The astonishing rapidity attained by Mr. WALTER MELVILLE in the
composition of his plays as revealed in the evidence given in court last
week has suggested an appeal to other leading authors for information as
to their rate of production. We append the results herewith:--
Mr. MAX PEMBERTON observed that the speed of composition varied with the
literary quality of the work produced. Personally he found that by far
the most laborious and protracted mental effort was entailed in the
writing of _Revues_. He had calculated that the amount of brain force he
had spent on his last masterpiece was fully as large as that expended by
GIBBON on his monumental _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_. In evidence of the strain he added the following interesting
statistics. He had worn out thirteen of the costliest gold-nibbed
fountain pens; seven expert typists had been so exhausted that they had
to undergo a rest-cure; and finally he himself had consumed no fewer
than nineteen seven-and-sixpenny bottles of Blunker's Sanguinogen.
Sir EDWIN DURNING-LAWRENCE, Bart., poohpoohed the notion that the
moderns were more rapid producers than their forefathers. As the result
of his investigations he had conclusively proved that BACON was an
infinitely more rapid producer than any living author. His time-table
worked out as follows. BACON wrote _Chaucer_ in a little less than three
weeks. He completed the _Faerie Queene_ in one sitting, allowing for
refreshments, of seventy-four hours. The Plays of SHAKSPEARE occupied
him from first to last not more than ten months. _Montaigne_ was dashed
off in just a fortnight, while _Beaumont and Fletcher_, _Marlowe_,
_Greene_, _Webster_ and _Ben Jonson_ took him exactly 37-1/2 days. Next
to SHAKSPEARE'S Plays the _Divina Commedia_ was his most protracted
effort, costing him nearly four months of unremitting labour. Sir EDWIN
added in pathetic proof of the degeneracy of the moderns that his own
famous pamphlet had taken him twice as long to compose as _Chaucer_ had
taken BACON.
Mr. HALL CAINE strongly deprecated the tendency to put a premium on
rapid composition, as though there were any special virtue in speed. His
own novels, which were written with his heart's blood, represented in
their ultimate form a rigorous condensation of materials ten or even
fifteen times as bulky. It was in this process of condensation that the
self-sacrificing side of true genius was most convincingly shown. But,
great as was the strain involved in this painful process, even greater
was that imposed on a successful author by the cruel importunity of the
interviewer on the eve of publication. Such methods were absolutely
alien to his nature, but he had to set against his own convenience the
immeasurable disappointment which his refusal would cause his readers.
It was one of the most pathetic tragedies of genius that the dictates of
an austere reticence were so often set at nought by the impulses of a
tender heart.
Sir H. H. HOWORTH said that the 6,500 columns of _The Times_ which he
had filled in the last thirty years had been covered in exactly 3,000
minutes or 500 hours. In his contributions to _The Morning Post_, where
he was accorded a larger type, he had attained a slightly greater
velocity, almost equalling that of LOPE DE VEGA, the most prolific
writer on record. On the other hand, in his _History of the Mongols_ he
had adopted a rate of progress more in keeping with the leisurely habits
of the race whose records he was collating. He added the interesting
fact that, in spite of the saying _nomen omen_, both Dean SWIFT and
Archdeacon HARE were slow composers.
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