The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-02-06
The Lapors Of Gen,r.

"N'' -" "nu 'eoious ELABORATION. Tia
opening sentence Of "The Republic 4
the authors tablets was foundtoh.
written in some thirteen different Is.
sions. When death called him f,o.,
his work the great philosopher wss !
gagged at his desk ''combing and curl.
ing and weaving and unweayino II
writings after a variety of fashions
The celebrated French critic. Saint.
Beuve, was accustomed to devote i,
days to the preparation of a single III.
of his weekly articles. A large por4;se
of his tune was passed in the retiremans
OF his chamber, to which, on such q.
casions, no individual-with the excep.
ton of his fayorite seryant-was i.
lowed to enter under any circumstance,
whatever. Here he wrote those critical
papers which carried the captive heart
of France, and filed with wonder ths
cultivated mind everywhere.
The historian Gibbon, in speaking d
the manner in which he wrote his aDa.s
cline and Fall of the Roman Empire
said: "Many experiments wers made
before I could hit the middle tone BE-.
tween a dull tone and a rhetorical de-.
clamation. Three times did I compose
the first chapter, and twice the
second and third, before / was
tolerably satisfied with their effect
Lamb toiled most l~aboriously over his
essays. These papers, which long spC
became as classics in the English Ian.
guage, which are replete with the most
delicate f%ancies, were composed with the
most exacting nicely. Yet their author il
regarded the world over as possessed 81
genins of a high order. La Rochefou-
cauld vas occupied for the space Of ff-
teen years in preparing for publication
his little work called "Maxims," re-
writing many of them more than thirty
times.
The great Balzac, after he had made
a plan of a novel, and had, after the
most 1aborious research, gathered to-
gether the materials which he was To
embody in it, would lock himself in bis
private apartment, shut out all the
light of day, and then, by the aid Of his
study lamp, he would toll day and
night over the work before him.
His servants, knowing so well his pecu-
liar habits, would attend to his every
want. bringing him his necessary food
and drink with which to sustain his
physical needs, and thus he would
toll on and on, until finally, with
his task completed, as he thought
he would come fourth from his retire.
ment looking more dead than alive
Butinvariably his taskwould not be alto
gether satisfactory to him, after all, tor
again he would seek the seclusion Of
his chamber to rearrange and make
more perfect that which he had before
supposed wholly complete. Then, too,
when in the hands of the printer. be
!, would be as apt as not to alter in one
way and another, the manuscript, until
both printer and publisher were on the
verge of despair. K~inglake's beautiful
aEothen" was rewritten half Q dozen
times before it was given to the pub
Usher for consiG ration. Tennysonss
song. Come Into the Garden, Maud,
was rewritten some fifty times before ny
gave complete satisfaction to the au-
thor.
Coming to the gifted Addison. whose
diction is full Of such grace and Hm-
plicity, so much SO as to create envy,
yet admiration, in the mind OF every
writer who has fourished since Lis DAY
we find that the great author wrose
with the mast painful deliberations \.
is narrated that the press was stopped
again and again, after q whole edltion
Of the Spectator had been thrown On
in order that it's author might make .
slight change in . sentence. So,
Tom Moore, with all his Nonderial
brilliancy, considered it doing very wei
if he wrote fifty lines of his LAIN
Rookhn IN a week. Hawthorne wa
slow in composing. Sometimes o
could write only what would amount =
half a dozen pages q week. often |
few lines in the same space Of tune
and, alas, he would frequently 90 Y
his chamber and take his pen, only Y
find himself wholly unable to perform
any literary work. The author 2
Pleasures Of Hope" was slow 2
thought, and consequently his mode 9
composition was toilsome In the highes
degree. He wrete extremely cautious
ly, weighing and shaping the effect 2
each particular line before he permltte'
it to stand.
Bret Harte, whose creations read =
If they had come from his brain withou
q flaw or hindrance. showing brilllanc
Of thought, with the grace of the ar.is'
is still another writer who passes day
and weeks on 4 short story or poem p
fore he is ready to deliver il into 90
hands of the printer. So, too, WI
Rrvant frbou0b IN raaIifv the sui