The Delta independent., 1893-09-13
The Perfect Ear.

In McClure's Magazine Prof. Henry
Drummond discusses the question of
where man got his ears. Nature, he
holds, seldom makes anything new;
her method of creation is to adopt
sonnet ting old. So when land animals
were determined on, and nature started
out to manufacture ears for them, she
made them out Of old breathing appa-
ratus. She saw, Prof. Dru1nmond con-
tends, that if water could pass through
q hole in the neck, such as fishes have,
sound could pass likewise, thereupon
she brought certain species adapted to
her purpose to shore. and set to work
upon the five gill-slits and elaborated
the whole In hearing organ. This
was not quick process, but the slow
labor of ages, but finally wns produced
the perfect ear, and man was not Gre
ated until the work was done.
METHODS OF FAMOUS AUTHORS
How Noted Writers Constructed Their
Plats and Wrote Their Books,
The methods of popular authors are
almost as interesting to the public as
the amounts of their annual earnings.
A contributor to Household Words has
written q chapter on Literary Meth
ods," which is readable, but apt to be
disappointing if the novice turns to it
for instruction. For the ways of
writer's are various and strangely con-
Trajectory. Some, for example, write
best in luxurious studies, some in bed,
some in prison and one or two on ex-
press trains. Some like gay surround
ings, some gloomy; some the busy stir
of men, others the deepest solitude;
happy few can write anywhere and
under any conditions. The majority
prefer. the fresh morning hours for
composition, while others are at their
best in the drear hour of midnight.
Again few compose with business
like regularity, but most by fits and
starts. How is the beginner to know
which 10 take us a model? Com
ing to plot or construction the
same difficulty arises. Scott began
without knowing how he was to
go on. Dumas had his novel ar
ranged to the smallest detail be-
fore putting pcp to paper. Wilkie Col
-}i9s pursued an elaborate system.
Starting with a central idea," he pro-
ceeded backward and forward, arrang-
ing and harmonizing parts without
any heed to serial division or to book
publication. He was most particular
about good beginning and a good
END, policy that doubtless won him
many readers Like Balzac, he correct,
ed and recorrected, sometimes having
Us many as six different, proofs Of a
novel. Zola shows the same con-
scientiousness and is rewarded by
sale Of one hundred thousand copies of
n new work. A lucky novelist here and
there, like Mr Payn or Mr.. Stevenson,
gets n good plot in dream and has no
difficulty in the matter. But it is not
safe to rely on dreams. On the point
of style there is the same tantalizing
diversity. Elaubcrt urged his pupil,
Guy de Maupassant, to be original at
all hazards; the advice was taken,
with what result we know. Mr.. Stew
enson, on the other hand, played ''the
sedplous ape" (the phrase is his own)
iD half dozen masters, and is reck-
pned one of the best writer's of Eng
glish pross living to-day. Clearly it is
hard for the tyro to know which exam
plo to follow. III general the readiest
way to success is to have a story to tell
and to tell it simply and naturally.
LIGHT SLUMBER.