Amid the busy hum of earnest voices, constantly asking questions of the
mother, intent on her world-renowned task, Mrs. Stowe wove together
those thrilling chapters which were destined to find readers in so many
languages throughout the globe. No work of similar importance, so far as
we know, was ever written amid so much that seemed hostile to literary
composition.
I had the opportunity, both in England and America, of observing the
literary habits of Thackeray, and it always seemed to me that he did his
work with comparative ease, but was somewhat influenced by a custom of
procrastination. Nearly all his stories were written in monthly
instalments for magazines, with the press at his heels. He told me that
when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in
it, and, to use his own words, he was always very shaky about their
moral conduct. He said that sometimes, especially if he had been dining
late and did not feel in remarkably good-humor next morning, he was
inclined to make his characters villanously wicked; but if he rose
serene with an unclouded brain, there was no end to the lovely actions
he was willing to make his men and women perform. When he had written a
passage that pleased him very much he could not resist clapping on his
hat and rushing forth to find an acquaintance to whom he might instantly
read his successful composition.
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