self-reproaches and bemoanings when sometimes the day for reappearing
would come terribly nigh, while yet the necessary amount of copy was
far from being ready, were often very ludicrous and very sad;--ludicrous
because he never told of his distress without adding to it something of
ridicule which was irresistible, and sad because those who loved him
best were aware that physical suffering had already fallen upon him, and
that he was deterred by illness from the exercise of continuous energy.
I myself did not know him till after the time now in question. My
acquaintance with him was quite late in his life. But he has told me
something of it, and I have heard from those who lived with him how
continual were his sufferings. In 1854, he says in one of his letters to
Mr. Reed,--the only private letters of his which I know to have been
published; "I am to-day just out of bed after another, about the
dozenth, severe fit of spasms which I have had this year. My book would
have been written but for them." His work was always going on, but
though not fuller of matter,--that would have been almost
impossible,--would have been better in manner had he been delayed
neither by suffering nor by that palsying of the energies which
suffering produces.

This ought to have been the happiest period of his life, and should have
been very happy. He had become fairly easy in his circumstances. He had
succeeded in his work, and had made for himself a great name. He was
fond of popularity, and especially anxious to be loved by a small circle
of friends. These good things he had thoroughly achieved. Immediately
after the publication of _Vanity Fair_ he stood high among the literary
heroes of his country, and had endeared himself especially to a special
knot of friends. His face and figure, his six feet four in height, with
his flowing hair, already nearly gray, and his broken nose, his broad
forehead and ample chest, encountered everywhere either love or respect;