HOW MEN OF GENIUS WROTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 49

HOW MEN OF GENIUS WROTE.

Carlyle has described genius as being " an infinite capacity for taking pains," and in no instance is this illustration more strikingly shown than in the MSS. of authors who have earned undying fame. Those writers whose works live for a generation and not for an age may find it possible to write a threevolume novel without an effort.

Journalists whose daily bread depends upon the- amount of " copy " they produce can cover reams of paper, with matter more or less passable, and the lady writers of ephemeral literature can write folio after folio of manuscript in the 1 most beautiful caligraphy without so much as an erasure. But with those writers who have written anything of an enduring nature it is different. Their " copy " is a revelation to their admirers, and is in itself a potent witness to the patient labour bestowed upon every atom of their work. So naturally do the incidents i& all great novels appear to arise, and so obviously does one scene seem to suggest another, that one cannot think otherwise but that they were unfalteringly written periods of inspiration. Oxi tha contrary, that which appears to be the outcome of inspiration i 3 the-work of untiring perseverance and unceasing toil. Situations" which read so vividly and *eal, "plots which appear to unfold themselves, and dialogues which seem to have fallen trippingly off the pen, have taken an amount of labour to create difficult to conceive. Great authors certainly had their moments of inspiration, but it cost them hours of wearisome labour to bring them to psrfection.

Charles Dickens, the great English novelist, is a case in point. Perhaps, of all others, his novels seem to be the outcome of a mind laden with pathos, humour, and keen powers of observation. Curiously enough, the passages in his works which seem to the reader to be most spontaneous are in his copy the most laboured. Lic.es are erased and amended. Sentence after sentence ia delated and rewritten. I Phrases ara gone over again and agaid until ■ he caught; the spirit of the idea formed hi his i mind. Words are substituted for others more to the taste of the author. Paragraphs are lengthened or shortened, until the whole a Chinese puzzle or a screed o£ ! hieroglyphics. William Makepeace Thackeray, the famous I satirist and Dickens's contemporary, was another instance c?. a great writer who believed that fame could only be achieved by extreme care. His proofs at times were covered with emendations, and revise after revise was made before he allowed his works to go to press. Even Lord Macaulay, the famous historian", whose gifts of memory and wealth of language were remarkable, had a difficulty iv producing copy to his own satisfaction. He was precise even to the choice of words, frequently altering until he hit upon i thoas which, to his mind, conveyed best the j sense of the subject he was writing upon. I The manuscripts of Sir Walter Scott, the J i Wizard of the North, bear traces of the methodical habits inculcated during his ; legal apprenticeship. The words are written closely together, as in all legal'documentp, to prevent the possibility of any interpolation. It does not follow, however, that because the j MS. bears the impression of being written j without any apparent effort he had the rare j gift; of being able to write a powerful novel I off-hand. " j

The great author, no doubt, thought each chapter carefully out before setting pen to paper, and all that remained for him to do was to write from the sketch which he had inwardly prepared. This practice stood him in good stead in after years when, through illness, he was forced to dictate his novels to an avnuensfs.

The elder Dumas is accredited with having been able to write in much the same manner as Sir Walter Scott. But then the Frenchman's works bear evidence of having been clumsily written, some of the details in his novels beiisg not only inaccurate, but strikingly grotesque. There is also a doubt as to whether he wrote half of the works attributed to him, so many assisting him in their preparation. Tfce Sage of Chelsea, Thomas Carlyle, believed ia his own estimate of genius, for he allowed no literary matter to pass out of his hands which he thought could be improved upon. He was careful to an extreme, and spared no effort to put forth his beet work. So ponderous were the alterations on his proofs thai his publishers found it cheaper to set the type afresh than to go to the expense of carrying out his corrections.

An amusing story is told in connection with his z*al for altering. An old Scotch compositor had been employed in an Edinburgh publishing house on one of Carlyle's books, and to escape from it ha obtained work with a London firm. As it happened, the London firm had just been commissioned to print one of Carlyle'e works, and as a natural consequence the first piece of copy the new typesetter received to Bet was that of his old enemy. "Have you that mon's capy here?" he complained to the foreman. " Aweel, I'm doubting you'll ever get thro 1 it. He cows the warld' for changing. He'll alter, alter, alter, till ye are altered altered in mind and body. I'll has no mair o1o 1 it. I'm off, dee ye ken ? "

With that he took his departure, leaving the other unhappy " compa " to unravel the philosopher's copy. Thomas Moore, the Irish poet, whose bewitching verse one would think was written with as much ease as it reads, had often a severe struggle to weave poetic fancies into melodic verse. His manuscript bears evidence of extreme care, and in some instances merciless alteration. Starjzas and verses are in some cases entirely discarded and written afresh, until the spirit of the inspiring muse is reflected in the words he has written. Even in proof form his words are altered and changed to euch an extent that only the bare skeleton of the original draft remained when the work reached the press.

Lord Byron, his groat friend and admirer, on the other hand, was extremely careless in hjsjsrodactions. most of hie work aj?p,ea.riog

in print just as it was first wftfcfcen. He never ceased, however, to upbraid himself for not exorcising more care in the revision of his poetical productions. Indeed, he is said to have accused himself- of having to a great extent sullied the English language by his want of care in preparing his poems.

A scrutiny of the 'manuscripts of our great writer proves beyond all doubt that hardly any writer of eminence has written with facility, and only patient labour has given to the world the masterpiece of literature.