MISCELLANEOUS.

Inangahua Times, Volume X, Issue 1609, 5 October 1885, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

la literature greatneai must •»< achieved; it is never '• thiust upon' any writer. Th« majority of oar sac cessful authors served a laborious ap pi entioeship, and it was only aftei loug years of patient work and wear\ waiting that they were enabled to ean their daily bread. The great Newtor remodelled his Chronology sixteen times. Gibbon wrote nine autobiographies before he was pleased with his work. Grey's famous '• Elegy " occupied seven years of thoughtful pen work. Samuel Rogers laboriously achieved four harmouiona lines m o thy. Moore tnd Wordsworth detested the drudgery of the pen, and consigned whole reams of MSS to the wastebasket. Byron and Macanlay erased and iut«rlined with the most industrious particnliarity. And Daniel Webster was. so far as his own compositions were concerned, hypercritical to the last degree. It is related of him that, on one occasion, he presented a literary society of Harvard with a valuable bonk, at the same time acknowledging, in a.brief epistle, his elation to an honorary membership The note elicited '.many complimentiry remarks from the students on nccount of the graceful elegance of the style. But it was more fully appreciated when the accompanying volume was examined. The distinguish od donor had thoughtlessly left between its pages a sheet of paper on which appeared half a doien dlffe^-d form* of the gome note.