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Page 44
He wrote on May 30, 1862, "As for writing a short story on the spur, it
is a thing I never could do in my life. My success in literature is
owing to my throwing my whole soul into the one thing I am doing. And at
present I am over head and ears in the story for Dickens" ("Very Hard
Cash"). "Write to me often. The grand mistake of friends at a distance
is not corresponding frequently enough. Thus the threads of business are
broken, as well as the silken threads of sentiment. Thanks about the
drama" ("It is Never Too Late to Mend"). "I have but faint hopes. It is
the best thing I ever wrote of any kind, and therefore I fear no manager
will ever have brains to take it."
On June 20, 1862, he wrote of his forthcoming story, "Between ourselves,
the story" ("Very Hard Cash") "will be worth as many thousands as I have
asked hundreds. I suppose they think I am an idiot, or else that I have
no idea of the value of my works in the United States. I put 6 Bolton
Row" (the usual address on his letters) "because that is the safest
address for you to write to; but in reality I have been for the last
month, and still am, buried in Oxford, working hard upon the story. My
advice to you is to enter into no literary speculations during this
frightful war. Upon its conclusion, by working in concert, we might do
something considerable together."
On August 5, 1862, he wrote from Magdalen College, where he was to
remain until the 1st of October, "I shall be truly thankful if you
postpone your venture till peace is re-established. I am quite sure that
a new weekly started now would inevitably fail. You could not print the
war as Leslie and Harper do, and who cares for the still small voice of
literature and fiction amongst the braying of trumpets and the roll of
drums? Do the right thing at the right time, my boy: that is how hits
are made. If you will postpone till a convenient season, I will work
with you and will hold myself free of all engagements in order to do so.
I am myself accumulating subjects with a similar view, and we might do
something more than a serial story, though a serial story must always be
the mainspring of success."
He wrote on September 6, 1862, "I am glad you have varied your project
by purchasing an established monthly" ("The Knickerbocker Magazine")
"instead of starting a new weekly. I will form no new engagements nor
promise early sheets without first consulting you. I will look out for
you, and as soon as my large story is completed will try if I cannot do
something for you myself."
On the 29th of June, 1863, he wrote, "I am much pleased with your
'Knickerbocker Magazine,' and cannot too much admire your energy and
versatility. Take notice, I recommended you Miss Braddon's works while
they were to be had for a song. 'Lost and Saved,' by Mrs. Norton, will
make you a good deal of money if you venture boldly on it and publish
it. It is out-and-out the best new thing, and rather American. If you
hear of any scrap-books containing copious extracts from American
papers, I am open to purchase at a fair price, especially if the
extracts are miscellaneous and dated, and, above all, if classified. I
shall, also be grateful if you will tell me whether there is not a
journal that reports trials, and send me a specimen. Command me whenever
you think I can be of an atom of use to you."
Charles Reade's letters were always highly characteristic of him. In
these he mentally photographed himself, for he always wrote with candid
unreserve, whether to friend or foe, and he liked to talk with the pen.
Both by nature and education he was fitted for a quiet, studious,
scholarly life, and with pen and paper and books he was always at home.
He liked, too, at intervals the cloister-like life he led at Magdalen
College. With nothing to disturb him in his studies and his work, with
glimpses of bright green turf and umbrageous recesses and gray old
buildings with oriel windows that were there before England saw the Wars
of the Roses, his environment was picturesque, and his bursar's cap and
gown became him well, yet seemed to remove him still further from the
busy world and suggest some ecclesiastical figure of the fifteenth
century. He was a D.C.L., and known as Dr. Reade in the college, just as
if he had never written a novel or a play and had been untrumpeted by
fame.
There, in his rooms on "Staircase No. 2," with "Dr. Reade" over the
door, he labored _con amore_. Indeed, he was amid more congenial
surroundings and more truly in his element in the atmosphere of the
ancient university than in London or anywhere else. By both nature and
habit he was more fitted to enjoy the cloister than the hearth, although
he by no means undervalued the pleasures of society and domestic life.
The children of his brain--his own works--seemed to be the only ones he
cared for; and, loving and feeling proud of his literary family, he was
mentally satisfied. Yet no man was a keener observer of home-life, and
his portraiture of women and analysis of female character, although
unvarying as to types, were singularly true and penetrating. His
Fellowship was the principal cause of his never marrying, the next most
important one being that he was always wedded to his pen; and
literature, like law, is a jealous mistress. He had some idea of this
kind when he said, "An author married is an author marred,"--an
adaptation from Shakespeare, who was ungallant enough to say, "A young
man married is a man that's marred." But a good and suitable wife would
have given _�clat_ to his social life.
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