"I have written Catiline in eight days," said Voltaire; "and I immediately commenced the Henriade." Voltaire was a most impatient writer, and usually had the first half of a work set up in type before the second half was written. He always had several works in the course of composition at the same time. His manner of preparing a work was peculiar. He had his first sketch of a tragedy set up in type, and then rewrote it from the proofs. Balzac adopted the same plan. The printed form enabled them to introduce effects, and correct errors more easily.
Pascal wrote most of his thoughts on little scraps of paper, at his by-moments of leisure. He produced them with immense rapidity. He wrote in a kind of contracted language – like short hand – impossible to read, except by those who had studied it. It resembled the impatient and fiery scratches of Napoleon; yet, though half-formed, the characters have the firmness and precision of the graver. Some one observed to Faguere (Pascal's editor), "This work (deciphering it) must be very fatiguing to the eyes." "No," said he, "it is not the eyes that are fatigued, so much as the brain."
Many authors have been distinguished for the fastidiousness of their composition – never resting satisfied, but correcting and re-correcting to the last moment. Cicero spent his old age in correcting his orations; Massillon in polishing his sermons; Fenelon corrected his Telemachus seven times over.
Of thirty verses which Virgil wrote in the morning, there were only ten left at night. Milton often cut down forty verses to twenty. Buffon would condense six pages into as many paragraphs. Montaigne, instead of cutting down, amplified and added to his first sketch. Boileau had great difficulty in making his verses. He said – "If I write four words, I erase three of them;" and at another time – "I sometimes hunt three hours for a rhyme!"
Some authors were never satisfied with their work. Virgil ordered his Æneid to be burnt. Voltaire cast his poem of The League into the fire. Racine and Scott could not bear to read their productions again. Michael Angelo was always dissatisfied; he found faults in his greatest and most admired works.
Many of the most admired writings were never intended by their authors for publication. Fenelon, when he wrote Telemachus, had no intention of publishing it. Voltaire's Correspondence was never intended for publication, and yet it is perused with avidity; whereas his Henriade, so often corrected by him, is scarcely read. Madame de Sevigní, in writing to her daughter those fascinating letters descriptive of the life of the French Court, never had any idea of their publication, or that they would be cited as models of composition and style. What work of Johnson's is best known? Is it not that by Boswell, which contains the great philosopher's conversation? – that which he never intended should come to light, and for which we have to thank Bozzy.
There is a great difference in the sensitiveness of authors to criticism. Sir Walter Scott passed thirteen years without reading what the critics or reviewers said of his writings; while Byron was sensitive to an excess about what was said of him. It was the reviewers who stung him into his first work of genius —English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. Racine was very sensitive to criticism; and poor Keats was "snuffed out by an article." Moliere was thrown into a great rage when his plays were badly acted. One day, after Tartuffe had been played, an actor found him stamping about as if mad, and beating his head, crying – "Ah! dog! Ah! butcher!" On being asked what was the matter, he replied – "Don't be surprised at my emotion! I have just been seeing an actor falsely and execrably declaiming my piece; and I can not see my children maltreated in this horrid way, without suffering the tortures of the damned!" The first time Voltaire's Artemise was played, it was hissed. Voltaire, indignant, sprang to his feet in his box, and addressed the audience! At another time, at Lausanne, where an actress seemed fully to apprehend his meaning, he rushed upon the stage and embraced her knees!
A great deal might be said about the first failures of authors and orators. Demosthenes stammered, and was almost inaudible, when he first tried to speak before Philip. He seemed like a man moribund. Other orators have broken down, like Demosthenes, in their first effort. Curran tried to speak, for the first time, at a meeting of the Irish Historical Society; but the words died on his lips, and he sat down amid titters – an individual present characterizing him as orator Mum. Boileau broke down as an advocate, and so did Cowper, the poet. Montesquieu and Bentham were also failures in the same profession, but mainly through disgust with it. Addison, when a member of the House of Commons, once rose to speak, but he could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent.
OSTRICHES.
HOW THEY ARE HUNTED
The family of birds, of which the ostrich forms the leading type, is remarkable for the wide dispersion of its various members; the ostrich itself spreads over nearly the whole of the burning deserts of Africa – the Cassowary represents it amid the luxuriant vegetation of the Indian Archipelago. The Dinornis, chief of birds, formerly towered among the ferns of New Zealand, where the small Apteryx now holds its place; and the huge Æpyornis strode along the forests of Madagascar. The Emu is confined to the great Australian continent, and the Rhea to the southern extremity of the western hemisphere; while nearer home we find the class represented by the Bustard, which, until within a few years, still lingered upon the least frequented downs and plains of England.
With the Arabs of the desert, the chase of the ostrich is the most attractive and eagerly sought of the many aristocratic diversions in which they indulge. The first point attended to, is a special preparation of their horses. Seven or eight days before the intended hunt, they are entirely deprived of straw and grass, and fed on barley only. They are only allowed to drink once a day, and that at sunset – the time when the water begins to freshen: at that time also they are washed. They take long daily exercises, and are occasionally galloped, at which time care is taken that the harness is right, and suited to the chase of the ostrich. "After seven or eight days," says the Arab, "the stomach of the horse disappears, while the chest, the breast, and the croup remain in flesh; the animal is then fit to endure fatigue." They call this training techaha. The harness used for the purpose in question is lighter than ordinary, especially the stirrups and saddle, and the martingale is removed. The bridle, too, undergoes many metamorphoses; the mountings and the ear-flaps are taken away, as too heavy. The bit is made of a camel rope, without a throat-band, and the frontlet is also of cord, and the reins, though strong, are very light. The period most favorable for ostrich-hunting is that of the great heat; the higher the temperature the less is the ostrich able to defend himself. The Arabs describe the precise time as that, when a man stands upright, his shadow has the length only of the sole of his foot.
Each horseman is accompanied by a servant called zemmal, mounted on a camel, carrying four goat-skins filled with water, barley for the horse, wheat-flour for the rider, some dates, a kettle to cook the food, and every thing which can possibly be required for the repair of the harness. The horseman contents himself with a linen vest and trowsers, and covers his neck and ears with a light material called havuli, tied with a strip of camel's hide; his feet are protected with sandals, and his legs with light gaiters called trabag. He is armed with neither gun nor pistol, his only weapon being a wild olive or tamarind stick, five or six feet long, with a heavy knob at one end.
Before starting, the hunters ascertain where a large number of ostriches are to be found. These birds are generally met with in places where there is much grass, and where rain has recently fallen. The Arabs say, that where the ostrich sees the light shine, and barley getting ready, wherever it may be, thither she runs, regardless of distance; and ten days' march is nothing to her; and it has passed into a proverb in the desert, of a man skillful in the care of flocks, and in finding pasturage, that he is like the ostrich, where he sees the light there he comes.
The hunters start in the morning. After one or two days' journey, when they have arrived near the spot pointed out, and they begin to perceive traces of their game, they halt and camp. The next day, two intelligent slaves, almost entirely stripped, are sent to reconnoitre; they each carry a goat-skin at their side, and a