Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1877-11-07
What it Costs to Write Well.

Excellence is not matured in day, and
the cost of it is an old story The begin
ming of Pluto's Rppublc,' it is said, wa,
found in an old tablet written over an
over in variety of ways Addison, W
are told wore ont the patience of his print.
or. Frequently when nearly whole i'm
preston of the Spectator was worked off
he would stop the press to insert some new
proposition. Ian BIS most sportiye e.
says were the result of most intense brain
labor. lie used to spend week at time
IN celebrating single humorous letter t.
friend. Tennyson is reported To hav,
written Come into the Garden, Maui,
more than fifty tines before it pleased him
and d" Locbsley Hail." the first draft OF
which was written in two days, he >ppn
the better part Of six weeks for eigh
hours day, in altering and polishing
Dickens, when lie intended to write II
Christmas story, shut himself up for six
weeks, living the life of II hermit, and
came ou us naggarl us II Murderer. Bl
zac, after he had thought out thoroughly
one of his phios phical romances. and
amassed his materials in ~ most laboriou>
manner, retired to his tudy and from thai
time until his book went to press, society
saw him no more. When he appeared
among his friends lie looked sad hi> pub
Usher, in the populor phrase, like his own
ghost. The manuscript was afGrward
altered and copied, when ii passed into
the hands of the printer, from whose slips
the book was rewritten the third time
Again ii went 20 the printer, two, three
and >omctimrs four separate proofs being
required before the authors leave could be
obained to send the perpetualIy re-wril-
ten book 10 press ut last to have it done.
He was literally the terror of all printers
and editors,
Moore thought it quick work if he wrote
seventy lines of Lalla r oNh y in II
week. KinglAke's Euhcn' we are told,
WAS re written five OF six times. and was
kept in the authors writing desk almost as
long as Wordsworth kept the "Whtte Doe
of Ryctone," and kept ii like that, TO be la
ken ont for review and correction almost
every day. Builon's Story of Nature y
cost him fifty years of labor before he sent
it TO the printer. He composed it in Il
singular manner, writing on large-sizr,l
P'ptl III 40 III IL lNNl1Nls lltC
columns were ruled. In the first column
he wrote down his first thought; in the
second he corrected, enlarged and pruned
it; and s on until he reached the fifth col.
umn, within which he finally wrote the
results Of his labor. But even after this
he would compose sentence twenty
times, an, once devoted fourteen homs C
find the proper word to round off peli
Od John Foster often spent hours on t
single sentence. Ten years elapsed be
tween the commencement Of Goldsmith
fine work, the " lravelrr,' and its com
pleti IN. Le ROchrfoucaud spent hflerr
years in preparing his little book of max
inns, altering some of them, Segal. says
thirty lines. We all know how Shrrid II
published his wit and finished his Jokes
the same things being found on differen
bits Of paper differently expressed. Rog
ers showed Crabb Robinson II note 10 hi
" Italy," which he said it took him tive
weeks TO write. |, consists Of very few
lines Boston Times.