WRITING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1135, 1 February 1884, Page 4

WRITING UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

M. Jules Claretie, in his oauserie in ‘ ‘ Le Temps’ gives a pathetically inter- • esting anecdote of the elder Dumas, whose statue-is so soon to be inaugurated. One night hie son, the future - author of the “Demi Monde,” who' was staying with his father at a farmchouse, and occupying a -.small room > nut to his, heard*, noise, and going ■ in, found lis parent walking op and • dosrn hia straitened qpartsaent in evident pain. “Wfaat.ii the matter?’ lie asked. You can aea,” returned his father, “.’I am taking a walk?” Are yen unwell then I” inquired the ; eea. “'lt is nothing new,”he replied -■with a groan, “ I suffer these inter, i nal pains nearly ©very nighc.”’ “ But '"why do >you not get advice about ’ ■then!?” “ They are incurable” ‘ And '-will nothing relieve you ?" “ Nothing’! '’When lam seized like this T get up ;-and--pace the room as you see When »it >is -unusually • bad I read.” 'And when it is almost i insupportable’?” asked his son. *' Why then?’ returned his father -with a -characteristic gesture, “I -write !,’ And so it seems was the fact. For 14 years, dining which time Dumas pere was cursed by these re--current spasms of the bowels, he wrote 'many of his most-am using audvfamous works, being the nvhile in such agony ■vthat he often wrote with his -right •‘hand and with his left he tided to re. : dieve by -pressure the anguish of the .-attack. This sad fact will invest tone’s next perusal of “ Les Trois Monsqnetaires,” which was one of the -books written under the above circumstances, with a new and almost jpatheliic interest— Figaro.