THE
ATLANTIC MONTHLY
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. XIV.—AUGUST, 1864.—NO. LXXXII.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by TICKNOR ANDFIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District ofMassachusetts.
CHARLES READE.
HOW ROME IS GOVERNED.
CONCORD.
WHAT WILL BECOME OF THEM?
HEAD-QUARTERS OF BEER-DRINKING.
FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK.
LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.
THE LITTLE COUNTRY-GIRL.
SWEET-BRIER.
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.
THE HEART OF THE WAR.
OUR RECENT FOREIGN RELATIONS.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS
CHARLES READE.
Some one lately took occasion, in passing, to class Charles Reade withthe clever writers of the day, sandwiching him between Anthony Trollopeand Wilkie Collins,—for no other reason, apparently, than that henever, with Chinese accuracy, gives us gossiping drivel that reduceslife to the dregs of the commonplace, or snarls us in any inextricabletangle of plots.
Charles Reade is not a clever writer merely, but a great one,—howgreat, only a careful résumé of his productions can tell us. We knowtoo well that no one can take the place of him who has just left us, andwho touched so truly the chords of every passion; but out of the rankssome one must step now to the leadership so deserted,—for Dickensreigns in another region,—and whether or not it shall be Charles Readedepends solely upon his own election: no one else is so competent, andnothing but wilfulness or vanity need prevent him,—the wilfulness ofpersisting in certain errors, or the vanity of assuming that he has nofarther to go. He needs to learn the calmness of a less variabletemperature and a truer equilibrium, less positive sharpness and morephilosophy; he will be a thorough master, when the subject glows in hisforge and he himself remains unheated.
He is about the only writer we have who gives us anything of himself.Quite unconsciously, every sentence he writes is saturated with his ownidentity; he is, then, a man of courage, and—the postulate assumed thatwe are not speaking of fools—courage in such case springs only from twosources, carelessness of opinion and possession of power. Now no one, ofcourse, can be entirely indifferent to the audience he strives toplease; and it would seem, then, that that daring which is the firstelement of success arises here from innate capacity. Unconsciously, aswe have said, is it that our author is self-betrayed, for he is bynature so peculiarly a raconteur that he forgets himself entirely inseizing the prominent points of his story; and it is to this that hischief fault is attributable,—the want of elaboration,—a fault,however, which he has great