Personalities.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 410, 17 March 1904, Page 2

Personalities.

.- ** -> ; e6w geeat men wobe. 8 N estimating the laboriousneas or ease &<with which, pfcolaees' "•his work, it ia' aecesßery Co''take into account the preliminary period when the process of construction is being undergone. '%. Alexandre Dumas flls, for instance, had the greatest difficulty in getting his ideas into shape in building up the living whole from,the first centralVidea, His plays, before he could begin to write, had to revolve in his mind for months previously. Daring this;period he would retire into, complete seclusion, making his oro coffee, cooking hiß own and frequshtly not ■sleeping ,for.nightß at a, wrestled with the struggling schemes he' could not get under control; but once the

whole conception waß clear, the characters realiße.d,,the scenes,,gripped, trouble was at an end. Ha returned to society and wrote with an extreme rapidity. * Monsieur Alphonse' was finished in seventeen days; 'Uae Visite de Noceß'in eight; while the whole of the Beoond act of 'La Dame aux Cameliaß' was written in one: day between twelve o'clock and four in! the afternoon. The concentration of mind must have been enormous to make Dickens personally" upset atlhe tragedies of his heroes, while itiwjao| infrequent for authors to be; found crying like women over the death or misfortune of a favourite character, Gustavo Flaubert was so affected while writing of the suicide by arsenic of Madame Bovary that he experienced the taste of the poison in his mouth during ; - the whole period, and became pjuite ill at , tl^^fluish.r^Among the curions_inflow ; 6f *n inspiration, as it wore, is ; the&most cjbliamon ex- : . perience. Mueset says of it: One does not work, one only listens and .-waits.,/ ■ -■* '"- It/is s.B some stranger whispering at one's ear. ■.-'! Lamartine wrotealsoy *It r ;issffot I who. think, but;my ideasi that think for me.' ~ ; The poet, Micfciewiez, asserts ■ that he. has merely to strike hie breast,' • .and fthe, •God-given inspiration bursts ( forth of itself. Of 'another we read tha< 1 his best work was diotated when the man himself was in a state bordering upon insanity; The inspiration—witti. its suggestion of a subjective mind independent of the objective reasoning faculty—occurs also constantly among musicians. Haydn | attributed the conception of his symphony, 'The Creation,* to a mysterious : fUsh of insight spiritually granted: to, Jrim- The experiences both of Mozart and Saint-Saens suggest also this listening, in contradistinction to actual deliberate creation. .... ~ -,- f i

Many poems have been originally composed in dreams. Heinrioh Heine and Snlly-Prndhomme both produced some of their work when asleep, and La Fontaine's fable of 'The Two Pigeons' is a striking example of the same thing. TOO WIDE A CHOICER The late Paul du Chaillu was on one occasion asked why he had never married. ' Well, once upon a time,' he answered, without a smile,'an old African King who was very fond? of me offered me my choice of eight hundred and fifty-three women as a wife. 'Your Majesty,' I<replied, 'if I should marry one of these beauties of yours, there would be eight hundred and fifty-two. jealous women here.' ' 'Well,' replied 'King, ! <jthat iseasily settled. Take them all.' That was a little too strong, for me, however, and as I have never had. such a field to choose from since, I am still a bachelor.' ' f