The Argosy — page 366: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Mrs. Henry Wood. 343 footstep approaching, would hastily put away all signs of her work into her desk. Most*of what was then written, she unfortunately destroyed. As the first juice of the grape is said to be sweetest, it is possible that those earlier writings might have contained at least the germs of excellent material for future use. One of these earlier productions, I have heard her say, was an historical five-act drama in blank verse. Every line of it was consigned to the flames in her shyness ; and this she ever afterwards regretted. VI. { HAVE frequently been asked as to my mother’s manner of writing her novels. She first composed her plot. Having decided upon the main idea, she would next divide it into the requisite number of chapters. Each chapter was then elaborated. Every incident in every chapter was thought out and recorded, from the first chapter to the last. She mever changed her plots or incidents. Once thought out, her pur- pose became fixed, and was never turned aside for any fresh departure or emergency that might arise in the development of the story. The drama had then become to her as real as if it had actually existed. Every minute detail of the plot was written out before a line of the story was begun. All was so elaborately sketched that anyone with sufficient power would have had no difficulty in writing the story with the plot in possession. ‘The only difference would have been the evidence of another hand. The plot of each novel occupied a good many pages of close, though not small, writing. It would take her, generally speaking, about three weeks to think it out from beginning to end. During those times, she could not bear the slightest interruption. But I have occasionally gone into her study, though never without being startled, almost awed, by the look upon her face. She would be at all times in a reclining chair, her paper upon her knees ; and the expression of her eyes, large, wide-opened, was so intense and ab- sorbed, so far away, it seemed as if the spirit had wandered into some distant realm and had to be brought back to its tenement before the matter suddenly placed before her could be attended to. It, indeed, took many moments to recall her attention, elsewhere con- centrated. Only on rare or important occasions was such an intrusion ever permitted; for the thread of her ideas once broken could very seldom be resumed the same day ; and, as she never wrote a line of anything when composing a plot, she would consider that her day had been partly lost or wasted. Yet her sweet face never showed sign of vexation, and her sweet voice gave no word of regret or reproof. The ability to draw out her plots so minutely and elaborately gave COMMICMOOOKS.Cc©