He was a most painstaking writer, but was never satisfied with his productions. “I took,” he said, “sixteen hours out of twenty-four over the elaboration of my unfortunate style, and I am never satisfied with it when done.”
Carlyle’s productions gave the printers much trouble, on account of the many alterations he made, and his cramped penmanship. His changes were not confined to his manuscripts; he revised his proofs to such an extent that it was frequently found easier to reset the matter than to alter it. Miss Martineau told a good story anent this subject. “One day,” she said, “while in my study, I heard a prodigious sound of laughter on the stairs, and in came Carlyle, laughing aloud. He had been laughing in that manner all the way from the printing office in Charing Cross. As soon as he could, he told me what it was about. He had been to the office to urge the printer, and the man said: ‘Why, sir, you really are so very hard upon us with your corrections; they take so much time, you see.’ After some remonstrance, Carlyle observed that he had been accustomed to do this sort of thing; that he had got works printed in Scotland, and – ‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ interrupted the printer, ‘we are aware of that. We have a man here from Edinburgh, and when he took up a bit of your copy he dropped it as if it had burnt his fingers, and cried out, ‘Lord have mercy! Have you got that man to print for? Lord knows when we shall get done all his corrections.’”
Mrs. Gore was the author of many fashionable novels and other works, which won much favourable notice in her day. She did not confine all her attention to story-writing; she contributed very largely to the leading magazines, and wrote successfully for the stage. The list of her works is a long one, yet, in spite of all her tireless toil with the pen, she entered very freely into the pleasures of society. Mr. Planché visited her in Paris in 1837, and in course of a conversation she explained how she managed to find time to write so much. Said Mrs. Gore: “I receive, as you know, a few friends at dinner at five o’clock nearly every evening. They leave me at ten or eleven, when I retire to my own room, and write till seven or eight in the morning. I then go to bed till noon, when I breakfast, after which I drive out, shop, pay visits, and return at four, dress for dinner, and as soon as my friends have departed, go to work again all night as before.” Mrs. Gore died in 1861, at the age of sixty-two years. Her first book was issued in 1823, and it was followed by no less than seventy separate works. She lived for many years on the Continent, and supported her family with her pen.
Mrs. Trollope did not commence her career as an author until she had “reached the sober season of married and middle life,” yet she managed to produce no less than one hundred and fifteen volumes of fiction. In an autobiographical work, entitled “What I Remember,” by her son, Thomas Adolphus Trollope, we get some touching pictures of this wonderful woman writing her books. He speaks of her passing an extended period by the bedside of her invalid son. From about nine in the morning until eight in the evening, with “a cheerful countenance and a bleeding heart,” she entertained and nursed her patient. He generally slept about eight, when she went to her desk and wrote her fiction to amuse light-hearted readers. She worked from two to three in the morning. This was all done with the aid of green tea and sometimes laudanum. Mrs. Trollope died at the age of eighty-three years, so that it cannot be said that hard work killed her, although she did an immense quantity.
We believe that hard work seldom kills anyone. Some say that it does, and point to the fate of Southey, one of the most industrious of English men of letters, to support their assertion. The mention of his name brings to the mind scenes of sunshine and shadow. He was a lover of books, and his charming house in Lake-land contained a fine library. Here he read and worked, and life passed happily. Nothing could tempt him to leave it, not even the editorship of The Times. When bereft of reason, Southey would linger lovingly amongst the companions of happier days, his beloved books. He would play with them as a child plays with a toy. It is generally believed that hard literary labour killed him. When Dr. Charles Mackay visited Wordsworth he named the matter to him, and was told that there was no truth in it. Said Wordsworth of Southey: “He was a calm and methodical worker, and calm, steady work never kills. It is only worry and hurry that kill. Southey wrote a great deal; but he wrote easily and pleasantly to himself. Besides, only those who have tried know what an immense deal of literary work can be got through comfortably by a man who will work regularly for only four or even three hours a day. Take the case of Sir Walter Scott, for instance. What an immensity of work he got through; and yet he was always idle at one o’clock in the afternoon, and ready for any amusement, or for such change of labour as the garden or the field afforded. Southey was like him in that respect, and, though he worked hard, he always contrived to enjoy abundance of leisure. Scott died of pecuniary trouble, not of work. Southey died of grief for the loss of his wife.”
Lord Byron puzzled his friends by continual production whilst appearing to occupy himself with everything else but writing.
Hans Christian Andersen had to be alone when he composed his fairy tales. He was never able to dictate a contribution for the press. All his matter for the printer was in his own handwriting. This circumstance he named to Thiers, by whom he was informed that he dictated to an amanuensis the whole of his “History of the Consulate and the Empire.”
Miss Edgeworth wrote her stories in the common sitting-room, surrounded by her family. Some authors are able to concentrate their attention on a task and remain unconscious of anything going on around them. Says a recent writer on this topic: “Dr. Somerville told Harriet Martineau that he once laid a wager with a friend that he would abuse Mrs. Somerville in a loud voice to her face, and she would take no notice; and he did so. Sitting close to her, he confided to his friend the most injurious things – that she rouged, that she wore a wig, and such nonsense uttered in a very loud voice; her daughters were in a roar of laughter, while the slandered lady sat placidly writing. At last her husband made a dead pause after her name, on which she looked up in an innocent manner saying, “Did you speak to me?”
Southey too could write in the presence of his family. A more remarkable method of composition was that of Barry Cornwall. He composed his best poems in the busy streets of London, only leaving the crowd to enter a shop to commit to paper the verses he had made.
The poet Gray usually worked himself into the “mood” by reading some other poet, generally Spenser.
Shelley always composed out of doors sometimes on the roof tops. Trelawney describes how he found him in a grove near Florence by a pool of water; he was gazing unconsciously into the depths. Trelawney did not disturb him, but when Shelley came out of his trance he had written one of his finest lyrics, in a hand-writing that no other man could decipher.
Wordsworth mainly composed his poems during his rural rambles. It was not an unusual circumstance for him to write with a slate pencil on a smooth piece of stone his newly made lines. Surely the hillsides and lovely dales of Lake-land were fitting places for the great high priest of nature to give birth to his poetry. He repeated his poems aloud as he composed them, a practice which greatly puzzled the common people. We cannot perhaps better illustrate the strange impression it made on the country folk than by repeating an anecdote told to Dr. Charles Mackay by an American gentleman. He said – “One of his countrymen had lost his way in a vain attempt to discover Rydal Mount; had taken a wrong turn and gone three or four miles beyond or to the side of the point he should have aimed at. Meeting an old woman in a scarlet cloak, who was gathering sticks, he asked her the way to Rydal Mount. She could not tell him; she did not know. ‘Not know,’ said the American, ‘the house of the great Wordsworth?’ ‘No.’ ‘What, not the house of the man whose fame brings people here from all parts of the world?’ ‘No,’ she insisted, ‘but what was he great in? – was he a preacher or a doctor?’ ‘Greater than preacher or doctor – he was a poet.’ ‘Oh, poet!’ she replied; ‘and why did you not tell me that before? I know who you mean now. I often meet him in the woods, jabbering his pottery (poetry) to himself. But I’m not afraid of him. He’s quite harmless, and almost as sensible as you or me.’” This is the old story – a man, however great, is not much thought of in his own district.
It is generally understood that Lord Tennyson