An author may adopt either of two modes of composing. He may write off the whole of his work roughly, so as to get upon paper the plan and general outline, without attending at all to the language. He may afterwards study minutely every clause of each sentence, and then every word of each clause.
Or the author may finish and polish each sentence as soon as it is written.
This latter process was, I think, employed by Mr. Rogers, at least in his poetry.
He then told us that Southey composed with much greater rapidity than himself, as well in poetry as in prose. Of the latter Southey frequently wrote a great many pages before breakfast.
Once, at a large dinner party, Mr. Rogers was speaking of an inconvenience arising from the custom, then commencing, of having windows formed of one large sheet of plate-glass. He said that a short time ago he sat at dinner with his back to one of these single panes of plate-glass: it appeared to him that the window was wide open, and such was the force of imagination, that he actually caught cold.
〈DIFFERENT EFFECTS OF IMAGINATION.〉
It so happened that I was sitting just opposite to the poet. Hearing this remark, I immediately said, “Dear me, how odd it is, Mr. Rogers, that you and I should make such a very different use of the faculty of imagination. When I go to the house of a friend in the country, and unexpectedly {194} remain for the night, having no night-cap, I should naturally catch cold. But by tying a bit of pack-thread tightly round my head, I go to sleep imagining that I have a night-cap on; consequently I catch no cold at all.” This sally produced much amusement in all around, who supposed I had improvised it; but, odd as it may appear, it is a practice I have often resorted to. Mr. Rogers, who knew full well the respect and regard I had for him, saw at once that I was relating a simple fact, and joined cordially in the merriment it excited.
In the latter part of Mr. Rogers’s life, when, being unable to walk, he was driven in his carriage round the Regent’s Park, he frequently called at my door, and, when I was able, I often accompanied him in his drive. On some one of these occasions, when I was unable to accompany him, I put into his hands a parcel of proof-sheets of a work I was then writing, thinking they might amuse him during his drive, and that I might profit by his criticism. Some years before, I had consulted him about a novel I had proposed to write solely for the purpose of making money to assist me in completing the Analytical Engine. I breakfasted alone with the poet, who entered fully into the subject. I proposed to give up a twelvemonth to writing the novel, but I determined not to commence it unless I saw pretty clearly that I could make about 5,000 l. by the sacrifice of my time. The novel was to have been in three volumes, and there would probably have been reprints of another work in two volumes. Both of these works would have had graphic illustrations. The poet gave me much information on all the subjects connected with the plan, and amongst other things, observed that when he published his beautifully illustrated work on Italy, that he had paid 9,000 l. out of his own pocket before he received any return for that work.
CHAPTER XIV. RECOLLECTIONS OF LAPLACE, BIOT, AND HUMBOLDT.
My First Visit to Paris — Anecdote of the fifty-two Eggs — Mistake about Woodhouse — Fourier — Biot — Drawings of the Difference Engine — Strong characteristic of Humboldt’s mind — English Clergyman at Paris — Great Meeting of Philosophers at Berlin, 1828 — Introduces the Author to Magnus and Derichlet — Puts the Englishman upon the Dining Committee — Conversation in the Linden Walk — Humboldt’s study — Various members of the family of Buonaparte — Lucien and his Children — Louis, the King of Holland — Joseph, the King of Spain — His second Daughter married to a Son of Louis — Their taste — Drawings and Lithographs — Her Death.