp-iron, and Dibdin exclaimed, "The +lamp-lighter, a good notion," and at once began humming and fingering on +his knee. As soon as his head was dressed he stepped to the piano, +finished off both music and words, and that very night sang "Jolly Dick, +the Lamplighter," at the theatre, nor could he, we are assured on +critical authority, well have made a greater hit if the song had been +the deliberate work of two authors--one of the words, another of the +air--and had taken weeks to finish it, and been elaborated in studious +leisure instead of the distraction of dressing-room din. + + + + +XIII. + +The Hygiene of Writing. + + +Edward Everett Hale gives the following description of his mode of life, +which at the same time is full of advice to authors in general:-- + +"The business of health for a literary man seems to me to depend largely +upon sleep. He should have enough sleep, and should sleep well. He +should avoid whatever 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 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, according +to me, should be light and pleasant, as music, a novel, reading aloud, +conversation, the theatre, or watching the stars from the piazza. Of +course, different men make and need different rules. I take nine hours +for sleep in every twenty-four, and do not object to ten. + +"I accepted very early in life Bulwer's estimate that three hours a day +is as large an average of desk work as a man of letters should try for. +I have, in old newspaper days, written for twelve consecutive hours; but +this is only a _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 the telephone interrupting when +they choose, and this fool and that coming in when they choose to say, +'I do not want to interrupt you; I will only take a moment,' the great +difficulty is to hold your three hours without a break. If a man has +broken my mirror, I 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 a fool comes in and breaks my time in two, he may stay +if he wants to; he is none the less a fool. What I want for work is +unbroken time. This is best secured early in the morning. + +"I dislike early rising as much as any man, nor do I believe there is +any moral merit in it, as the children's books pretend; but to secure an +unbroken hour, or even less, I like to be at my desk before breakfast. +As long before as possible I have a cup of coffee and a soda biscuit +brought me there, and in the thirty to sixty minutes which follow before +breakfast, I like to start the work of the day. If you rise at a quarter +past six, there will be comparatively few map pedlers, or book agents, +or secretaries of charities, or jailbirds, who will call before eight. +The hour from 6.30 to 7.30 is that of which you are most sure. Even the +mother-in-law or the mother of your wife's sister's husband does not +come then to say that she should like some light work with a large +salary as matron in an institution where there is nothing to do. + +"I believe in breakfast very thoroughly, and in having a good breakfast. +I have lived in Paris a month at a time and detest the French practice +of substituting for breakfast a cup of coffee, with or without an egg. +Breakfast is a meal at which much time may be spent with great +advantage. People are not apt to come to it too regularly, and you may +profit by the intermission to read your newspaper and lecture on its +contents. There's 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 a sofa and read, in general, 'loaf' for that hour, +and bid the servant keep out everybody who rings the bell, and work +steadily till your day's stint is done. If you have had half an hour +before breakfast, you can make two hours and a half now. + +"It is just so much help if you have a good amanuensis; none, if you +have a poor one. The amanuensis should have enough else to do, but be +at liberty to attend to you when you need. Write as long as you feel +like writing; the moment you do not feel like it, give him the pen and +walk up and down the room dictating. There are those who say that they +can tell the difference between dictated work and work written by the +author. I do not believe them. I will give a share in the Combination +Protoxide Silver Mine of Grey's Gulch to anybody who will divide this +article correctly between the parts which I dictated and those which are +written with my own red right hand. + +"Stick to your stint till it is done. If Philistines come in, as they +will in a finite world, deduct the time which they have stolen from you +and go on so much longer with your work till you have done what you set +out to do. + +"When you have finished the stint, stop. Do not be tempted to go on +because you are in good spirits for work. There is no use in making +ready to be tired to-morrow. You may go out of doors now, you may read, +you may in whatever way get light and life for the next day. Indeed, if +you will remember that the first necessity for literary work is that you +have something ready to say before you begin, you will remember +something which most authors have thoroughly forgotten or never knew. + +"This business of writing is the most exhausting known to men. You +should, therefore, steadily feed the machine with fuel. I find it a +good habit to have standing on the stove a cup of warm milk, just tinged +in color with coffee. In the days of my buoyant youth I said, 'of the +color of the cheek of a brunette in Seville.' I had then never seen a +brunette in Seville; but I have since, and I can testify that the +description was good. Beef tea answers as well; a bowl of chowder quite +as well as either. Indeed, good clam chowder is probably the form of +nourishment which most quickly and easily comes to the restoration or +refreshment of the brain of man. + +"If this bowl of coffee, or chowder, or soup is counted as one meal, the +working man who wishes to keep in order will have five meals a day, +besides the morning cup of coffee, or of coffee colored with milk, which +he has before breakfast. Breakfast is one; this extended lunch is +another; dinner is the third, say at half-past two; tea is the fourth, +at six or seven; and, what is too apt to be forgotten, a sufficient +supper before bedtime is the fifth. This last may be as light as you +please, but let it be sufficient,--a few oysters, a slice of hot toast, +clam chowder again, or a bowl of soup. Never go to bed in any danger of +being hungry. People are kept awake by hunger quite as much as by a bad +conscience. + +"Remembering that sleep is the essential force with which the whole +scheme starts, decline tea or coffee within the last six hours before +going to bed. If the women kind insist, you may have your milk and water +at the tea-table, colored with tea; but the less the better. + +"Avoid all mathematics or intricate study of any sort in the last six +hours. This is the stuff dreams are made of, and hot heads, and the +nuisances of waking hours. + +"Keep your conscience clear. Remember that because the work of life is +infinite you cannot do the whole of it in any limited period of time, +and that, therefore, you may just as well leave off in one place as +another. + +"No work of any kind should be done in the hour after dinner. After any +substantial meal, observe, you need all your vital force for the +beginning of digestion. For my part, I always go to sleep after dinner +and sleep for exactly an hour, if people will only stay away; and I am +much more fond of the people who keep away from me at that time than I +am of the people who visit me." + + + + +XIV. + +A Humorist's Regimen. + + +Robert Barr (whose pseudonym, "Luke Sharp," is familiar to the readers +of the _Detroit Free Press_) has written an article on "How a Literary +Man Should Live," which may be cited in conclusion:-- + +"I am not," he says, "an advocate of early rising. I believe, however, +that every literary man should have fixed hours for getting up. I am +very firm with myself on that score. I make it a rule to rise every +morning in winter between the hours of six and eleven, and in summer +from half-past five until ten. A person is often tempted to sleep later +than the limit I tie myself to, but a little resolution with a person's +self at first will be amply repaid by the time thus gained, and the +feeling one has of having conquered a tendency to indolence. I believe +that a literary man can get all the sleep he needs between eight o'clock +at night and eleven in the morning. I know, of course, that some eminent +authorities disagree with me, but I am only stating my own experience in +the matter, and don't propose to enter into any controversy about it. + +"On rising I avoid all stimulating drinks, such as tea or coffee. They +are apt to set the brain working, and I object to work, even in its most +disguised forms. A simple glass of hot Scotch, say half a pint or so, +serves to tide over the period between getting up and breakfast-time. +Many literary men work before breakfast, but this I regard as a very +dangerous habit. I try to avoid it, and so far have been reasonably +successful. I rest until breakfast-time. This gives the person a zest +for the morning meal. + +"For breakfast the simplest food is the best. I begin with oyster stew, +then some cold chicken, next a few small lamb chops and mashed potatoes, +after that a good-sized beefsteak and fried potatoes, then a rasher of +bacon with fried eggs (three), followed by a whitefish or two, the meal +being completed with some light, wholesome pastry, mince pie for +preference. Care should be taken to avoid tea or coffee, and I think a +word of warning ought to go forth against milk. The devastation that +milk has wrought among literary men is fearful to contemplate. They +begin, thinking that if they find it is hurting them, they can break +off, but too often before they awaken to their danger the habit has +mastered them. I avoid anything at breakfast except a large tumbler of +brandy, with a little soda water added to give it warmth and strength. + +"No subject is of more importance to the literary aspirant than the +dividing of the hours of work. I divide the hours just as minutely as I +can, and then take as few of the particles as possible. I owe much of my +success in life to the fact that I never allow work to interfere with +the sacred time between breakfast and dinner. That is devoted to rest +and thought. Much comfort can be realized during these hours by thinking +what a stir you would make in the literary world if you could hire a man +like Howells for five dollars a week to do your work for you. Such help, +I find, is very difficult to obtain, and yet some people hold that the +labor market is overcrowded. The great task of the forenoon should be +preparation for the mid-day meal. The thorough enjoyment of this meal +has much to do with a man's success in this life. + +"Of course, I do not insist that a person should live like a hermit. +Because he breakfasts frugally, that is no reason why he should not dine +sumptuously. Some people dine at six and merely lunch at noon. Others +have their principal meal in the middle of the day, and have a light +supper. There is such merit in both these plans that I have adopted +both. I take a big dinner and a light lunch at noon, and a heavy dinner +and a simple supper in the evening. A person whose brain is constantly +worried about how he can shove off his work on somebody else has to have +a substantial diet. The bill of fare for dinner should include +everything that abounds in the market--that the literary man can get +trusted for. + +"After a good rest when dinner is over, remain quiet until supper-time, +so that the brain will not be too much agitated for the trials that come +after that meal. + +"I am a great believer in the old adage of 'early to bed.' We are apt to +slight the wisdom of our forefathers; but they knew what they were about +when they advised early hours. I always get to bed early,--say two or +three in the morning. I do not believe in night work. It is rarely of a +good quality. The brain is wearied with the exertions of the day and +should not be overtaxed. Besides, the time can be put in with less +irksomeness at the theatre, or in company with a lot of congenial +companions who avoid the stimulating effects of tea, coffee, and milk. +Tobacco, if used at all, should be sparingly indulged in. I never allow +myself more than a dozen cigars a day; although, of course, I +supplement this with a pipe. + +"When do I do my literary work? Why, next day, of course." + + + + +THE WRITER + + +is a monthly magazine to interest and help all literary workers. It was +started in 1887, and is now (1894) in its seventh volume. THE WRITER is +unique--the only magazine in the world devoted solely to explaining the +practical details of literary work. 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If the author +wishes the Bureau to act as selling agent, and the manuscript is found +to be worth work in that line, the author will be required to make a +postage deposit of an amount sufficient to pay the cost of mailing the +manuscript to and from six or seven publishers, with an additional +charge of ten cents for each time that the manuscript is sent out, to +cover expense of registration, stationery, etc. When the manuscript is +sold, any unexpended balance of the postage deposit will be returned to +the author, together with 75 per cent. of the amount received from the +publisher, the Bureau retaining 25 per cent. as its commission. The +Bureau will not assume responsibility for loss or damage during handling +or transmission of manuscripts, or for the failure of publishers to make +payment, but every precaution will be taken to prevent loss. Address:-- + + THE WRITER'S LITERARY BUREAU, + 282 Washington st. (Rooms 9 and 10), + P. O. Box 1905. Boston, Mass. + + + + +WRITING FOR THE PRESS: + + + =A Manual for Editors, Reporters, Correspondents, and + Printers.= By ROBERT LUCE. Fourth edition (seventh + thousand); revised and greatly enlarged. 96 pp. Cloth, + $1.00. + +"Writing for the Press" is a practical handbook of the art of newspaper +writing, written by a practical newspaper man. There is no "padding" in +it; almost every line contains a useful hint or suggestion about the +proper preparation of newspaper "copy," and a wonderful amount of +information of use to writers is crowded into its carefully-written +pages. The work is the result of the practical experience of the author +as desk editor on the _Boston Globe_, and was written in the main from +notes made while handling MS. there and elsewhere. + +Four editions of "Writing for the Press" have been required. For each +edition the work has been revised and enlarged, so that it has grown +from forty-two to ninety-six pages,--yet, it is believed, without the +addition of a useless sentence. New matter has been added partly to make +the book more useful to newspaper writers, and partly to bring within +its scope all other writers. Therefore, those who bought copies of +earlier editions will find it desirable to buy copies of the fourth +edition as well. + +That literary workers of every class will find "Writing for the Press" +exceedingly helpful, both for study and for reference, is shown by these +subject-headings: The Preparation of Copy; How to Write Clearly; +Grammar, Good and Bad; Use and Misuse of Common Words and Phrases (with +several hundred examples); Mixed Metaphors; Slang; The Use of Titles; +Puzzling Plurals; Condensation; Points on Proof-reading; Addressing +Editors; Getting into Print, etc. The book is one that every writer +should keep upon his desk for constant reference and study. + +Newspaper editors, who are naturally the best judges of the value of +such a work, all commend Mr. Luce's book. For instance, the _Boston +Advertiser_ says of it: "It is a remarkably compact and useful little +manual, full of the wisest and most practical suggestions in regard to +the mechanical requirements for the proper preparation of manuscript; +the right use of doubtful and frequently misused words; punctuation; +matters of style; and errors of arrangement." The _Critic_ says: "It is +full of sound advice and practical suggestions." + +Quantities of the book have been bought by the managers of leading daily +newspapers for distribution among their editors, reporters, and +correspondents,--among others by the _Boston Herald_, _Globe_, +_Journal_, and _Transcript_, the _New York World_, and the _Chicago +News_. Special rates will be made to newspaper managers on quantities +for distribution in this way. + +The new edition of "Writing for the Press" is handsomely bound in cloth, +and will be sent, post-paid, on receipt of price, ONE DOLLAR. Address:-- + + THE WRITER PUBLISHING CO., + P. O. Box 1905, Boston, Mass. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + + Unmatched quotation marks in the first paragraph on Page 117, + beginning with--"The method of Buckle,"--have been left as they + appear in the original publication. + + Hyphenation too has been retained as in the original publication. + + Changes have been made as follows: + + Page 10 + + Such was the little feathery wand, _changed to_ + "Such was the little feathery wand, + + Page 39 + + Influence Upon Writers _changed to_ + Influence upon Writers + + Page 51 + + Writing Under Difficulties _changed to_ + Writing under Difficulties + + Page 56 + + Cette puissance de concen tration _changed to_ + Cette puissance de concentration + + Page 63 + + solved by Jean Jaques. His strength was not _changed to_ + solved by Jean Jacques. His strength was not + + Page 64 + + without using paunce or blotting-paper, to blot _changed to_ + without using pounce or blotting-paper, to blot + + Page 95 + + accustomed as a journalist There was so _changed to_ + accustomed as a journalist. There was so + + Page 112 + + Berlin newpapers, has to struggle hard at first _changed to_ + Berlin newspapers, has to struggle hard at first + + Page 120 + + musing, he has come to the detemination that _changed to_ + musing, he has come to the determination that + + Page 126 + + Abbotsford, observing how his host was harrassed _changed to_ + Abbotsford, observing how his host was harassed + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Methods of Authors, by Hugo Erichsen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK METHODS OF AUTHORS *** + +***** This file should be named 32328-8.txt or 32328-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/3/2/32328/ + +Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +generously made available by The Internet Archive/American +Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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