Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1874-07-03
5fliscellamu.
Wretched Writers.

/ w SathoNh Ah oOhuO b1 uhotOhb-
iness of hand arising from some physical
defect, but too commonly il arises from
over haste, nervousness, or utter con.
tempt of intelligibility. To willfully
write letter so badly that no ordinary
mortal can read it, is nothing short of
an impertinence. The same may be
said Of unintelligible signatures. A fam
tastic way of signing names is one Of
the most miserable of all affectations
We sometimes receive letters with a
name signed like an entangled puzzle,
and can only reply by cutting it out
and sticking it to the back of our letter,
leaving the postman to discover who is
meant.
Literature past and present gives in
Vulnerable anecdotes of wretched writ
ers. A fair correspondent of George
Selwyn, while pleading pain in the
hand in excuse for writing more in ci-
pher than usual. frankly confesses she
never could write. Lady Susan eck's
inability to use pen to good purpose
may be accounted for by the fact, that
IN the days of her girlhood it was un-
fashionable to write plainly; it was be-
meath the dignity Of your man of quail
ty or your man of wit to write so as to
be easily understood. Montague, man
of quality, and man of wit, too, owns
to writing so clumsily as not to be able
to read what he had written. This ap-
parently arose as much from carelessness
as Incompetence. In his impotence he
sacrificed plainness for the sake of speed.
Lord Eldon told George ", the great
est lawyer in England could neither
walk, speak, nor write. The legal lu-
minsry was Mr.. Bell, a cripple, who had
great difficulty in putting his ideas into
speech, and had succeeded in hitting
upon three different methods, all equally
original, of putting them upon paper
one being ineligible TO himself, but
worse than Greek to his clerk another
which his clerk could. but he himself
could not decipher; and third, which
neither he, his clerk, nor any one else
could comprehend 1t seemed almost
too absurd that a man should be unable
to read his own writing, however bad it
may be; but printer in London
newspaper office tells us he has more
than once applied vainly to living nov
elist for an elucidation of his mysterious
hieroglypics. Napoleon l. had so little
mastery over his pen, that his letters
from Germany to Josephine were at first
taken for rough maps of the seat of war.
Douglas Jerrold and Capt. Marryat were
almost capable of rivaling the feats of
Peter Bales as microscopic writer the
captain attaining such perfection that
way, that before his manuscript could
be handed over to the printer it was re-
quisite TO have it copied in fashion
adopted for ordinary eyesight; and then
the copyist, whenever he rested from his
labor, was obliged to stick pin where
he left off, lest he should never find the
place again.
Horace Greeley's copy was continu-
GUS string of riddles for the unfortunate
compositor engaged on the paper of
which he was proprietor, riddles they
often solved in way not exactly condu-
Give to the propounders'sse sserenity. When,
in exposing some Congressional NAL
practices, Greeley wrote, "'Tis true It's
pity, and pity tits 'tis true" the famil-
lar quotation appeared in the unShaks-
pearean guise, "'Tis two, tits fifty, and
fifty 'tis, tits fivel A leader upon
VIM. III. Seward came forth headed
Richard the third" When he alluded
to certain electors as "freemen in buck
ram," the printer turned it into three
men in back room" These under the
circumstances, excusable delinquencies,
we're capped by the painter of New
York Tribune" bulletins. Having re-
ceived notice in the we'll known, but
ever unintelligible hieroglyphics, intend
ed to inform the public tha. they must
seek " Entrance in Spruce street," after
some hours hard study and cogitation,
the puzzled man of the brush, in sheer
desperation, dashed off in large letters,
Editors on Spree" and posted the
extraordinary announcement ON the
front door of the Tribune office.
If Horace's own people we're thus Sc
verely exercised, one can family imagine
how his correspondents must have suf-
fered. Writing TO decline an invitation
to lecture, he said 81 am overworked
and growing old. l shall be sixty next
February Sd. On the whole, it seems
| must decline to lecture henceforth, ex-
cept in this immediate vicinity, if do
at all. / cannot promise to visit Illinois
on that errand, certainly not now"
Rather to his surprise, he soon received