which he held literature itself.
It was said in a newspaper after his death, evidently by one of his
contributors, that he always brought the best out of a man by
encouragement and appreciation; that he liked his writers to feel
unfettered; and that his last reply to a proposition for a series of
articles had been: "Whatever you see your way to, I will see mine to,
and we know and understand each other well enough to make the best of
these conditions." Yet the strong feeling of personal responsibility was
always present in his conduct of both journals; and varied as the
contents of a number might be, and widely apart the writers, a certain
individuality of his own was never absent. He took immense pains (as
indeed was his habit about everything) with numbers in which he had
written nothing; would often accept a paper from a young or unhandy
contributor, because of some single notion in it which he thought it
worth rewriting for; and in this way, or by helping generally to give
strength and attractiveness to the work of others, he grudged no
trouble.[294] "I have had a story" he wrote (22nd of June 1856) "to
hack and hew into some form for _Household Words_ this morning, which
has taken me four hours of close attention. And I am perfectly addled by
its horrible want of continuity after all, and the dreadful spectacle I
have made of the proofs--which look like an inky fishing-net." A few
lines from another letter will show the difficulties in which he was
often involved by the plan he adopted for Christmas numbers, of putting
within a framework by himself a number of stories by separate writers to
whom the leading notion had before been severally sent. "As yet" (25th
of November 1859), "not a story has come to me in the least belonging to
the idea (the simplest in the world; which I myself described in
writing, in the most elaborate manner); and everyone of them turns, by a
strange fatality, on a criminal trial!" It had all to be set right by
him, and editorship on such terms was not a sinecure.

It had its pleasures as well as pains, however, and the greatest was
when he fancied he could descry unusual merit in any writer. A letter
will give one instance for illustration of many; the lady to whom it was
addressed, admired under her assumed name of Holme Lee, having placed it
at my disposal. (Folkestone: 14th of August 1855.) "I read your tale
with the strongest emotion, and with a very exalted admiration of the
great pow