The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-03-29
what ii Costs to Write well.

Excellence is not matured in aday, and the
cost of it is an old story. The be6llhlhR VI
Plato's ''Republic, it is said, was found III
an old tablet written over III variety Oh |
WAYS. Addison, we are told, wore out the |
naiience of his printer; frequently, Wheh
nearly whole impression OF me 0p1o-
tator' was worked off, he would stop inc
nross to insert some new proposition
Tamb's most sportive essays were the result
of most intense brain labor; he used TO
snend a week at time i'll celebrating a |
sinple humorous letter to friend len I
nvson is reported to have written "Come
Into The Garden Maud, more than fifty
times over before it pleased him; and
| sJockslev 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 a
Christmas story, shut himself up for SIX
weeks. living the life of hermit and
came out as haggard as murderer Balzac,
after he had thought out thoroughly one OF
his philosophical romances, and amassed
his materials in a most laborious manner,
retired to his study, and from that time
until his book went to press, society saw INN
!, him no more. When he appeared among
his friends. he looked, said his publisher
in the popular phrase like his own ghost
The manuscript was afterward altered ant
copied. when it passed into the hands
: the urinter, from whose slips the book wa
a rewritten the third time. Again it wen
j into the hands of the printer-two, three
u and sometimes four separate proofs Dem
u reouired before the authors leave could b
> got to send the perpetually re written boo
/ 10 nress at last to have it done. He wa
literally the terror of all printers and editor.
Moore thought it quick work If he Wrol
seventy lines of ''LaJa Rood" IN Weei
Kinglake'5 "Eothen," we are told, was IT
written five or six times, and was kept
fine authors writing desk almost as long
Wordsworth kept ''White Doe of RylsoAe
n and kept like that, to be taken cut Il
ly review and correction almost every da
b. Buttons EStory of Nature cost him ft
at years If labor before he sent it to the prl
ra Ter. He composed it in singular ma
al ner. writing on large sized paper,
ID which. as in a ledger; five distinct column
OF were ruled In tue first column he wro
to down the first thoughts; in the second
at corrected, enlarged and pruned ii; and
1e on until he reached the fifth column, with
es which he wrote the results OF his Aol
N But even after this, he would compose
as sentence twenty times, and once devot
we fourteen hours to finding the proper wo
pie to round of a period. John Foster oft
spent hours on a single sentence.
years elapsed between Goldsmith's IRA
no eler and its completion. La Rochefoucf
=. spent fifteen years in preparing his lit
no book of maxims, altering some OF the
Segaris saws, nearly thirty times. We
ac. know how Sheridan polished his wit a
csc finished his Jokes, the same things bel
mo found on different bits Of paper, diffeTen
,esi expressed. Rogers showed Crabbc Rob
raj son note to his Italy, which he said 10
tbe him two weeks to write. IL consists o.
very few lines,