The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1888-12-06
HOW AUTHORS LEARN.
Seeming Spontaneity Often the Result
of Unremitting Toll.

methods by which great writer's have
trained themselves to perfection in their
art. The other day contemporary took
the world into his confidence, and gave
us curious history of the apprentice
ship he served as man Of letters The
account of Mr. Louis Stevenson is doubly
interesting, from the fact that it is spe-
cially in style, as distinct from matter,
that he has won the praise of critics. The
wonderful range of his vocabulary and
his singular felicity in the choice Of
words arrested attention at the very out
set OF his literary career. In his case.
therefore, the method he followed in at
tanning this perfection has special inter-
est. From boyhood he tells US, it was
his habit to carry about with him a note
book and pencil, and on every possible
occasion to set himself to write descrip-
ton of the objects around him. Such
exclusive attention to mere expression
for the subject, he tells us, was entirely
indifferent to him-must, it is evident,
Iring with it it's own drawbacks. The
critics, as might have been expected, have
not been slow to find in the work Of Mr.
Stevenson distinct evidence of this pecu-
liar self-discipline They have all along
seen, they assert, that his capital defect
as q writer is that his expression
much outruns his thinking; and they
point to his early training as the evident
cause Of the disproportion.
It is curious however, that q somewhat
similar discipline was pursued by the most
exquisite OF American prose writers,
Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne, as is
felt even by those who find little interest
III his stories, is unapproachable in the
art OF saying the subtlest things in the
simplest and most graceful way His art
IN this respectlls 50 consumUate that it can
De best described in DogberTy's words, as
coming by nature. Yet so far is this from
being the case, that all through his life
hawthorne had that habit which Mr..
Stevenson practiced in youth. Whenever
circumstances would permit, he made
point OF deliberately noting all the expert
ences OF each day. At home, for ex-
ample, he set himself to describe the
minute changes of nature in his daily
walk. His American note book was
filled with trivial details, which can have
Interested him only as affording scope for
practice in writing.
The method of acquiring a good style
practlced last century-by Adam Smith.
among others-was assiduous translation
from great foreign writers. From this
practice it was supposed thai two good
results must follow. In translating Il
sentence we have q definite thought before
US, for which we must find an exact
equivalent IN our own speech Hence, it
was supposed that the assiduous practice
OF translation must necessarily teach that
prime quality in all good writing-prc-
cision.
Readers OF Benjamin Franklins auto
biography will remember how diligently
he strove to acquire % good English stvle.
The method he chiefly practiced was one
which many great writer's have followed
The method was to read over a passage
from some approved author, and then in
his own words strive to give the same
sense. BY a comparison Of his own com
position with the original he was taught
by that most effective Of all forms of in
struction-the contrast between o good
and q bad model 1t is easy to see, in
dced, that all these methods carried to ex-
cess must result in the loss of that spon-
tanelty and individuality which should
mark every mans writing not less than
his speech and demeanor. When thought
and experience do not keep pace with
power of expression we may have bril-
nancY indeed, but never that highest
grace or power which belongs only TO
language coming straight from the heart.
There is still another discipline, to the
practice of which many distinguished
plose writers have attributed much of
their skill in the use of language. This
is the pracUlce of verse making in youth.
undoubtedly, of all modes of literary
training this is the one most likely to lead
to the best results
a curious notion once prevailed that ii
was impossible in the nature of things to
he at once great poet and a great prose
writer In view Of the history of litera-
turc, it is strange how this idea should
have arisen. For magniicence of prose
style no English writer has surpassed
Milton. Edmund Burke took Drydca as
his model in the qualities OF strength and
precision. For grace and simplicity. the
poets Gray, Cowper, and Goldsmith hold
the first place in literature. Sainte- Beuyc.
the greatest Of French critics, is d con-
sDlcuous example of the value Of such
discipline. In his youth he mistook the
true bent Of his genius, and cultivated
poetry. He afterward discovered his
mistake; but he was fully aware that he
could not have chosen better mode of
preparing himself for the work he after
ward did
The moral of all this is that Dogberrvs
remark, true enough, so far as it goes,
must undoubtedly be supplemented BIZ
the maxim OF Pope. The stanza of the
poet, the prose-writers paragraph where
every word seems to find its place as by
some inevitable law of nature, is in real
lty the consummate result of an appren-
tlceship, the most stringent and exacting
IN the world. cat length" exclaims
Goethe, ''at length, after forty years,
have learned to write German" It sur
prlscs us to learn how hard even the most
original and spontaneous of poets have
tolled at their art Burns is supposed to
have owed less to generalization than al
most any other poet yet we know that he
was acquainted with all the great English
poets. and that he read them in such a
way that no academic training could have
more successfully set all his faculties to
work. Heine has the reputation of being
the most spontaneous Of lyrical poets; vet
it was reported but the other day that one
OF his songs, which had struck every one
as being as enforced as a birds MARBLE.
was written and rewritten some half
dozen times the poets blurred manu-
script revealing the mental struggle that
had gone to its production. 1t may be an
inadequate definition of genius to saw that
1t IS an Infinite capacity of taking pains. p
The words at all events, express the in
evltable conditions under which genius