The interest of the public in those who write for its entertainment naturally extends itself to their habits of life. All such habits, let it be said at once, depend on individual peculiarities. One will write only in the morning, another only at night, a third will be able to force himself into effort only at intervals, and a fourth will, after the manner of Anthony Trollope, be almost altogether independent of times and places. The nearest approach to a rule was that which was formulated by a great writer of the last generation, who said that morning should be employed in the production of what De Quincey called “the literature of knowledge,” and the evening in impassioned work, “the literature of power.”
But habits, however unreasonable they may be, are ordinarily very powerful with authors. One of the most renowned writers always attired himself in evening dress before sitting down to his desk. The influence of his attire, he said, gave dignity and restraint to his style. Another author, of at least equal celebrity, could only write in dressing gown and slippers. In order that he might make any progress, it was absolutely essential that he should be unconscious of his clothes. Most authors demand quiet and silence as the conditions of useful work. Carlyle padded his room, in order that he might not be annoyed by the clatter of his neighbours. On the other hand, Jean Paul Richter, whose influence is visible throughout nearly the whole of Carlyle’s writings, would work serenely in the kitchen with his mother attending to her domestic duties, and the children playing around him. In an article contributed by Carlyle to the Edinburgh Review on Richter, we get some interesting facts about this truly great man. The following is reproduced from Döring. “Richter’s studying or sitting apartment, offered about this time (1793),1 a true and beautiful emblem of his simple and noble way of thought, which comprehended at once the high and the low. Whilst his mother, who then lived with him, busily pursued her household work, occupying herself about stove and dresser, Jean Paul was sitting in a corner of the same room, at a simple writing-desk, with few or no books about him, but merely with one or two drawers containing excerpts and manuscripts. The jingle of the household operations seemed not at all to disturb him, any more than did the cooing of the pigeons, which fluttered to and fro in the chamber – a place, indeed, of considerable size.” Carlyle, commenting on the preceding passage, says – “Our venerable Hooker, we remember, also enjoyed ‘the jingle of household operations,’ and the more questionable jingle of shrewd tongues to boot, while he wrote; but the good thrifty mother, and the cooing pigeons, were wanting. Richter came afterwards to live in fine mansions, and had the great and learned for associates, but the gentle feelings of those days abode with him: through life he was the same substantial, determinate, yet meek and tolerating man. It is seldom that so much rugged energy can be so blandly attempered, that so much vehemence and so much softness will go together.”
Dr. Johnson’s “Dictionary” is one of the most familiar books in the English language, and the particulars of the way in which it was compiled are of considerable interest. He agreed with a number of leading London booksellers to prepare the work for £1,775, and spent seven years over the task. When he undertook it, he expected to finish it in three years. His friend, Dr. Adams, called upon him one day, and found him busy with his book, and, says Boswell, a dialogue as follows ensued. “Adams: ‘This is a great work, sir. How are you to get all the etymologies?’ Johnson: ‘Why, here is a shelf with Junius and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welsh gentleman who has published a collection of Welsh proverbs, who will help me with the Welsh.’ Adams: ‘But, sir, how can you do this in three years?’ Johnson: ‘Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years.’ Adams: ‘But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to complete their dictionary.’ Johnson: ‘Sir, thus it is – this is the proportion. Let me see: forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.’” This pleasantry is not reproduced to show Johnson’s vanity, but to give a glimpse of some of the books he used, and his own ideas as to the period he expected to spend over the undertaking.
