Sentence:  William Gilmore Simms , sturdy realist that he was , pleaded for a natural robustness such as he found in his favorites the great Elizabethans , to vivify the pale <WSD>writings</WSD> being produced around him . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  the work of a writer; anything expressed in letters of the alphabet (especially when considered from the point of view of style and effect)