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Interesting Facts About Famous tc "Interesting Facts About Famous "
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Mary Shelley, wife of famous Shelleyh, the poet, wanted her son to be educated properly.  When she interviewed the tutor, he said “Madam, I will teach your son to be original and be able to think for himself�.  She was afraid because she had enough experience with her husband who was extremely independent and rigid in his thinking.  She said, “No please teach him to think like other people!� There is truth in what Bernard Shaw said; “Any blockhead will make a better husband than Caesar, Shakesphere and Napoleon.  Great men are ill-adapted for domestic purposes�.
Wordsworth was fond of walking up and down the garden path behind his residence and in the countryside. He composed his poems while walking.  He was uttering the lines aloud. Although he loved and worshiped Nature, he did not like other people talking to him in praise of Nature.  He was Nature’s jealous mistress!
Goethe, the German writer, once went to his friend Schiller’s house and sat in a chair as he was in the bathroom (both of them were great writers).  After some time he became aware of a horrible smell coming from a cupboard. Opening the cupboard, he found rotten apples. After some time Schiller’s wife came.  When she was asked about the rotten apples, she smiled and said that her husband liked the smell and could not write without it.
Charles Dickens, the famous novelist, used to loiter in the streets of London before he started writing.  Walking gave him bright ideas and raw material for writing.
Turner, the great painter was in the habit of leaving his house at midnight when his wife was asleep.  He used to collect a bag full of stones on the way and go to a lakeside tree.  As the disturbed waters caused ripples reflecting the moon in myriad colours, he used to watch them for inspiration.  Once his wife suspected him and followed him stealthily only to discover his queer conduct!
Rousseau, the French writer, used to write after a morning walk. Leo Tolstoy also found morning hours most suitable for his writing. Dostoievsky however liked to write at night when there was silence.  Flaubert did not believe in walking.  He preferred to be left alone in his study with pen in hand, racking his brain for the right word.
Alexander Pope who wrote verse satire wrote his heroic couplets on the s of used envelopes for economy.  Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver’s Travels made fun of him by dubbing him as ‘paper-sparing Pope!� Johnson said, “Pope never drank coffee without stratagem!�
Ruskin had just written the words “TODAY� in bold letters and displayed them prominently at his writing desk.  They constantly reminded him of the need to finish the day’s quota.
Pushkin, Russia’s greatest poet whose 200^th Birthday was celebrated recently had to leave Petersburg on being banished to Southern Russia.  It was during this exile that he wrote his greatest book EUGENE ONEGIN.  He died fighting a duel.
When Coleridge was a boy, he was once found wandering in the London streets making funny gestures with his hands.  When a police constable stopped him on suspicion, he said, “I am swimming the Hellespont�.  Later on it was found that his imagination caught fire after reading Marlow’s ‘Hero and Leander�. Coleridge was known for his pictorial imagination.
Ginger Rogers and Fred Austair (Hollywood filmstars) were a popular dancing pair.  Being a perfectionist he and Rogers believed in numerous rehearsals.  There were as many as 54 takes when he made the film ‘The Castle�.  After the dance the floor sweeper found a trail of blood leading to the chair where Ginger Rogers was sitting.  Such was their hard work and search for perfection.  People think that a film star’s life is a bed of roses.
Walter Pater had a peculiar habit of writing.  He used to pile up a number of squares of white paper, some containing notes to be transferred to the book.  Some were blank white paper squares. One blue square contained the central theme.  There were small sheets and big sheets. He alone could know how to put them together to produce the book. To the onlookers it looked like a Jigsaw puzzle.
Thomas Hobbes liked to have a stroll outside his house. He was the author of ‘Leviathan�. He carried in the hollow handle of his handstick, a pen and an ink well. He kept a notebook ready in his pocket. Whenever a thought flashed in his mind, he made an instant entry in his notebook.
Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was one of the shortest but a historic speech.  He wrote his speech and studied it in his house and wherever he went on his horse.  He used to keep the paper under his hat.  Whenever he stopped on the way, he used to remove his hat and read the paper. Once when he and his friend were lodged in a hotel, his friend casually entered his room. He was surprised to find Lincoln addressing the wall, imagining it to be his Gettysburg audience.
Balzac used to write his droll stories wearing a white Dominican gown and hood, embroidered slippers and gold chain belt suspending a paper knife and a pair of scissors and a gold penknife.  He used to keep the candles burning continuously because the window curtains were closed to keep out the daylight.
Everyone knows that Leo Tolstoy’s masterpiece ‘WAR AND PEACE� is a voluminous treatise. Tolstoy wrote and re-wrote it again and again in quest of perfection. Reams and reams of paper were hand � written and his sick wife copied the whole manuscript of more than one thousand pages.
Winston Churchill wrote his speeches before he delivered them in the House of Commons. He used to have a number of rehearsals in the privacy of his room, standing before a full length mirror to satisfy himself about his delivery and gestures. Once when he was in his bath room, his servant who heard his voice, opened the door to find out what he wanted Churchill scolded him saying “You fool! Why did you open the door? I am addressing the House of Commons!�.
Victor Hugo, the famous author of ‘LES MISERABLES� had very high aspiration of getting Paris city renamed in his honour!
Even Shakesphere, the most celebrated dramatist who rose from rags to riches, wanted lustre to his name by processing a Coat of Arms for his family.
It is interesting to study the lives of great writers!.