at he
had been secretly bringing before himself, at least, the possibility
that what had ever been his great support might some day desert him. It
was strange that he should have had such doubt, and he would hardly have
confessed it openly; but apart from that wonderful world of his books,
the range of his thoughts was not always proportioned to the width and
largeness of his nature. His ordinary circle of activity, whether in
likings or thinkings, was full of such surprising animation, that one
was apt to believe it more comprehensive than it really was; and again
and again, when a wide horizon might seem to be ahead of him, he would
pull up suddenly and stop short, as though nothing lay beyond. For the
time, though each had its term and change, he was very much a man of one
idea, each having its turn of absolute predominance; and this was one of
the secrets of the thoroughness with which everything he took in hand
was done. As to the matter of his writings, the actual truth was that
his creative genius never really failed him. Not a few of his inventions
of character and humour, up to the very close of his life, his
Marigolds, Lirripers, Gargerys, Pips, Sapseas and many others, were as
fresh and fine as in his greatest day. He had however lost the free and
fertile method of the earlier time. He could no longer fill a
wide-spread canvas with the same facility and certainty as of old; and
he had frequently a quite unfounded apprehension of some possible
break-down, of which the end might be at any moment beginning. There
came accordingly, from time to time, intervals of unusual impatience and
restlessness, strange to me in connection with his home; his old
pursuits were too often laid aside for other excitements and
occupations; he joined a public political agitation, set on foot by
administrative reformers; he got up various quasi-public private
theatricals, in which he took the leading place; and though it was but
part of his always generous devotion in any friendly duty to organize
the series of performances on his friend Jerrold's death, yet the
eagerness with which he flung himself into them, so arranging them as to
assume an amount of labour in acting and travelling that might have
appalled an experienced comedian, and carrying them on week after week
unceasingly in London and the provinces, expressed but the craving which
still had possession of him to get by some means at some change that
should make existence ea