He came to believe that money and position in Victorian England meant everything. His early encounters with such grave conditions gave Dickens rare and deep insight into life's inequalities and greatly deepened his writing. In after life Dickens never complained of unkind treatment while thus employed, but he looked back over that period as the dark hour in his life. It was dark because uncongenial both in work and associates. His sufferings were so acute, and made such an impression on him, that years afterward he could not think of them without crying; and there were certain quarters of the town through which he used to pass to his daily work, and where he used to loiter with less than enough to eat, that he habitually shunned for their painful memories." In his wretched condition there were numerous chances for him to become a rogue or a vagabond, but he survived these dangers and became a great novelist. Instead of sinking into the depth of the thronging atoms, he arose above them, or kept apart from them, observed them, and became their describer.
A new period soon commenced in the life of Charles. His father's affairs improved so far as to enable him to send the lad to school. Dickens enrolled at Wellington House Academy in London, where he excelled. He loved reading, especially adventure stories and magical tales by other English writers such as Shakespeare, Tobias Smollett, Oliver Goldsmith, and Henry Fielding. At this time, Dickens began submitting "penny-a-line" material (whereby writers were paid per line for their work) to the British Press. Such submissions largely took the form of factual information about fires, accidents, and police reports. Dickens took great pride in meeting deadlines and beating other reporters to key facts, and his sharp accuracy was well respected.
His parents could not afford to complete his education. At the age of fifteen, he was placed in an attorney's office among the younger clerks, but poor chances for advancement induced him to abandon the office and take to shorthand as a business for life.
