The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1877-06-28
What it Costs to Write Well.

| Excellence is not matured in
day, and the cost of it is an oil
story. The beginning of Plato
Republic" it is said, was found il
an old tablet written over in vari
ETY. of ways. Addison, we are told
wore out the patience of his printer
Frequently, when nearly a who'll
impression of the Spectator wa
worked off, be would stop the pres
to insert some new proposition
Lambs most sported essays wer,
the result of most intense brain la
Dor; he used to spend a week at +;
time in celebrating a single humor
Gus letter to friend. Tennyson il
reported to have written "Come into
the garden, Maud" more than fifty
times over before it pleased him
and "Locksley Hail." the first
draught of which was written in
two days, he spent the better part
of SIX weeks, for eight hours day
in altering and polishing. Dickens
when he intended to write Christ
mas story, he shut himself up fol
six weeks, like a hermit, and came
out as haggard as a murderer. Bal
FAC, after he had thought out thor
oughly one of his philosophical ro-
mances, and amassed his materials
in most laborious manner, retired
to his study, and from that time
until his book went to press society
saw him no more. When he APP
peared among his friends he looked,
said his publisher, in the popular
phrase, like his own ghost. The
manuscript was afterwards altered
and copied when it passed into the
hands of the printer, from whose
slips the book was re written the
third time. Again it went to
the hands of the printer-two,
three, and sometimes four sep
arate proofs being required before
the authors leave could be got to
send the perpetually rewritten book
to press, at last to have it done. He
was literally the terror of all print
ers and editors.
Moore thought it quick work if
he wrote 70 lines of "Lalla Rookh"
in week. Kinglake's "Eothen,"
we are told, was rewritten five or
six times, and was kept in the au-
thor's writing desk almost as long
as Wordsworth kept the "White
Doe of Rylsone," and kept like that,
to be taken out for review and cor
rection almost every day. Button
"Story of Nature" cost him fifty
years of labor, before he sent it to
the printer. He composed it in a
singular manner, writing on a largo
sized paper, in which as in a ledger,
five distinct columns were ruled.
In the first column he wrote down
the first thoughts; in the second he
corrected, enlarged and pruned it;
and so on until he reached the fifth
column within which he finally
wrote the results of his labor. But
even after this he would compose a
sentence twenty times, and once de-
voted fourteen hours to finding the
proper word to round off a period.
John Foster often spent hours on a
single sentence. Ten years elapsed
between the beginning of Gold
smiths Traveller" and its compile
ton. La Rochefaucauld spent fif-
teen years in preparing his little
book Of maxims, altering some of
them, Segaris says, nearly thirty
times. We all know how Sheridan
polished his wit and finished his
jokes, the same things being found
on different bits of paper, differ
emily expressed. Rogers showed
Crabb Robinson a note to his eta
ly," which he said took him two
weeks to write. 1t consists of a
very few lines.