She did not, in truth, read much
nowadays; since the birth of her child she had seemed to care
less than before for disinterested study. If a new novel that had
succeeded came into her hands she perused it in a very practical
spirit, commenting to Reardon on the features of the work which
had made it popular; formerly, she would have thought much more
of its purely literary merits, for which her eye was very keen.
How often she had given her husband a thrill of exquisite
pleasure by pointing to some merit or defect of which the common
reader would be totally insensible! Now she spoke less frequently
on such subjects. Her interests were becoming more personal; she
liked to hear details of the success of popular authors--about
their wives or husbands, as the case might be, their arrangements
with publishers, their methods of work. The gossip columns of
literary papers--and of some that were not literary--had an
attraction for her. She talked of questions such as international
copyright, was anxious to get an insight into the practical
conduct of journals and magazines, liked to know who 'read' for
the publishing-houses.
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