mply
Readings, they were in the fullest meaning of the words singularly
ingenious and highly elaborated histrionic performances. And his
sustained success in them during fifteen years altogether, and, as
we have seen, through as many as five hundred representations, may be
accounted for in the same way as his still more prolonged success, from
the beginning of his career as a Novelist down to its very close, from
the Pickwick Papers to Edwin Drood, otherwise, during an interval of
four-and-thirty consecutive years, as the most popular author of his
generation.

The secret of his original success, and of the long sustamment of it
in each of these two careers--as Writer and as Reader--is in a great
measure discoverable in this, that whatever powers he possessed he
applied to their very uttermost. Whether as Author or as Impersonator,
he gave himself up to his appointed task, not partially or
intermittingly, but thoroughly and indefatigably.

His rule in life, in this way, he has himself clearly explained in the
forty-second chapter of David Copperfield. What he there says about
David's industry and perseverance, applies as directly to himself, as
what he also relates in regard to his young hero's earlier toils as a
parliamentary reporter, and his precocious fame as a writer of fiction.
Speaking at once for David and for himself, he there writes for both or
for either, "Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all
my heart to do well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted
myself to completely; in great aims and in small I have always been
thoroughly in earnest. I have never believed it possible that any
natural or improved ability can claim immunity from the companionship
of the steady, plain, hard-working qualities, and hope to gain its
end. There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, and sincere
earnestness. Never to put one hand to anything on which I could throw
my whole self; and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever
it was, I find now to have been my golden rules." What is there said
applies far more recognisably to the real Charles Dickens than to the
imaginary David Copperfield.

Attestations of the truth of this were discoverable, at every turn, in
regard to his regular system, his constant method, nay, his minutest
tricks of habit, so to speak, both as Reader and as Novelist. It was
so when as an Author, for example, note was taken, now of his careful
forecast of a