The Portland daily press., 1896-05-16
THE WORLDS FAvoRITE AUTHORS.
Many Have Retained Literary Vigor Till
Late in Life
tFrom The Philadelphia Times. J

-. SOAetA COJAos "hO CGu
writing at seventeen, and is now thirty
seven, says he expects to do his best work
before he is fifty years old. And even
that age gives him good long stretch.
Gsorge Eliot began nineteen years later
than Doyle, and continued twenty-fo
years. At forty she had done "Sllas
Mariner" and at ffty-slx Daniel De-
ronda. "Theophrastus Such" represent
ing the last four years Of her life. At
about fifty, in Middlemarch,n she
reached her greatest popularity, realizing
$40, 600 from that BOOK. There ia certain
~ no diminution of intellectual force
six years later in "Deronda," though
possibly lessening of interest. George
Sand, who took to writing ten years
earlier than George Eliot, and kept 1t up
twelve years later, also lost her fasoina-
ton toward the end, though she could
do as much and as good work intellcc.
tually at seventy-two as at forty. Her
mind was as strong as ever, but the
power to entertain was wanting She
was thoroughly conscious of this, and
discloses the secret. 81 have pressed my
imagination to produce" she says, with
out seeking the concurrence of my reason.
Instead Of coming to me smiling and
crowned with flowers, my muse has met
me cold, reluctant, indignant"
James Fenimors Cooper had three
periods of novel-writing. The first lasted
five years and ended at thirty-seven.
about the time George Eliot began.
What is considered his masterpiece closes
this period. At ffty-two he returned to
fiction, and wrote 1.-THE Deerslayer, !"
which made deep impression. After a
space of six years he again took up
novelwriting at fifty eight, but seems
to have been unable to duplicate his
earlier successes. He pushed his work on
by force of will. till sixty-two, and died
year later of dropsy. Thirty years en-
braoed Cooper's labors with the orea m of
it put into seven. Samuel Richardson
finished "Clarissa Harlowe," at the age
when Cooper died, and In the following
year supplemented it with his next best
book In six volumes He did practically
nothing before fifty.
Histories, it seems, may be postponed
and done last Of all. Guizot was busy at
his work on Spain when he died in the
SOS; George Buchanan wrote tremen
dous volume, besides an autobiography
in Latin, when some people thought
him in his dotage; Bancroft only finished
up at seventy-four; Carlyle did his best
work in this department., and Macaulay
died worn out, though not old, writing
his history of England. Hazlitt, Tom
Moore, AMI Hume also finished with his
tories.
Macaulay's essays were done in the
twenty years between the ages of twenty
six and forty-six. Rich as they are, and
great as was his absorption in them, he
was more devoted to his history, and was
prepared to lavish upon it all his time
and all the power of his faculties. He
sacrificed both political and social dis
tinction for this history, which he had
not done for the essays. In writing the
first two volumes, he made the startling
discovery that his heart was weak, and
by way Of respite took office for a year.
malady was so decisively manifest that
he could not doubt his early doom. Mac
aulay was we'll past fifty when the first
two volumes were done, and there is no
evidence in them of weakness. The de-
terioration Of bis work begins with the
with the death of William III. be could
do no more. Maoaulay's collapse at fifty
eight, however, was physical, rather
than mental. He lived but one year
longer, having been born with the GEN.
fury.
Guizot's life of eighty-seven years COW
ers sixty of activity. and there is no
time in this long span where his intellect
seems to lose its strength or liveliness.
He took up literature as a vocation when
he was twenty-five, and after some inter-
ruption resumed it at thirty-four. Again
politics interfered, and, as with Bacon
in England, he abandoned tho seclusion
of his study for Office. Guizot had not
seriously entered upon his work before
sixty three, and the last decade of his life
was possibly his most fruitful period. At
seyenty-two he began to learn the Span
ish language, and mastered it in order
that he might write a comprehensive his
tory of Spain. AT eighty seven, when he
died, he was working at it. So the half
century mark cuts 10 figure whatever in
the life of Guizot.
Whether George Buchanan, who was
both scholar and poet, gathered the bulk
of his knowledge and did his best writing
within the first fifty years is both claimed
and questioned. At any rate. his big
"History of Scotland" WAS begun at SIX
ty-four Buchanan's enemies say he died
in his dotage and that the last part of
his book is but the driyel of an imbecilo.
Yet, it is no small matter that he
| should lave taken up this task at sixty
and completed it at seventy -four, on his
de2th-bed. And only two years before
the history was done, and in connection
with it, Buchanan wrote his own life in
Latin.
just one year younger than Buchanan
L. hrr-