His conscientiousness and honesty of purpose were really admirable; and rather than break a contract or disappoint any one to whom he had made a promise he would subject himself to any amount of inconvenience.  For example, he would, whenever necessary, retire to Oxford and write against time in order to have his manuscript ready for the printer when wanted.  Much, too, as he disliked burning the midnight oil or any kind of night-work, and the strain that artificial light imposed upon his eyes, he would write late in his rooms, or read up on subjects he was writing about in the reading-room in the Radcliffe Library building till it closed at ten P.M.  He had, it will be seen, a high sense of duty, and “business before pleasure” was a precept he never neglected.

In personal appearance Charles Reade, without being handsome, was strongly built and fine-looking.  He was about six feet in height, broad-chested and well proportioned, and without any noticeable physical peculiarity.  His head was well set on his shoulders, and, though not unusually small, might have been a trifle larger without marring the symmetry of his figure.

His features were not massive, but prominent, strong, and regular, and his large, keen, grayish-brown eyes were the windows of his mind, through which he looked out upon the world with an expressive, eager, and inquiring gaze, and through which those who conversed with him could almost read his thoughts before he uttered them.  He had a good broad forehead, well-arched eyebrows, and straight, dark-brown hair, parted at the side, which, like his entirely unshaven beard, he wore short until late in life.  In his dress and manner he was rather neglige than precise, and he bestowed little thought on his personal appearance or what Mrs. Grundy might say.  Taking him all in all, the champion of James Lambert looked the lion-hearted hero that he was.

In his personal habits and tastes he was always simple, quiet, regular, and he was strictly temperate.  He had no liking for dissipation of any kind.  He found his pleasure in his work, as all true workers in the pursuit for which they are best fitted always do.  The proper care he took of himself accounted in part for his well-developed muscular system and his good health until within a few years of his death, notwithstanding his studious and sedentary life.

Among literary men he had few intimates, and he was not connected with any clique of authors or journalists.  He thought this was one reason why the London reviewers—­whom he once styled “those asses the critics”—­were so unfriendly toward him.  He was not of their set, and some of them regarded him as a sort of literary Ishmael, who had his hand raised against all his contemporaries, a quarrelsome and cantankerous although very able man, and therefore to be ignored or sat down upon whenever possible.  He once said, “I don’t know a man on the press who would do me a favor.  The press is a great engine, of course, but its influence is vastly overrated.  It has the credit of leading public opinion, when it only follows it; and look at the rag-tag-and-bobtail that contribute to it.  Even the London ‘Times’ only lives for a day.  My books have made their way in spite of the press.”