From each symbol, from each printed word lances a jet of ink which twists and turns like a Congreve rocket and blossoms at the end in a luminous rain of sentences, epithets and substantives, underlined, crossed out, mixed together, scribbled out, overlapped, it is amazing to behold.
Imagine four or five hundred such arabesques, twisting, knotting, climbing and sliding from one margin to another, from north to south. A ball of yarn tormented by a cat, every hieroglyph of Pharaoh's dynasty, or the fireworks of twenty national holidays.
At the sight, the printers are less than happy. The composers strike themselves, the presses whine, the foremen rip their hair out, the apprentices lose their heads. The more courageous approach the proof and recognize Persian, others the writing of Madagascar, some the symbolic characters of Vishnu.
The next day, Mr. de Balzac sends two pages of pure Chinese. The deadline is now only two weeks. A generous foreman offers to shoot himself.
Two new pages arrive, very legibly written in Siamese. Two workers lose their sight and what little language they knew.
The proofs are thus sent seven times. One begins to recognize a few symptoms of excellent French, some connectors are even spotted in the sentences.
Imagine four or five hundred such arabesques, twisting, knotting, climbing and sliding from one margin to another, from north to south. A ball of yarn tormented by a cat, every hieroglyph of Pharaoh's dynasty, or the fireworks of twenty national holidays.
At the sight, the printers are less than happy. The composers strike themselves, the presses whine, the foremen rip their hair out, the apprentices lose their heads. The more courageous approach the proof and recognize Persian, others the writing of Madagascar, some the symbolic characters of Vishnu.
The next day, Mr. de Balzac sends two pages of pure Chinese. The deadline is now only two weeks. A generous foreman offers to shoot himself.
Two new pages arrive, very legibly written in Siamese. Two workers lose their sight and what little language they knew.
The proofs are thus sent seven times. One begins to recognize a few symptoms of excellent French, some connectors are even spotted in the sentences.
—Balzac: His Writing Method by Jules Champfleury
Sir Nigel: My fingers, as you can see, are more used to iron and leather than to the drawing of strokes and turning of letters. What then? Is there aught amiss, that you should stare so?
Alleyne: It is this first word, my lord. In what tongue were you pleased to write?
Sir Nigel: In English; for my lady talks it more than she doth French.
Alleyne: Yet this is no English word, my sweet lord. Here are four t's and never a letter betwixt them.
Sir Nigel: By St. Paul! it seemed strange to my eye when I wrote it, they bristle up together like a clump of lances. We must break their ranks and set them farther apart. The word is 'that.'
Alleyne: It is this first word, my lord. In what tongue were you pleased to write?
Sir Nigel: In English; for my lady talks it more than she doth French.
Alleyne: Yet this is no English word, my sweet lord. Here are four t's and never a letter betwixt them.
Sir Nigel: By St. Paul! it seemed strange to my eye when I wrote it, they bristle up together like a clump of lances. We must break their ranks and set them farther apart. The word is 'that.'
"My sweet ladye," wrote Nigel in a script which it would take the eyes of love to read.
