The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1903-10-10
HOW WRITERS WORKED.
THEIR METHODS As VARIOUS AS
THEIR COMPOSITIONS.

Night workers and Day Workers
Fast and slow wrlting-The Brandy
Bottle add the Punch BowI-Pains-
taking.
Of Carlyle's methods of composition,
Miss Martineau and others have given
vivid sketches. His own account of his
toll in writing is exceedingly melancho-
ly. The sense of burden on his mind OF
what he had to say was usually such
that he could not sleep; in the morning
he rose weary and was wretched until
he had had his coffee. No form of ex-
preston pleased him, and by the time
his labor was ended his facilities were
oyerworked. In correcting his proofs
he changed the phraseology over and
over again until he was fatigued and
harassed by the toll and his printers
We're utterly out of patience.
Tennyson was tireless worker at the
literary anvil. Most of his poems were
written and rewritten three or four
times over, or rather they were printed
as many times; for he rarely used a
pen. except to write letters. When he
had any literary work to do he used to
stroll about on his lawn with his Texan
hat and his pipe or cigar, or stretch his
legs upon a garden chair and muse over
his theme, very often spending an hour
or two over couplet, and all the
morning over single verse, which,
G.,:. IN xypa OF a Y1Ii-
vate printing office. Thus, inc by line,
the poem was built up till it was COM
pleted. Next couple of proofs were
taken-one, it is said, ito go into col
lection Of oriental drafts which the Poet
Laureate kept as literary curiosity, to
see, perhaps, what his first ideas were
and what form they took; and the sec
ond to revise throughout, line by line
word by word, for no man was ever
more critical in the selection of his
phrases"
Dickens, when writing a Christmas
story, shut himself up for six weeks
lived the life of hermit, and came Out
looking as haggard as a murderer
Thomas De Quincy, ''the opium eat
err had neither fixed hours nor places
for literary work, and could not be
counted on to produce copy at any
appointed date. He write when the CAD
fly stung him, as whinn, ~ fancy dicta.
was in the vein, he wrote with extrem
care. Professor Wilson, in speaking o
his literary style, naively says: 9TH
best word always comes up''-meanine
apparently that he wrote without eff
fort. st have seen DeQuincey's manu-
script" says George Gilfillan, ''wher
words were piled over each other
heads two, three and four deep-erasur
after erasure-and where the word a
the top was best; but he had elaborated
found It; it had not spontaneous,
turned up.
Charles Lamb, that unique and de
Iightful humorist, "who drank a littl
too much ale with his friends, smoked
too much, spent in puns nine-tenths o
his talents, and in old books of the fit
teenth century three-fourths of his lit
tie income"-an author by fits, as h
styled himself "--abhorred literary tasl
work, and wrote only on compulsion an,
by rule. Amy work which I hav
taken on me as an engagement" h
said, will act upon me to torment" Il
spite of this, when Ella did write, he ev
identity elaborated with great care, TO
such essays as his, however careless II
appearance, are not dashed off at a sit
ting.
Gibbon wrote out his autobiography
in whole or in part, seven times befor
he could satisfy himself. His sDeclin
and Fall of the Roman Empire"-th
encyclopaedia history of thirteen hun
bred years, which bridges the gulf tina
separates ancient history and modern
the one historical work of the eigh
teenth century, says Professor Freeman
which modern research has neither Sc
aside nor threatened to set aside-Gib
bon composed, till after he had got hi
one tune by heart, very slowly. After
ward he got on more rapidly.
The environment of an author mus
have an influence-r1nore or less potent
according to the temperament-on hi
productive powers. 1t has been oh
served that every locality is like adyer'
vat, and that the residents take it's col
or, or some of the color from it, Just al
the clothes do which the dyer sleeps il
stain. Some writers are deeply sensi
tive to climatic influences. Chattertol
found a full moon favorable to poetic in
vention, and he often sat up all night t.
enjoy its solemn shining. Milton's in
spiration was at it's flood at the verna
equinox, The spirits Of Shelley ros
jcyously whenever the wind blew iron
the northwest. Crabbe delighted in
heavy fall of snow when he had literar,