But it was the theater that interested him most.  Nothing else seemed to him quite so fine as to be a successful writer for the stage.  He viewed the drama with all the reverence of an ancient Greek.  On his tombstone he caused himself to be described as “Dramatist, novelist, journalist.”

“Dramatist” he put first of all, even after long experience had shown him that his greatest power lay in writing novels.  But in this early period he still hoped for fame upon the stage.

It was not a fortunate moment for dramatic writers.  Plays were bought outright by the managers, who were afraid to risk any considerable sum, and were very shy about risking anything at all.  The system had not yet been established according to which an author receives a share of the money taken at the box-office.  Consequently, Reade had little or no financial success.  He adapted several pieces from the French, for which he was paid a few bank-notes.  “Masks and Faces” got a hearing, and drew large audiences, but Reade had sold it for a paltry sum; and he shared the honors of its authorship with Tom Taylor, who was then much better known.

Such was the situation.  Reade was personally liked, but his plays were almost all rejected.  He lived somewhat extravagantly and ran into debt, though not very deeply.  He had a play entitled “Christie Johnstone,” which he believed to be a great one, though no manager would venture to produce it.  Reade, brooding, grew thin and melancholy.  Finally, he decided that he would go to a leading actress at one of the principal theaters and try to interest her in his rejected play.  The actress he had in mind was Laura Seymour, then appearing at the Haymarket under the management of Buckstone; and this visit proved to be the turning-point in Reade’s whole life.

Laura Seymour was the daughter of a surgeon at Bath—­a man in large practise and with a good income, every penny of which he spent.  His family lived in lavish style; but one morning, after he had sat up all night playing cards, his little daughter found him in the dining-room, stone dead.  After his funeral it appeared that he had left no provision for his family.  A friend of his—­a Jewish gentleman of Portuguese extraction—­showed much kindness to the children, settling their affairs and leaving them with some money in the bank; but, of course, something must be done.

The two daughters removed to London, and at a very early age Laura had made for herself a place in the dramatic world, taking small parts at first, but rising so rapidly that in her fifteenth year she was cast for the part of Juliet.  As an actress she led a life of strange vicissitudes.  At one time she would be pinched by poverty, and at another time she would be well supplied with money, which slipped through her fingers like water.  She was a true Bohemian, a happy-go-lucky type of the actors of her time.

From all accounts, she was never very beautiful; but she had an instinct for strange, yet effective, costumes, which attracted much attention.  She has been described as “a fluttering, buoyant, gorgeous little butterfly.”  Many were drawn to her.  She was careless of what she did, and her name was not untouched with scandal.  But she lived through it all, and emerged a clever, sympathetic woman of wide experience, both on the stage and off it.