Where
ordinary writers threw off half a dozen volumes, Murger found it hard to
fit a single volume for the press. Ordinary writers grew rich in writing
speedily forgotten novels; he continued poor in writing novels which
will live for many years. Then, Murger's vein of talent made him work
for theatres which gave more reputation than ready money. He was too
delicate a writer to construct those profitable dramas which run a
hundred or a hundred and fifty nights and place ten or twenty thousand
dollars in the writer's purse. His original poverty kept him poor. He
could not afford to wait until the seed he had sown had grown and
ripened for the sickle; so he fell into the hands of usurers, who
purchased the crop while it was yet green, and made the harvest yield
them profits of fifty or seventy-five per centum.
His distress during the last years of his life was as great as the
distress of his youth. His published letters tell a sorrowful tale.
They are filled with apprehensions of notes maturing only to be
protested, or complaints of inability to go up to Paris one day because
he has not a shirt to wear, another day because he cannot procure the
seventy-five cents which are the railway-fare from Fontainebleau to
Paris.
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