But this seems inconsistent with the fact that the publisher sent
him a supplementary cheque for L250 on account of _Esmond's_ success.
Notes:
[63] One is reminded of the accounts of Scott's "copy." "Page
after page the writing runs on exactly as you read it in print"--says
Mr. Mowbray Morris. "I was looking not long ago at the manuscript of
_Kenilworth_ in the British Museum, and examined the end with particular
care, thinking that the wonderful scene of Amy Robsart's death must
surely have cost him some labour. They were the cleanest pages in the
volume: I do not think there was a sentence altered or added in the
whole chapter" (Lecture at Eton, _Macmillan's Magazine_ (1889), lx.
pp. 158-9).
[64] "The sentences"--Mr. Crowe told a member of the Athenaeum,
when speaking of his task--"came out glibly as he [Thackeray] paced the
room." This is the more singular when contrasted with the slow
elaboration of the Balzac and Flaubert school. No doubt Thackeray must
often have arranged in his mind precisely much that he meant to say.
Such seems indeed to have been his habit. The late Mr. Lockcer-Lampson
informed the writer of this paper that once, when he met the author of
Esmond in the Green Park, Thackeray gently begged to be allowed to walk
alone, as he had some verses In his head which he was finishing.
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