Pliny the Elder read two thousand volumes in the composition of his Natural History. How to find time for this? He managed it by devoting his days to business and his nights to study. He had books read to him while he was at meals; and he read no book without making extracts. His nephew, Pliny the Younger, has given a highly interesting account of the intimate and daily life of his uncle.
Origen employed seven writers while composing his _Commentaries_, who committed to paper what he dictated to them by turns. He was so indefatigable in writing that they gave him the name of _Brass Bowels_! Like Philip de Comines, Sully used to dictate to four secretaries at a time, without difficulty.
Bossuet left _fifty volumes_ of writings behind him, the result of unintermitting labor. The pen rarely quitted his fingers. Writing became habitual to him, and he even chose it as a relaxation. A night-lamp was constantly lit beside him, and he would rise at all hours to resume his meditations. He rose at about four o'clock in the morning during summer and winter, wrapped himself in his loose dress of bear's skin, and set to work. He worked on for hours, until he felt fatigued, and then went to bed again, falling asleep at once. This life he led for more than twenty years. As he grew older, and became disabled for hard work, he began translating the Psalms into verse, to pass time. In the intervals of fatigue and pain, he read and corrected his former works.
Some writers composed with great rapidity, others slowly and with difficulty. Byron said of himself, that though he felt driven to write, and he was in a state of torture until he had fairly delivered himself of what he had to say, yet that writing never gave him any pleasure, but was felt to be a severe labor. Scott, on the contrary, possessed the most extraordinary facility; and dashed off a great novel of three volumes in about the same number of weeks.
"I have written _Catiline_ in eight days," said Voltaire; "and I immediately commenced the _Henriade_." Voltaire was a most impatient writer, and usually had the first half of a work set up in type before the second half was written. He always had several works in the course of composition at the same time. His manner of preparing a work was peculiar. He had his first sketch of a tragedy set up in type, and then rewrote it from the proofs. Balzac adopted the same plan. The printed form enabled them to introduce effects, and correct errors more easily.