Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-08-21
lie SECRET OF LITERARY
SUCCESS.
THE
How Various Great Writers Worked Gu
Their Immortality

How Various Great Writers Worked Gu
Their Immortality
Labor, says Macdonald, sis grand
officer in the palace of art. Dumas once
said that it was the easiest thing in the
world to write book, you had only to
seat Yourself n leather-coverad chair at
a library table we'll supplied with blue
paper and certain kind of pen and ink,
and proceed to write a book; but before
you began, before you seated yourself or
wrote the first word, you should have
given ten years of thought to the subject
on which you intended to writ. Shen-
, stones rule for good writing was ''Spon-
taneous thought labored expression. -"
Hamerton reccunts that ''lngres and Bal
FAC took the idea in the rough, as a set
tier takes tract from wild nature and
then they went over it repeatedly, each
time pushing the cultivator a little farth-
er. Macaulay gives us an inkling of
Goldsmith's methods: There are rivers
of which the water, whan first drawn, is
turbid and noisome, but becomes pelucid
as crystal, and delicious to the taste, if it
be suffered to stand till it has deposited
sediment, and such a river is a type of the
mind of Goldsmith. His first thoughts on
every subject were confused even to
absurdity, but they required only little
time to work themselves clear" Emerson
said that nothing great or lasting can be
!: done except by inspiration for leaning on
the secret augary.' But even for genius,
with its inspiration, there is no royal
path to success. The wreaths come often
est when ''the hairs they cover have grown
gray A Victor Hugo spends fifteen
years in writing LES Miserables,' and
we perceive how largely genius is pa
thence. Great pictures, great books, great
actions, great soul, are simple. A dozen
authors might be quoted here to show how
uniform is the belief in the beauty of sim
plicity. 1.-The difference between persons
, is not in wisdom, but in art, else the
story-teller and the poet would have no
listeners. The thinker must write so that
! he who runs may read, in order to become
, "a light and a power. There is price to
, be paid for all true work Recall the
terrible isolation of Carl yle andhis wife at
Craigenputt0ck In George Ellot's Life"
we read that she began ''Romola' "a
:, young woman and finished at an old wo-
man" Such is the toll that literature
takes OF life. Truth, or might, which
: Carlyle thought was the gift of gifts, is
= reached through suffering. Rastagnac in
y the story of ''Pere Goriot,' goes to Paris
: to study law; he gets there q glimpse into
lives that trample on all things sacred
: from selfish greed of gold, and then goes
home; Ibis education was finished.
Art is always its own best reward and
ways be to give to the world 1.-The message
that in him burns Still he needs
friends, requires leisure, wants bread
Thackeray once wrote to friend: "Our
twopenny regulations getus at least two
pence half-penny. And he puts these
words into the mouth of Mr.. Yellowplush,
"Away with this canting about great
moths! Let us not be too proud and
fancy ourselves martyrs of the truth, mar
tyrs or apostels. We are but tradesmen,
working for bread and not for righteous
ness sake. Let's try and work honestly;
but don t let us be praying pompously about
our sacred calling" Set over again this
last quotation these words from Ruskin:
eff your work is first with you, and your
fee is second, work is your master, and
the lord of fee, who is the devil" Ruskin
also assures us that ''none of the best head
work In art, literature or science is ever
paid for. How much do you think that
Homer got for his Itan? or Dante for his
Paradise? Only bitter bread and salt, and
going up and down other peoples stairs. -
But life is progressive; less frequently than
NtONo
The leaven is working of the great Teach
er who gave divine sanction to recognize
ed principle of the ancient people when
he said: "The workman is worthy of his
hire ''No good can come of your work
, bit as 1T arises simply out of your own
true nature" says one of the masters.
There never was grander picture of the
true literature than that which the old
Hebrew prophet saw in vision of a man
"clothed with linen, with a writer's ink
horn by his side, who stood beside the
brazen altar, and at Gods bidding gather
ed Goals of fire from between the the cheru-
bin and scattered them over the city. The
Goals were the emblems of the thoughts
that burn and stir men s souls, and the
linen robes symbolized clean life. Long
fellow declared that "he who drinks mid
night, thinks midnight" Just as a ma
writer's work an exponent of his ethical
state. Sterling worth in the quality of
literary work is not consistent with ''any
gnawing lust, any wretchedness of spite or
remorse, any consciousness of rebellion
against the law of God or man. Ella B.
Carter, In The Writer
Henry Grady's Method.
Years ago, when Henry Grady was
struggling to bring Rome Commercial in
to the front ranks he called one day and
asked the Rounsaville Brothers for an ad-
vertisement. Mr.. J. W. Rounsaville re-
piled: ''Why Grady, nobody reads your
paper; it is of no use to advertise in it.
A happy thought suggested itself to Mr..
Grady. He went to his Office and wrote
the following advertisement, which ap-
peared next morning in the Commercial:
Wanted, fifty cats: liberal price for the
same. Apply to Rounsaville Brothers. y
Well, the picture that presented itself at
Rounasvilles corner next morning beg
gars description. Boys of all ages aud size,
boys of all tints from the fair-haired yonth
to sable Ethiopian, barefoot boys and rag,
ged boys, red-headed boys, freckle-facedi
boys, town boys and country boys from all
parts of Floyd county blocked up the side,
walks, doorways and street with bags full
of cats--cats eff every description, name
and order-house cats, yard cats, barn
cats, church cats, fat cats and lean cats,
honest cats and thievish cats. Well to
make long story short, the Rounsavilles
i told Mr.. Grady to reserve a column for
their advertisement as long as the paper
continued. and that was just what Grady
wanted.-New York Tribune.