Then I went back to Bowring. "Take me on
again, old man, will you?" Bowring was a man of few words; he
said, "Blaze away, my boy." And I tried to. But it was no use; I
had got out of the style; my writing was too literary by a long
chalk. For a whole year I deliberately strove to write badly, but
Bowring was so pained with the feebleness of my efforts that at
last he sternly bade me avoid his sight. "What the devil," he
roared one day, "do you mean by sending me stories about men and
women? You ought to know better than that, a fellow of your
experience!" So I had to give it up, and there was an end of my
career as a writer of fiction.'
He shook his head sadly.
'Biffen,' he continued, 'when I first made his acquaintance, had
an idea of writing for the working classes; and what do you think
he was going to offer them? Stories about the working classes!
Nay, never hang your head for it, old boy; it was excusable in
the days of your youth. Why, Mr Reardon, as no doubt you know
well enough, nothing can induce working men or women to read
stories that treat of their own world.
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