, 1888-06-24
DELusloNs OF AUTHORS.

Visions Which Appear to Overworked Au-
thors-Wilkio Collins Green Woman"
In his interesting paper ON contempor-
airy English novelists, the second of a
series devoted to London as a Literary
Center" published in Harper's Magazine,
Mr.. Bowker mentions some singular in
stances of delusive visions that were ap-
parent to overworked authors. These
apparitions were the Pigments of imagi-
nations that instinctively sought rest in
variety, conjuring up, without traceable
cause or connection, shapes alien to the
theme on which the authors minds were
bent, but enduring only until rest from
the laborious pursuit of that subject was
sought and found.
When Wilkie Collins used to give over
to his toilsome composition and the
seven fold revision to which he faith
fully adhered, the hours between mid
night and dawn, he had an unlovely
familiar-a green woman with ''tusk
teeth, " who stood at q particular spot on
the stair landing and closed his vigils by
the ghoulish salute of biting his shoulder.
Other uncanny shapes there were-not
Of 1.-The witching hour Of night when
churchyards yawn," but coming with
the struggle of gray dawn with fleeing
darkness. But this flesh tasting female
was the one that persisted in her ghostly
warning until her spectral perseverance,
forced the author of THE Woman in
White to cease turning night into day.
After David Christie Murray had
passed through those experiences as
journalist, pedestrian and war CORE
spondent that supplied the scenes and
experience made vivid in the pages of
"a I fFaf, Ato,o,a-A ~ .Tz.-lf-T-- ' .
.'Val Strange and "Aunt Rachel, u there
accompanied The production of
Schwartz, a History" a halberdier,
dressed in red and black and bearing an
ak with which he threatened the writer
from behind. Murray laughed at his
phantom, which in no wise bore relation
to the story he had in hand, nor to any
other in his mind, and looked for his
wrath to disappear under the influence
of simples for the cure of mead and
stomach. But a wise physician chided
him. my friend, that way lies mad
ness" and sent the author to six months
rest in rustic scenes. The halberdier
vanished, but other visions still came
once in n while at the end of long tasks
with little rest.
1t is characteristic of these hallucina-
ions that intrude on the poetry of liter
airy invention, that they rarely, if ever,
result in permanent mental alienation.
They are merciful COLLINS, kind, gentle
ghosts, who warn the worker of healthy
mind for his own good, that his mental
health may be preserved to him for his
own advantage and the benefit and pleas.
ure of mankind. Wilkie Collins at Ga
is still a systematic worker, whose crea-
tions charm the reading world. Decades
have passed since the green woman last
bit his shoulder; and Murray has writ
ten many charming tales since he last
felt the presence of that grim h~alberdier.
The authors delusions are those of. over
pursuit of healthy exercise. They are
not like the cruel and u~nforgiving pun
ishments that follow excessive physical
dissipation. They are only the provi-
dental monitions hat enforce on those
intellects the world can least spare the
old lesson:
Naturnm expellas, forca. intrat fcnestra-
New York Star.