The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-18
DIFFICULT AUTHORSHIP.
lHarper's Baxar.l

tk1aTperb baxar.
 Heinrich Heine, the sweetest singe Germany has ever pfoduced, wrote hi " Romancero" under circumstances c great suffering. When paraly zed an, nearly blind he wrote woven web 0 satire and pathos, in which he spare. nothing, not even his own racked am anguished frame. My body" he said "has gone to rack and ruin, so ths almost nothing is left but my voice, an, my bed reminds me of the melodiou grave of the enchanter Merlin, which i in the forest of Broceliande, in Brittany beneath lofty oaks, whose tropica branches blaze up like green flame t. the sky. An, colleague Merlin, env, you those trees and their fresh wavin, boughs, for no green leaf rustles here il my mattress grave-a grave without rest death without the privileges of the dead who have no need to write either letter or books. have been measured for m, coffin some time ago, and my obituary written, but l die so slowly that this be comes tedious affair for myself, as vel as for my friends. Patience, however there is an end to everything. On, morning you will find the book closec where the puppet show of my humor st often amused you" One night, indeed it was so, but not until he had endured his mattress grave" for eight long weary years. One night he moved into that last and best bed, where the wear, are at rest"
 It has been contended that when the disease of which the sufferer is dying is consumption, or some disease which, be tween paroxysms of pain, leaves space of ease and rest, it is nothing wonderful that good work should be done. Some of the best of Paley's works were writer under such conditions, and some of the best of Shelley's. Crabb Robinson saic that Goethe never had an affliction whicl he did not turn into a poem. MT. Philip Gilbert Hamerton has noted very pecu liar effect which the act of composition had upon Wordsworth. When engaged in composing The White Doe of Ryl stone," he received wound in his foot and observed that the continuation of hi. literary labors increased the irritation O the wound, whereas by suspending hi. work he could diminish it. Absolute rest produced perfect cure. In connec. ton with this incident he remarked that poetic excitement, accompanied by pro. tracted labor in composition, always brought on more or less bodily derange ment. He preserved himself from per. manently injurious consequence by ex cellent habits of lite.
 It is curious that times of illness. wher the eyes swim and the head shakes, are oRentimes rich in suggestion. If the mind is naturally poetic, the hours of ill ness are by no means wasted. Such wa. the condition of Mir. Green, the historian who literally died in harness. Few page: in literary history are so touching as the preface in which Mir. Green tells the his tory of the making of "The Conquest O England" When he had finished the forth volume of his "History of thu English People" there was pause ir the advance of the lung disease which afflicted him. Eager for fresh work, hs began to shape new plans, but early ir the spring of 1881 he fell i'll again. "fr the extremity oi ruin and defeat he found higher fidelity and perfect strength , Most men give up their work when thei end comes near, but MT. Green is said ts have worked all the harder because hi. days were numbered, and strove to main tain and diffuse as much light as possibl, before the coming of the night. "Unde the shadow of death the Conquest O England was begun, and the nigh came before it was finished" The deatl of Mark Pat,ison was equally sad, for it one of his last letters he wrote: ct i. hard to feel my physical powers ebbins away, while my intellectual powers wert never more vigorous. l have gathered with infinite pains the materials for m, great work, but they will all be wasted for l shall not live to finish it, and no ons else will find the clew."
 Blindness would seem an insuperabls drawback to writing, yet Prescott, tho historian of Mexico and Peru, overcame the difficulty into which he was plunged by the failure of his sight. While stu dent of Harvard college, one of his fellow students threw a crust of bread at him which struck one of his eyes and deprived it almost wholly of sight, while tine other was sympatheticslly affected. Wher writing history of Spain, his eye gave way, and prevented him from reading His literary enthusiasm, however, va. too strong to be quenched even by thi. calamity. He engaged a reader, dictated copious notes, and from these notes con structed his history, making in his mine the necessary corrections.
 
 Why He Wept.