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103 693
AYVUEIT IWSYAAINN
THACKERAY
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limrrep
LONDON » BOMBAY + CALCUTTA + MADRAS MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK + BOSTON + CHICAGO DALLAS +» SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO, OF CANADA, Ltn. TORONTO :
ENGLISH MEN OF -LETTERS
THACKERAY
BY
ANTHONY TROLLOPE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1909
RicHARD Clay aND Sons, LIMITED, BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
First Edition, 1879. Reprinted, 1880, 1882, 1886, 1887, r892, 1895, 1QEO, 1905 Library Edition, 1902, 1906. Pocket Edition, 1909.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
BIOGRAPHICAL
CHAPTER II.
FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH .
CHAPTER Iil.
Vanity Fair
CHAPTER IV.
PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES .
CHAPTER V.
ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS
CHAPTER VI.
THACKERAYS BURLESQUES .
PAGE 1
62
99
103
122
139
vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VII.
THACKERAY’S LECTURES
CHAPTER VIII.
THACKERAY’S BALLADS
CHAPTER IX.
THACKERAY S STYLE AND MANNER OF WORK
PAGE
154
168
184
‘THACKHRAY.
CHAPTER I. BIOGRAPHICAL
In the foregoing volumes of this series of English Men of Letters, and in other works of a similar nature which have appeared lately as to the Ancient Classics and Foreign Classics, biography has naturally been, if not the leading, at any rate a considerable element. The desire is common to all readers to know not only what a great writer has written, but also of what nature has been the man who has produced such great work. As to all the authors taken in hand before, there has been extant some written record of the man’s life. Biographical details have been more or less known to the world, so that, whether of a Cicero, or of a Goethe, or of our own Johnson, there has been a story to tell. Of Thackeray no life has been written; and though they who knew him,—and possibly many who did not,—are conversant with anecdotes of the man, who was one so well known in society as to have created many anecdotes, yet there has been no memoir of his life sufficient to supply the wants of even so small a work as this purports to be.
n
2 THACKERAY. [CHAP,
For this the reason may simply be told. Thackeray, not long before his death, had had his taste offended by some fulsome biography. Paragraphs, of which the eulogy seemed to have been the produce rather of personal love than of inquiry or judgment, disgusted him, and he begged of his girls that when he should have gone there should nothing of the sort be done with his name.
We can imagine how his mind had worked, how he had declared to himself that, as by those loving hands into which his letters, his notes, his little details,—his literary remains, as such documents used to be called,— might naturally fall, truth of his foibles and of his short- comings could not be told, so should not his praises be written, or that flattering portrait be limned which biographers are wont to produce. Acting upon these instructions, his daughters,—while there were two living, and since that the one surviving,—have carried out the order which has appeared to them to be sacred. Such being the case, it certainly is not my purpose now to write what may be called a life of Thackeray. In this pre- liminary chapter I will give such incidents and anecdotes of his life as will tell the reader perhaps all about him that a reader is entitled to ask. I will tell how he became an author, and will say how first he worked and struggled, and then how he worked and prospered, and became a household word in English literature ;—how, in this way, he passed through that course of mingled failure and success which, though the literary aspirant may suffer, is probably better both for the writer and for the writings than unclouded early glory. The suffering no doubt is acute, and a touch of melancholy, perhaps of indignation, may be given to words which have been
f. | BIOGRAPHICAL. 3
written while the heart has been too full of its own wrongs; but this is better than the continued note of triumph which is still heard in the final voices of the spoilt child of literature, even when they are losing their inusic. Then I will tell how Thackeray died, eariy indeed, but still having done a good life’s work. Some- thing of his manner, something of his appearance IL ean say, something perhaps of his condition of mind; because for some few years he was known to me. But of the continual intercourse of himself with the world, and of himself with his own works, I ean tell little, because no record of his life has been made public.
William Makepeace Thackeray was born at Caleutta, on July 18, 1811. His father was Richmond Thackeray, son of W. M. Thackeray of Hadley, near Barnet, in Middlesex. A relation of his, of the same name, a Rev. Mr. Thackeray, I knew well as rector of Hadley, many years afterwards. Him I believe to have been a second cousin of our Thackeray, but I think they had never met each other. Another cousin was Provost of Kings at Cambridge, fifty years ago, as Cambridge men will remember. Clergymen of the family have been numerous in England during the century, and there was one, a Rev. Elias Thackeray, whom I also knew in my youth, a dignitary, if I remember right, in the diocese of Meath. The Thackerays seem to have affected the Church ; but such was not at any period of his life the bias of our novelist’s mind.
His father :md grandfather were Indian civil servants. His mother was Anne Becher, whose father was also in the Company’s service. She married early in India, and
was only nineteen when her son was born. She was left BY
4 THACKERAY. [ CHAP,
a widow in 1816, with only one child, and was married a few years afterwards to Major Henry Carmichael Smyth, with whom Thackeray lived on terms of affectionate inter- course till the major died. All who knew William Makepeace remember his mother well, a handsome, spare, gray-haired lady, whom Thackeray treated with a courtly deference as well as constant affection. There was, however, something of discrepancy between them as to matters of religion. Mrs. Carmichael Smyth was disposed to the somewhat austere observance of the evangelical section of the Church. Such, certainly, never became the case with her son. There was disagreement on the subject, and probably unhappiness at intervals, but never, I think, quarrelling. Thackeray’s house was his mother’s home whenever she pleased it, and the home also of his stepfather.
He was brought a child from India, and was sent early to the Charter House. Of his life and doings there his friend and schoolfellow George Venables writes to me as follows ;
“My recollection of him, though fresh enough, does not furnish much material for biography. He came to school young,—a pretty, gentle, and rather timid boy. I think his experience there was not generally pleasant. Though he had afterwards a scholarlike knowledge of Latin, he did not attain distinction in the school; and I should think that the character of the head-master, Dr. Russell, which was vigorous, unsympathetic, and stern, though not severe, was uncongenial to hisown. ‘With the boys who knew him, Thackeray was popular; but he had no skill in games, and, I think, no taste for them .
He was already known by his faculty of making verses,
J BIOGRAPHICAL. 5
chiefly parodies. I only remember one line of one parody ona poem of L. E. L.’s, about ‘ Violets, dark blue violets ;’ Thackeray’s version was ‘ Cabbages, bright green cabbages,’ and we thought it very witty. He took part in a scheme, which came to nothing, for a school magazine, and he wrote verses for it, of which I only remember that they were yood of their kind. When I knew him better, in later years, I thought I could recognise the sensitive nature which he had as a boy . . . . His change of retrospective feeling about his school days was very characteristic. In his earlier books he always spoke of the Charter House as Slaughter House and Smithfield. As he became famous and prosperous his memory softened, and Slaughter House was changed into Grey Friars where Colonel Newcome ended his life.”
In February, 1829, when he was not as yet eighteen, Thackeray went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and was, I think, removed in 1830. It may be presumed, therefore, that his studies there were not very serviceable to him. There are few, if any, records left of his doings at the university,—unless it be the fact that he did there commence the literary work of his life. The line about the cabbages, and the scheme of the school magazine, can hardly be said to have amounted even to a commencement. In 1829 a little periodical was brought out at Cambridge, called The Snob, with an assurance on the title that it was not conducted by members of the university. It is presumed that Thackeray took a hand in editing this, He certainly wrote, and published in the little paper, some burlesque lines on the subject which was given for the Chaneellor’s prize poem of the year. This was Timbuctoo, and Tennyson was the victor on the occasion.
8 THACKERAY.: fear,
There is,some good fun in the four first and four last lines of Thackeray’s production.
In Africa,—a quarter of the world,—
Men’s skins are black; their hair is crisped and curled;
And somewhere there, unknown to public view
A mighty city lies, called Timbuctoo.
a % #
I see her tribes the hill of glory mount,
And sell their sugars on their own account ;
While round her throne the prostrate nations come,
Sue for her rice, and barter for her rum.
I cannot find in The Snob internal evidence of much literary mevit beyond this, But then how many great writers have there been from whose early lucubrations no future literary excellence could be prognosticated ?
There is something at any rate in the name of the pub- lication which tells of work that did come. Thackeray’s mind was at all times peculiarly exercised with a sense of snobbishness. His appreciation of the vice grew ab- normally, so that at last he had a morbid horror of a snob —a morbid fear lest this or the other man should turn snob on his hands. Itis probable that the idea was taken from the early Snod at Cambridge, either from his own participation in the work or from his remembrance of it. The Snob lived, I think, but nine weeks, and was followed at an interval, in 1830, by The Gownsman, which lived to the ‘seventeenth number, and at the opening of which Thackeray no doubt had a hand. It professed to be a continuation of Zhe Snol. It contains a dedication to all proctors, which I should not be sorry to attribute to him. “To all Proctors, past, present, and future—
' Whose taste. it is our privilege to follow, Whose virtue it is our duty to imitate, Whose presence it i ig our interest to avoid.” °
ee |
There is, however, nothing beyond fancy to induce me 3 to
tJ BIOGRAPHICAL. 7
believe that Thackeray was the author of the dedication, and I do not know that there is any evidence to show that he was connected with The Snob beyond the writing of Timbuctoo.
In 1830 he left Cambridge, and went to Weimar either in that year or in 1831. Between Weimar and Paris he spent some portion of his earlier years, while his family, —his mother, that is, and his stepfather,—were living in Devonshire. It was then the purport of his life to become an artist, and he studied drawing at Paris, affecting especially Bonnington, the young English artist who had himself painted at Paris and who had died in 1828. He never learned to draw,—perhaps never could have learned. That he was idle, and did not do his best, we may take for granted. He was always idle, and only on some occasions, when the spirit moved him thoroughly, did he do his best even in after life. But with drawing, —or rather without it,—he did wonderfully well even when he did his worst. He did illustrate his own books, and everyone knows how incorrect were his delineations. But as illustrations they were excellent, How often have I wished that characters of my own creating might be sketched as faultily, if with the same appreciation of the intended purpose. Let anyone look at the “plates,” as they are called in Vanity Furr, and compare each with the scenes and the characters intended to be displayed, and there see whether the artist, —if we may call him so,—has not managed to convey in the picture the exact feeling which he has described in the text. I have a little sketch of his, in which a cannon- ball is supposed to have just carried off the head of an aide-de-camp,—messenger I had perhaps better say, lust I might affront military feelings,—who is kneeling on the field of battle and delivering a despatch to Marlborough
8 THACKERAY. [CHAP.
on horseback. The graceful ease with which the duke receives the message though the messenger’s head be gone, and the soldier-like precision with which the headless hero finishes his last effort of military obedience, may not have been portrayed with well-drawn figures, but no finished illustration ever told its story better. Dickens has in- formed us that he first met Thackeray in 1835, on which occasion the young artist aspirant, looking no doubt after profitable employment, “proposed to become the illustrator of my earliest book.” It is singular that such should have been the first interview between the two great novelists. We may presume that the offer was rejected.
In 1832, Thackeray came of age, and inherited his fortune,—as to which various stories have been told. I+ seems to have amounted to about five hundred a year, and to have passed through his hands in a year or two, interest and principal. It has been told of him that it was all taken away from him at cards, but such was not the truth. Some went in an Indian bank in which he invested it. A portion was lost at ecards, But with some of it,—the larger part as I think,—he endeavoured, in concert with his stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There seem to have been two newspapers in which he was so concerned, The National Standard and The Constitutional. On the latter he was engaged with his stepfather, and in carrying that on he lost the last of his money. The National Standard had been running for some weeks when Thackeray joined it, and lost his money in it. It ran only for little more than iwelve months, and then, the money having gone, the periodical came to an end. I know no road to fortune more tempting to a young man, or one that with more certainty leads to ruin. Thackeray, who in a way more or
1] BIOGRAPHICAL. 9
less correct, often refers ‘im his writings, if not to the incidents, at any rate to the remembrances of his own life, tells us much of the story of this newspaper in Lovel the Widower. “They are welcome,” says the bachelor, “to make merry at my charges in respect of a certain bargain which I made on coming to London, and in which, had I been Moses Primrose purchasing green spectacles, I could scarcely have been more taken in. My Jenkinson was an old college acquaintance, whom I was idiot enough to imagine a respectable man. The fellow had a very smooth tongue and sleek sanctified exterior. He was rather a popular preacher, and used to ery a good deal in the pulpit. He and a queer wine merchant and bill dis- counter, Sherrick by name, had somehow got possession of that neat little literary paper, Zhe Museum, which per- haps you remember, and this eligible literary property my friend Honeyman, with his wheedling tongue, induced me to purchase.” Here is the history of Thackeray's money, told by himself plainly enough, but with no intention on his part of narrating an incident in his own life to the public. But the drollery of the circumstances, his own mingled folly and young ambition, struck him as being worth narration, and the more forcibly as he remembered all the ins and outs of his own reflections at the time,— how he had meant to enchant the world, and make his fortune. There was literary capital in it of which he could make use after so many years. Then he tells us of this ambition, and of the folly of it; and at the same time puts forward the excuses to be made for it. “I daresay I gave myself airs as editor of that confounded Museum, and proposed to educate the public taste, to diffuse morality and sound literature throughout the nation, and to pocket a liberal salary in return for my services. J daresay I printed my own sonnets, my own
10 ‘THACKERAY. ' (crap,
tragedy, my own verses... . I daresay I wrote satirical articles. . . . I daresay I made a gaby of myself to the world. Pray, my good friend, hast thou never done likewise? If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be a wise man.” Thackeray was quite aware of- his early weaknesses, and in the maturity of life knew well that he had not been precociously wise. He delighted so to tell his friends, and he delighted also to tell the public, not meaning that any but an inner circle should know that he was speaking of himself. . But the story now is plain to all who can read."
It was thus that he lost his money; and then, not having prospered very well with his drawing lessons in Paris or elsewhere, he was fain to take up literature as a profession. It is a business which has its allurements, It requires no capital, no special education, no training, and may be taken up at any time without a moment’s delay. If a man can command a table, a chair, pen, paper, and ink, he can commence his trade as literary man. It is thus that aspirants generally do commence it. A man may or may not have another employment to back him, or means of his own; or,—-as was the case with Thackeray, when, after his first misadventure, he had to look about him for the means of living,—he may have nothing but his intellect and his friends. But the idea comes to the man that as he has the pen and ink,
+ The report that he had lost all his money and was going to live by painting in Paris, was still prevalent in London in 1886. Macready, on the 27th April of that year, says in his Diary; “At Garrick Club, where I dined and saw the papers. Met Thackeray, who has spent all his fortune, and is now about to settle in Paris, I believe as an artist.” But at this time he was. in truth. tnrming to literature as a profession.
Ly BIOGRAPHICAL. 11
and time on his hand, why should he not write and make money ?
It is an idea that comes to very many men and women, old as well as young,—to many thousands who at last are crushed by it, of whom the world knows nothing. <A man can make the attempt though he has not a coat fit to go out into the street with; or a woman, though she be almost in rags. There is no apprenticeship wanted. Indeed there is no room for such apprenticeship. It is an art which no one teaches; there is no professor who, in a dozen lessons, even pretends to show the aspirant how to write a book or an article. If you would be a watchmaker, you must learn; or a lawyer, a cook, or even a housemaid. Before you can clean a horse you must go into the stable, and begin at the beginning. Even the cab-driving tiro must sit for awhile on the box, and learn something of the streets, before he can ply for a fare. But the literary beginner rushes at once at the top rung of his ladder ;—as thougha youth, having made up his mind to be a clergyman, should demand, without preliminary steps, to be appointed Bishop of London. That he should be able to read and write is presumed, and that only. So much may be presumed of everyone, and nothing more is wanted.
In truth nothing more is wanted,—except those inner lights as to which. so many men live and die without having learned’ whether they possess them or not. Prac- tice, industry, study of literature,. cultivation of taste, and the rest, will of course lend their aid, will probably be necessary before high excellence is attained. But the instances are not to seek,—are at the fingers of us all, —in which the first uninstructed effort has succeeded. A boy;.almost, or perhaps an old woman, has sat down
12 THACKERAY. : [ CHAP,
and the book has come, and the world has read it, and the booksellers have been civil and have written their cheques. When all trades, all professions, all seats at offices, all employments at which a crust can be earned, are so crowded that a young man knows not where to look for the means of livelihood, is there not an attrac- tion in this which to the self-confident must be almost invincible? The booksellers are courteous and write their cheques, but that is not half the whole? Monstrari digitto/ That is obtained. The happy aspirant is written of in newspapers, or, perhaps, better still, he writes of others. When the barrister of forty-five has hardly got a name beyond Chancery Lane, this glorious young scribe, with the first down on his lips, has printed his novel and been talked about.
The temptation is irresistible, and thousands fall into it. How is a man to know that he is not the lucky one or the gifted one? There is the table and there the pen and ink. Among the unfortunate he who fails altogether and from the first start is not the most unfortunate. A short period of life is wasted, anda sharp pang is endured. Then the disappointed one is relegated to the condition of life which he would otherwise have filled a little earlier. He has been wounded, but not killed, or even maimed. But he who has a little success, who succeeds in earning a few halcyon, but, ah ! so dangerous guineas, is drawn into a trade from which he will hardly escape till he be driven from it, if he come out alive, by sheer hunger. He hangs on till the guineas become crowns and shillings, —till some sad record of his life, made when he applies for charity, declares that he has worked hard for the last year or two and has earned less than a policeman in the streets or a porter at a railway. It is to that that he is
1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 18
brought by applying himself to a business which requires only a table and chair, with pen, ink, and paper! It is to that which he is brought by venturing to believe that he has been gifted with powers of imagination, creation, and expression.
The young man who makes the attempt knows that he must run the chance. He is well aware that nine must fail where one will make his running good. So much as that does reach his ears, and recommends itself to his common sense. But why should it not be he as well as another? There is always some lucky one winning the prize. And this prize when it has been won is so well worth the winning! He can endure starvation,—so he tells himself,—-as well as another. He will try. But yet he knows that he has but one chance out of ten in his favour, and it is only in his happier moments that he flatters himself that that remains to him. Then there falls upon him,—in the midst of that labour which for its success especially requires that a man’s heart shall be light, and that he be always at his best,—doubt and despair. If there be no chance, of what use is his
labour ? Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
and amuse himself after that fashion? Thus the very industry which alone could give him a chance is discarded. Tt is so that the young man feels who, with some slight belief in himself and with many doubts, sits down to zommence the literary labour by which he hopes to live. So it was, no doubt, with Thackeray. Such were his hopes and his fears ;—with a resolution of which we can. well understand that it should have waned at times, of earning his bread, if he did not make his fortune, in the
4 THACKERAY. [omar
world of literature. One has not to look far for evidence of the condition I have described,—that it was so, Amaryllis and all. How or-when he made his very first attempt in London, I have not learned ; but he had not. probably spent his money without forming “ press” acquaintances, and had thus found an aperture for the thin end of the wedge. He wrote for The Constitutional, of which he was part proprietor, beginning his work for that paper as a correspondent from Paris. For a while he was connected with The Times newspaper, though his work there did not I think amount to much. His first regular employment was on Fraser's Magazine, when Mr. Fraser’s shop was in Regent Street, when Oliver Yorke was the presumed editor, and among contributors, Carlyle was one of the most notable. I imagine that the battle of life was difficult enough with him even after he had become one of the leading props of that magazine. All that he wrote was not taken, and all that was taken was not approved. In 1837-38, the History of Samuel Titmarsh and. the Great Hoggarty Diamond appeared in the magazine. The Great Hoggarty Diamond is now known’ to all yeaders of Thackeray’s works. Jt is not my purpose to speak specially of it here, except to assert that it has been thought to be a great success. When it was being brought out, the author told a friend of his,-and of mine,— that it was not much thought of at Fraser’s, and that he had been called upon to shorten it. That is an incidert disagreeable in its nature to any literary gentleman, and likely to be specially so when he knows that his provision of bread, ¢ertainly of improved bread: and butter, is ‘at stake.’ The man who thus darkens his literary brow with the frown of disapproval, has at: his disposal all the: loaves and all the fishes that’ are going. If the writer be sue:
1. BIOGRAPHICAL. 15
cessful, there will come a time when he will be above such frowns; but, when that opinion went forth, Thackeray had not yet made his footing good, and the notice to him respecting it must have been very bitter. It was in writing this Hoggarty Diamond that Thackeray first invented the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh. Samuel Titmarsh was the writer, whereas Michael Angelo was an intending illustrator. Thackeray’s nose had been broken in a school fight, while he was quite a little boy, by another little boy, at the Charter House; and there was probably some association intended to be jocose with the name of the great artist, whose nose was broken by his fellow-student Torrigiano, and who, as it happened, died exactly three centuries before Thackeray.
I can understand all the disquietude of his heart when that warning, as to the too great length of his story, was given to him. He was not a man capable of feeling at any time quite assured in his position, and when that occurred he was very far from assurance. J think that at no time did he doubt the sufficiency of his own mental qualification for the work he had taken in hand; but he doubted all else. He doubted the appreciation of the world ; he doubted his fitness for turning his intellect to valuable account; he doubted his physical capacity,— dreading his own lack of industry ; he doubted his luck ; he doubted the continual absence of some of those mis- fortunes on which the works of literary men are ship- wrecked. Though he was aware of his own power, he always, to the last, was afraid that his own deficiencies should be too strong against him. It was his nature to be idle,—to put off his work,—and then to be angry with himself for putting it off Ginger was hot in the mouth with him, and all the allurements of the world were strong
16 THACKERAY. [owap,
upon him. To findon Monday morning an excuse why he should not on Monday do Monday’s work was, at the time, an inexpressible relief to him, but had become a deep regret,—almost a remorse,—before the Monday was over. To such a one it was not given to believe in him- self with that sturdy rock-bound foundation which we see to have belonged to some men from the earliest struggles of their career. To him, then, must have coms an inex- pressible pang when he was told that his story must be curtailed.
Who else would have told such a story of himself to the first acquaintance he chanced to meet? Of Thackeray it might be predicted that he certainly would do so. No little wound of the kind ever came to him but what he disclosed it at once. “They have only bought so many of my new book.” “Have you seen the abuse of my last number?” ‘“ What am I to turn my hand to? They are getting tired of my novels.” ‘They don’t read it,” he said to me of Hsmond. “So you don’t mean to . publish my work?” he said once to a publisher in an open company. Other men keep their little troubles to them- selves. I have heard even of authors who have declared how all the publishers were running after their books; I have heard some discourse freely of their fourth and fifth editions ; I have known an author to boast of his thou- sands sold in this country, and his tens of thousands in America; but I never heard anyone else declare that no one would read his chef-d’auvre, and that the world was becoming tired of him. It was he who said, when he was fifty, that a man past fifty should never write a novel.
And yet, as I have said, he was from an early age fully conscious of his own ability. That he was so is to be
1. BIOGRAPHICAL. 17
seen in the handling of many of his early works,—in Barry Lyndon, for instance, and the Memoirs of Mr. C. James Yellowplush. The sound is too certain for doubt of that kind. But he had not then, nor did he ever achieve that assurance of public favour which males a man confident that his work will be successful. During the years of which we are now speaking Thackeray was a literary Bohemian in this sense,—that he never regarded his own status as certain. While performing much of the best of his life’s work he was not sure of his market, not certain of his readers, his publishers, or his price ; nor was he certain of himself,
It is impossible not to form some contrast between him and Dickens as to this period of his life,—-a comparison not as to their literary merits, but literary position. Dickens was one year his junior in age, and at this time, viz. 1837-38, had reached almost the zenith of his reputation. Pickwick had been published, and Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby were being published. All the world was talking about the young author who was assuming his position with a confidence in his own powers which was fully justified both by his present and future success. It was manifest that he could make, not only his own fortune, but that of his pub- lishers, and that he was a literary hero bound to he worshipped by all literary grades of men, down to the * devils” of the printing-office. At that time, Thackeray, the older man, was still doubting, still hesitating, still struggling. Everyone then had accepted the name of Charles Dickens. That of William Thackeray was hardly known beyond the circle of those who are careful to make themselves acquainted with such matters. It was then the custom, more generally than it is at present, to
Cc
18 THACKERAY. [omap,
maintain anonymous writing in magazines. Now, if any- thing of special merit be brought out, the name of the author, if not published, is known. It was much less so at the period in question; and as the world of readers began to be acquainted with Jeames Yellowplush, Catherine Hayes, and other heroes and heroines, the names of the author had to be inquired for. JI remember myself, when I was already well acquainted with the immortal Jeames, asking who was the writer. The works of Charles Dickens were at that time as well known to be his, and as widely read in England, as those almost of Shakespeare, | |
It will be said of course that this came from the earlier popularity of Dickens. That is of course; but why should it have been so? They had begun to make their effort much at the same time; and if there was any advantage in point of position as they commenced, it was with Thackeray. It might be said that the genius of the one was brighter than that of the other, or, at any rate, that it was more precocious. But arter-judgment has, I think, not declared either of the suggestions to be true. I will make no comparison between two such rivals, who were so distinctly different from each, and each of whom, within so very short a period, has come to stand on a pedestal so high,—the two exalted to so equal a vocation. And if Dickens showed the best of his power early in life, so did Thackeray the best of his intellect. In no display of mental force did he rise above Barry Lyndon.. ‘I hardly know how the teller of a narrative shall hope to mount in simply intellectual faculty above the effort there.made. Jn what then was the difference? Why was Dickens already a great man when Thackeray was still a literary Bohemian ?
.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 19
The answer is to be found not in the extent or in the nature of the genius of either man, but in the condition of mind,—which indeed may be read plainly in their works by those who have eyes to see. The one was steadfast, industrious, full of purpose, never doubting of himself, always putting his best foot foremost and stand- ing firmly on it when he got # there; with no inward trepidation, with no moments in which he was half in- clined to-think that this race was not for his winning, this goal not to be reached by ‘his struggles, The sympathy of friends was good to him, but he could have done without it. The good opinion which he had of himself was never shaken by adverse criticism ; and the criticism on the other side, by which it was exalted, came from the enumeration of the number of copies sold. He was a firm reliant man, very little prone to change, who, when he had discovered the nature of his own talent, ‘Knew how to do the very best with it.
It may almost be said that Thackeray was the very opposite of this. Unsteadfast, idle, changeable of pur- pose, aware of his own intellect but not trusting it, no man ever failed more generally than he to put his best foot foremost. Full as his works are of pathos, full of humour, full of love and charity, tending, as they always do, to truth and honour and manly worth and womanly modesty, excelling, as they seem to me to do, most other written precepts that I know, they always seem to lack something that might have been there. There is a touch of -vagueness which indicates that his pen was not firm while he was using it. He seems to me to have beén dreaming ever of some high flight, and then to have told himself, with a half-broken heart, that it was beyond his” powerte soar up into’ those” bright regions. I cdn fancy
c2
ZU THACKERAY. [ CHAP,
as the sheets went from him every day he told himself, in regard to every sheet, that it was a failure. Dickens was quite sure of his sheets.
“TJ have got to make it shorter!” Then he would put his hands in his pockets, and stretch himself, and straighten the lines of his face, over which a smile would come, as though this intimation from his editor were the best joke in the world; and he would walk away, with his heart bleeding, and every nerve in an agony. There are none of us who want to have much of his work shortened now.
In 1837 Thackeray married Isabella, daughter of Colonel Matthew Shawe, and from this union there came three daughters, Anne, Jane, and Harriet. The name of the eldest, now Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, who has followed so closely in her father’s steps, is a household word to the world of novel readers; the second died as a child; the younger lived to marry Leslie Stephen, who is too well known for me to say more than that he wrote, the other day, the little volume on Dr. Johnson in this series; but she, too, has now followed her father. Of Thackeray’s married life what need be said shall be contained in a very few words. It was grievously unhappy; but the misery of it came from God, and was in no wise due to human fault. She became ill, and her mind failed her. There was a period during which he would not believe that her illness was more than illness, and then he clung to her and waited on her with an assiduity of affection which only made his task the more painful to him. At last it became evident that she should live in the com- panionship of some one with whom her life might be altogether quiet, and she has since been domiciled with a lady with whom she has heen happy. Thus she was,
1. | BIOGRAPHICAL. 21
after but a few years of married life, taken away from him, and he became as it were a widower till the end of his days.
At this period, and indeed for some years after his marriage, his chief literary dependence was on frase7"s Magazine. He wrote also at this time in the Vew Monthly Maguzine. In 1840 he brought out his Puvis Sketch Book, as to which he tells us by a notice printed with the first edition, that half of the sketches had already been published in various periodicals. Here he used the name Michael Angelo Titmarsh, as he did also with the Journey From Cornhill to Cairo. Dickens had called himself Boz, and clung to the name with persistency as long as the public would permit it. Thackeray’s affection for assumed names was more intermittent, though I doubt whether he used his own name altogether till it appeared on the title- page of Vanity Fuir. About this time began his con- nection with Punch, in which much of his best work appeared. Looking back at our old friend as he used to come out from week to week at this time, we can hardly boast that we used to recognise how good the literary pabulum was that was then given for our consumption. We have to admit that the ordinary reader, as the ordinary picture-seer, requires to be guided by a name. We are moved to absolute admiration by a Raphael or a Hobbema, but hardly till we have learned the name of the painter, or, at any rate, the manner of his painting. Iam notsure that all lovers of poetry would recognise a Lycidaus coming from some hitherto unknown Milton. Gradually the good picture or the fine poem makes its way into the minds of a slowly discerning public. Punch, no doubt, ‘became very popular, owing, perhaps, more to Leech, its artist, than to any other single person. Gradually the world
29 ‘THACKERAY. - [orar,
of readers. began to know that there was a speviality of humour to be. found in its pages,—fun and sense, satire and good humour, compressed together in small literary morsels as the nature of its columns required.. Gradually the name of Thackeray as one of the band of brethren was buzzed about, and gradually became known: as that of the chief of the literary brothers. But during the years in which. he did much for Punch, say from 1843 to 1853, he was still struggling to make good his footing in literature. They knew him well in the Punch office, and no doubt the amount and regularity of the cheques from Messrs. Brad- bury and Evans, the then and still owners of that happy periodical, made him aware that he had found for himself a, satisfactory career. In “a good day for himself, the journal, and the world, Thackeray found Punch.” This was said by his old friend Shirley Brooks, who himself lived to be editor of the paper and died in harness, and was said most truly. Punch was more congenial to him, and no doubt more generous, than Fraser. There was still something of the literary Bohemian about him, but not as it had been before. He was still unfixed, looking out for some higher career, not altogether satisfied to be no more than one of an anonymous band of brothers, even though the brothers were the brothers of Punch. We can only imagine what were his thoughts as to himself and that other man, who was then known, as the great novelist of the day,—of a rivalry with whom he was certainly con- sclous. Punch was very much to him, but was not quite enough. That must have been very elear to himself as he meditated the beginning of Vanity Fair.
Of the ‘contributions to the periodical, the best known now are The Snob Papers and The Ballads: of Police.: man X. But. they were very numetous,.. Of Thackeray
wt] BIOGRAPHIOAL. 23
as a poet, or maker of verses, I will say a few words in a chapter which will be devoted to his own so-called ballads. Here it seems only necessary to remark that there was not apparently any time in his career at which he began to think seriously of appearing before the public as a poet. Such was the intention early in their career with many of our best known prose writers, with Milton, and Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson, with Scott, Macaulay, and more lately with Matthew Arnold ; writers of verse and prose who ultimately prevailed some in one direction, and others in the other. Milton and Goldsmith have been known best as poets, Johnson and Macaulay as writers of prose. But with all of them there has been a distinct effort in each art. Thackeray seems to have tumbled into versification by accident ; writing it as amateurs do, a little now and again for his own delectation, and to catch the taste of partial friends. The reader feels that Thackeray would not have begun to print his verses unless the oppor tunity of doing so had been brought in his way by his doings in prose. And yet he had begun to write verses when he was very young ;—at Cambridge, as we have seen, when. he contributed more to the fame of Timbuctoo than I think even Tennyson has done,—and in his early years at Paris. Here again, though he must-have felt the strength of his own mingled humour and pathos, he always struck with an uncertain note till he had gathered strength and con- fidence by popularity. Good as they generally were, his verses were accidents, written not as a writer writes who claims to be a poet, but as though they might have been the relaxation of a doctor or a barrister.
And so they were. When Thackeray first settled him- self in London, to make his living among the magazines and newspapers, I do not imagine that he counted much
on his poetic powers. He describes it all in his own dialogue between the pen and the album. “Since he,” says the pen, speaking of its master, Thackeray : Since he my faithful service did engage,
To follow him through his queer pilgrimage I’ve drawn and written many a line and page.
Caricatures I scribbled have, and rhymes, And dinner-cards, and picture pantomimes, And many little children’s books at times.
I’ve writ the foolish fancy of his brain; The aimless jest that, striking, hath caused pain ; The idle word that he’d wish back again.
I’ve helped him to pen many a line for bread.
It was thus he thought of his work. There had been caricatures, and rhymes, and many little children’s books ; and then the lines written for his bread, which, except that they were written for Punch, were hardly undertaken with a more serious purpose. In all of it there was ample seriousness, had he known it himself. What a tale of the restlessness, of the ambition, of the glory, of the misfortunes of a great country is given in the ballads of Peter the French drummer! Of that brain so full of fancy the pen had lightly written all the fancies. He did not know it when he was doing so, but with that word, fancy, he has described exactly the gift with which his brain was specially endowed. If a writer be accurate, or sonorous, or witty, or simply pathetic, he may, I think, gauge his own powers. He may do so after experience with something of certainty. But fancy is a gift which the owner of it cannot measure, and the power of which, when he is using it, he cannot himself understand.
There is the same lambent flame flickering over every- thing he did, even the dinner-cards and the picture pan- tomimes. He did not in the least know what he put into those things. So it was with his verses. It was only by degrees, when he was told of it by others, that he found that they too were of infinite value to him in his profession.
The Irish Sketch Book came out in 1843, in which he used, but only half used, the name of Michael Angelo Titmarsh. He dedicates it to Charles Lever, and in signing the dedication gave his own name. “ Laying aside,” he says, “for a moment the travelling title of Mr. Titmarsh, let me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe myself, &. &c., W. M. Thackeray.” So he gradually fell into the declaration of his own identity. In 1844 he made his journey to Turkey and Egypt,— From Cornhill to Grand Catro, as he called it, still using the old nom de plume, but again signing the dedication with his own name. It was now made to the captain of the vessel in which he encountered that famous white squall, in describing which he has shown the wonderful power he had over words.
In 1846 was commenced, in numbers, the novel which first made his name well known to the world. This was Vanity Fuir, a work to which it is evident that he devoted all his mind. Up to this time his writings had consisted of short contributions, chiefly of sketches, each intended to stand by itself in the periodical to which it was sent. Barry Lyndon had hitherto been the longest; but that and Cutherine Hayes, and the Hoggarty Diamond, though stories continued through various numbers, had not as yet reached the dignity,—or at any rate the length,—of a three-volume novel. But of
26 . THACKERAY. fous:
late novels had grown to be much longer than those of the old well-known measure. Dickens had stretched his to nearly double the length, and had published them in twenty numbers, . The attempt had caught the public taste and had been pre-eminently successful. The nature of thé tale. as originated by him was altogether unlike that to which the readers of modern novels had been used. No plot, with an arranged catastrophe or dénotiment, was necessary. Some untymg of the various knots of the narrative no doubt were expedient, but these were of the simplest kind, done with the view of giving an end to that which might otherwise be endless. The adventures of a Pickwick ox a, Nickleby required very little of a plot, and this mode of telling a story, which: might be continued on through any number of pages, as long as the characters were interesting, met with approval. Thackeray, who had never depended much on his plot in the shorter tales which he had hitherto told, determined to adopt the same form in his first great work, but with these changes ;—That as the central character with Dickens had always been made beautiful with unnatural virtue,—for who was ever so wn- selfish as Pichwick, so manly and modest as Nicholas, or so good a boy as Oliver 2—so should his centre of interest be in every respect abnormally bad.
As to Thackeray’s reason for this,—or rather as to that condition of mind which brought about this result,—I will say something in a final chapter, in which I will en- deavour to describe the nature and effect of his work genc- rally. Here it will be necessary only to declare that, such was the choice he now made of a subject in his first attempt to rise out of a world of small literary contributions, into the more assured position of the author of a work of importance. We are aware that the monthly nurses of
1]. BIOGRAPHICAL. 27
periodical literature did not at first smile on the: effort. The proprietors of magazines did not see their way to under- ake Vanity Fair, and the publishers are said to have gene- rally looked shy upon it. At last it was brought out in numbers,—twenty-four numbers instead of twenty, as with those, by Dickens,—under the guardian hands of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans. This was completed in 1848, and then it was that, at the age of thirty-seven, Thackeray first achieved for himself a name and reputation through the country. Before this he had been known at Fraser’s anc at the Punch office. He was known at the Garrick Club, and had become individually popular among literary men in London. He had made many fast friends, and had been, as it were, found out by persons of distinction. But Jones, and Smith, and Robinson, in Liverpool, Man- chester, and Birmingham, did not know him as they knew Dickens, Carlyle, Tennyson, and Macaulay,—not as they knew Landseer, or Stansfeld, or Turner; not as they knew Macready, Charles Kean, or Miss Faucit. In that year, 1848, his mame became common in the memoirs of the time. On the 5th of June I find him dining with Macready, to meet Sir J. Wilson, Panizzi, Landseer, and others. A few days afterwards Macready dined with him. “Dined with Thackeray, met the Gordons, Kenyons, Procters, Reeve, Villiers, Evans, Stansfeld, and saw Mrs. Sartoris and 8. C. Dance, White, H. Goldsmid, in the evening.” Again; “Dined with Forster, having called and taken up Brookfield, met Rintoul, Kenyon, Procter, Kinglake, Alfred Tennyson, Thackeray.” Macready was very accurate in jotting down the nameg of those he entertained, who entertained him, or were entertained with him. Vanity Fair was coming out, and Thackeray had hécome one of the personages in literary society.
28 THACKERAY. Tomar.
Inthe January number of 1848 the Edinburgh Review had an article on Thackeray’s works generally as they were then known. It purports to combine the Irish Sketch Book, the Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, and Vanity Fair as far as it had then gone; but it does in truth deal chiefly with the literary merits of the latter. I will quote a passage from the article, as proving in regard to Thackeray’s work an opinion which was well founded, and as telling the story of his life as far as it was then known ;
“Full many a valuable truth,” says the reviewer, “has been sent undulating through the air by men who have lived and died unknown. At this moment the rising generation are supplied with the best of their mental aliment by writers whose names are a dead letter to the mass; and among the most remarkable of these is Michael Angelo Titmarsh, alias William Makepeace Thackeray, author of the Irish Sketch Book, of A Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo, of Jeames’s Diary, of The Snob Papers in Punch, of Vanity Fuir, ete. ete.
“Mr, Thackeray is now about thirty-seven years of age, of a good family, and originally intended for the bar. He kept seven or eight terms at Cambridge, but left the university without taking a degree, with the view of becoming an artist; and we well remember, ten or twelve years ago, finding him day after day engaged in copying pictures in the Louvre, in order to qualify himself for his intended profession. It may be doubted, however, whether any degree of assiduity would have enabled him to excel in the money-making branches, for his talent was altogether of the Hogarth kind, and was principally remarkable in the pen-and-ink sketches of character and situation, which he dashed off for the
| BIOGRAPHICAL. 29
amusement of his friends. At the end of two or three years of desultory application he gave up the notion of becoming a painter, and took to literature. He set up and edited with marked ability a weekly journal, on the plan of The Atheneum and Literary Gazette, but was unable to compete successfully with such long-established rivals. He then became a regular man of letters,—that is, he wrote for respectable magazines and newspapers, until the attention attracted to his contributions in Frasers Magazine and Puneh emboldened him to start on his own account, and risk an independent publication.” Then follows a eulogistic and, as I think, a correct criticism on the book as far as it had gone. There are a few remarks perhaps a little less eulogistic as to some of his minor writings, The Snob Papers in particular ; and at the end there is a statement with which I think we shall all now agree; “A writer with such a pen and pencil as Mr. Thackeray’s is an acquisition of real and high value in our literature.”
The reviewer has done his work in a tone friendly to the author, whom he knew,’—as indeed it may be said that this little book will be written with the same feeling, but the public has already recognised the truth of the review generally. There can be no doubt that Thackeray, though he had hitherto been but a con- tributor of anonymous pieces to periodicals,—to what is generally considered as merely the ephemeral literature of the month,—had already become effective on the tastes and morals of readers. Affectation of finery; the vul- garity which apes good breeding but never approaches it ;
* The article was written by Abraham Hayward, who is still
with us, and was no doubt instigated by a desire to assist Thackeray in his struggle upwards, in which it sueceeded.
30 THACKERAY. ° (CHAP,
dishonest gambling, whether with dice or with railway shares; and that low taste for literary excitement which is gratified by mysterious murders and Old Bailey exe- eutions had already received condign punishment from Yellowplush, Titmarsh, Fitzboodle, and Ikey Solomon. Under all those names Thackeray had plied his trade as a satirist. Though the truths, as the reviewer said, had been merely sent undulating through the air, they had already become effective,
Thackeray had now become a personage,—one of the recognised stars of the literary heaven of the day. It was an honour to know him; and we may well believe that the givers of dinners were proud to have him among their guests. He had opened his oyster,—with his pen, an achievement which he cannot be said to have accom- plished until Vanity Fair had come out. In inquiring about him from those who survive him, and knew him well in those days, I always hear the same account. “If I could only tell you the impromptu lines which fell from him!” “If I had only kept the drawings from his pen, which used to be chucked about as though they were worth nothing!” “If I could only remember the drolleries !” Had they been kept, there might now be many volumes of these sketches, as to which the reviewer says that their talent was “altogether of the Hogarth kind.” Could there be any kind more valuable? Like Hogarth, he could always make his picture tell his story; though, unlike Hogarth, he had not learned. to draw. I have had sent to me for my inspection an album of drawings and letters, which, in the course of twenty years, from 1829 to 1849, were despatched from Thackeray.to his old-friend Edward Fitzgerald. Looking at. the wit displayed in the drawings,- I. feel:
a BIOGRAPHICAL. 31
inclined to say that had he persisted he would have been a second Hogarth. There is a series of ballet scenes, in which “Flore et Zephyr” are the two chief performers, which for expression and drollery exceed anything that I know of the kind. The set in this book are litho- graphs, which were published, but I do not remember to have seen them elsewhere. There are still among us many wno knew him well ;—Edward Fitzgerald and George Venables, James Spedding and Kinglake, Mrs, Procter,—the widow of Barry Cornwall, who loved him well,—and Monckton Milnes, as he used to be, whose touching lines written just after Thackeray’s death will close this volume, Frederick Pollock and Frank Fladgate, John Blackwood and William Russell,—and they all tell thesame story. Though he so rarely talked, as good talkers do, and was averse to sit down to work, there were always falling from his mouth and pen those little pearls. Among the friends who had been kindest and dearest to him in the days of his strugglings he once mentioned three to me, —Matthew Higgins, or Jacob Omnium as he was more popularly called; William Stirling, who became Sir William Maxwell; and Russell Sturgis, who is now the senior partner in the great house of Barings. Alas, only the last of these three is left among us! Thackeray was a man of no great power of conversation. I doubt whether he ever shone in what is called general society. He was not a man to be valuable at a dinner-table as a good talker. It was when there were but two or three together that he was happy himself and made others happy; and then it would rather be from some special piece of drollery that the joy of the moment would come, than from the discussion of ordinary topics. After so many years his old friends remember the fag-ends of .the doggerel lines which used to drop from | without any
32 THACKERAY. (cHaP,
effort on all occasions of jollity. And though he could be very sad,—laden with melancholy, as I think must have been the case with him always,—the feeling of fun would quickly come to him, and the queer rhymes would be poured out as plentifully as the sketches were made. Here is a contribution which I find hanging in the memory of an old friend, the serious nature of whose literary labours would certainly have driven such lines from his mind, had they not at the time caught fast hold of him;
In the romantic little town of Highbury
My father kept a circulatin’ library ;
He followed in his youth that man immortal, who Conquered the Frenchmen on the plains of Waterloo. Mamma was an inhabitant of Drogheda,
Very good she was to darn and to embroider.
In the famous island of Jamaica,
For thirty years I’ve been a sugar-baker;
And here I sit, the Muses’.’appy vot’ry,
A cultivatin’ every kind of po’try.
There may, perhaps, have been a mistake in a line, but the poem has been handed down with fair correctness over a period of forty years. He was always versifying. He once owed me five pounds seventeen shillings and six- pence, his share of a dinner bill at Richmond. He sent me a cheque for the amount in rhyme, giving the proper financial document on the second half of a sheet of note paper. I gave the poem away as an autograph, and now forget the lines. This was all trifling, the reader will say. No doubt. Thackeray was always trifling, and yet always serious. In attempting to understand his character it is necessary for you to bear within your own mind the idea that he was always, within his own bosom, encountering melan- choly with buffoonery, and meanness with satire, The very spirit of burlesque dwelt within him,—a spirit which
@
1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 83
does not see the grand the less because of the travesties which it is always engendering.
In his youthful,—all but boyish,—days in London, he delighted to “put himself up” at the Bedford, in Covent Garden. Then in his early married days he lived in Albion Street, and from thence went to Great Coram Street, till his household there was broken up by his wife’s illness. He afterwards took lodgings in St. James’s Chambers, and then a house in Young Street, Kensington. Here he lived from 1847, when he was achieving his great triumph with Vanity Fair, down to 1853, when he re- moved to a house which he bought in Onslow Square. In Young Street there had come to lodge opposite to him an Irish gentleman, who, on the part of his injured country, felt very angry with Thackeray. The Irish Sketch Book had not been complimentary, nor were the descriptions which Thackeray had given generally of Irishmen; and there was extant an absurd idea that in his abominable heroine Catherine Hayes he had alluded to Miss Catherine Hayes the lrish singer. Word was taken to Thackeray that this Irishman intended to come across the street and avenge his country on the calumniator’s person. Thackeray imme- diately called upon the gentleman, and it is said that the visit was pleasant to both parties. There certainly was no blood shed.
He had now succeeded,—in 1848,—in making for him- self a standing as a man of letters, and an income. What was the extent of his income I have no means of saying ; nor is it a subject on which, as I think, inquiry should be made. But he was not satisfied with his position. He felt it to be precarious, and he was always thinking of what he owed to his two girls. That arbitrium vopularis aure on which he depended for his daily bread was not
D
regarded by him with the confidence which it deserved. He did not probably know how firm was the hold he had. obtained of the public ear. At any rate he was anxious, and endeavoured to secure for himself a permanent income in the public service. He had become by this time acquainted, probably intimate, with the Marquis of Clanricarde, who was then Postmaster-General, In 1848 there fell a vacancy in the situation of Assistant-Secretary at the General Post Office, and Lord Clanricarde either offered it to him or promised to give it to him. The Postmaster-General had the disposal of the place,—but was not altogether free from control in the matter. When he made known his purpose at the Post Office, he was met by an assurance from the officer next under him that the thing could not be done. The services were wanted of a man who had had experience in the Post Office ; and, moreover, it was necessary that the feelings of other gentlemen should be consulted. Men who have been serving in an office many years do not like to see even a man of genius put over their heads. In fact, the office would have been up in arms at such an injustice. Lord Clanricarde, who in a matter of patronage was not scrupulous, was still a good-natured man and amenable. He attempted to befriend his friend till he found that it was impossible, and then, with the best grace in the world, accepted the official nominee that was offered to him. :
It may be said that had Thackeray succeeded in that attempt he would surely have ruined himself. No man can be fit for the management and performance of special work who has learned nothing of it before his thirty- seventh year; and no man could have been less so than Thackeray. There are men who, though they be not fit, are disposed to learn their lesson and make themselves as
1] BIOGRAPHICAL. 3h
fit as possible. Such cannot be said to have been the case with this man. For the special duties which he would have been called upon to perform, consisting to a great extent of the maintenance of discipline over a large body of men, training is required, and the service would have suffered for awhile under any untried elderly tiro. Another man might have put himself into harness. Thackeray never would have done so. The details of his work after the first month would have been inex- pressibly wearisome to him. To have gone into the city, and to have remained there every day from eleven till five, would have been all but impossible to him. He would not have done it. And then he would have been tormented by the feeling that he was taking the pay and not doing the work. There is a belief current, not confined to a few, that a man may be a Government Secretary with a generous salary, and have nothing to do. The idea is something that remains to us from the old days of sinecures. If there be now remaining places so pleasant, or gentlemen so happy, I do not know them. Thackeray’s notion of his future duties was probably very vague. He would have repudiated the notion that he was looking for a sinecure, but no doubt considered that the duties would be easy and light. It is not too much to assert, that he who could drop his pearls as I have said above, throwing them wide cast without an effort, would have found his work as Assistant-Secretary at the General Post Office to be altogether too much for him. And then it was no doubt his intention to join literature with the Civil Service. He had been taught to regard the Civil Service as.easy, and had counted upon himself as able to add it to his novels, and his work with his Punch brethren, and to his contributions generally to the literature of the day. He might have done so. could
36 THACKERAY. forap.
he have risen at five, and have sat at his private desk for three hours before he began his official routine at the public one. A capability for grinding, an aptitude for continuous task work, a disposition to sit in one’s chair as though fixed to it by cobbler’s wax, will enable a man in the prime of life to go through the tedium of a second day’s work every day ; but of all men Thackeray was the last to bear the wearisome perseverance of such a life. Some more or less continuous attendance at his office he must have given, and with it would have gone Punch and the novels, the ballads, the burlesques, the essays, the lectures, and the monthly papers full of mingled satire and tenderness, which have left tous that Thackeray which we could so ill afford to lose out of the literature of the nine- teenth century. And there would have remained to the Civil Service the memory of a disgraceful job.
He did not, however, give up the idea of the Civil Service. In a letter to his American friend, My. Reed, dated 8th November, 1854, he says; “ The secretaryship of our Legation at Washington was vacant the other day, and I instantly asked for it; but in the very kindest letter Lord Clarendon showed how the petition was impossible. First, the place was given away. Next, it would not be fair to appoint out of the service. But the first was an excellent reason ;—not a doubt of it.” The validity of the second was probably not so apparent to him as it is to one who has himself waited long for promotion. “So if ever I come,” he continues, “as I hope and trust to do this time next year, it must be in my own coat, and not the Queen’s.” Certainly in his own coat, and not in the Queen’s, must Thackeray do anything by which he could mend his fortune or make his reputation. There never was 4 man less fit for the Queen’s coat,
I,J BIOGRAPHICAL. 37
Nevertheless he held strong ideas that much was due by the Queen’s ministers to men of letters, and no doubt had his feelings of slighted merit, because no part of the debt due was paid to him. In 1850 he wrote a letter to The Morning Chronicle, which has since been republished, in which he alludes to certain opinions which had been put forth in The Examiner. “I don’t see,” he says, “ why men of letters should not very cheerfully coincide with Mr. Examiner in accepting all the honours, places, and prizes which they can get. The amount of such as will be awarded to them will not, we may be pretty sure, impoverish the country much; and if it is the custom of the State to reward by money, or titles of honour, or stars and garters of any sort, individuals who do the country service,—and if individuals are gratified at having ‘ Sir’ or ‘My lord’ appended to their names, or stars and ribbons hooked on to their coats and waistcoats, as men most undoubtedly are, and as their wives, families, and relations are,—there can be no reason why men of letters should not have the chance, as well as men of the robe or the sword ; or why, if honour and money are good for one profession, they should not be good for another. No man in other callings thinks himself degraded by receiving a reward from his Government; nor, surely, need the literary man be more squeamish about pensions, and ribbons, and titles, than the ambassador, or general, or judge. Every European state but ours rewards its men of letters. The American Government gives them their full share of its small patronage ; and if Americans, why not Englishmen ?”
In this a great subject is discussed which would be too long for these pages; but I think that there now exists a feeling that literature can herself, for herself, produce a rank as effective as any that a Queen’s minister
38 THACKERAY. Lowar.
ean bestow. Surely it would be a repainting of the lily, an adding a flavour to the rose, a gilding of refined gold to create to-morrow a Lord Viscount Tennyson, a Baron Carlyle, or a Right Honourable Sir Robert Browning. And as for pay and pension, the less the better of it for any profession, unless so far as it may be payment made for work done. Then the higher the payment the better, in literature as in all other trades. It may be doubted even whether a special rank of its own be good for literature, such as that which is achieved by the happy possessors of the forty chairs of the Academy in France. Even though they had an angel to make the choice,—which they have not,—that angel would do more harm to the excluded than good to the selected.
Pendennis, Esmond, and The Newcomes followed Vanity Fatr,—not very quickly indeed, always at an interval of two years,—in 1850, 1852, and 1854. As I purpose to devote a separate short chapter, or part of a chapter, to each of these, I need say nothing here of their special merits or demerits. Hsmond was brought out asa whole. The others appeared in numbers. “ He lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.” It is a mode of pronunciation in literature by no means very articulate, but easy of production and lucrative. But though easy it is seductive, and leads to idleness, An author by means of it can raise money and reputation on his book before he has written it, and when the pang of parturition is over in regard to one part, he feels himself entitled to a period of ease because the amount required for the next division will occupy him only half the month. This to Thackeray was so alluring. that the entirety of the final half was not always given to the task. His self-reproaches and bemoan- ings when sometimes the day for reappearing would come |
te | BIOGRAPHICAL. 89
terribly nigh, while yet the necessary amount of copy was far from being ready, were often very ludicrous and very sad ; —ludicrous because he never told of his distress without adding to it something of ridicule which was irresistible, and sad because those who loved him best were aware that physical suffering had already fallen upon him, and that he was deterred by illness from the exercise of con- tinuous energy. I myself did not know him till after the time now in question. My acquaintance with him was quite late in his life. But he has told me something of it, and I have heard from those who lived with him how continual were his sufferings. In 1854, he says in one of his letters to Mr. Reed,—the only private letters of his which I know to have been published; “I am to-day just out of bed after another, about the dozenth, severe fit of spasms which I have had this year. My book would have been written but for them.” His work was always going on, but though not fuller of matter,—that would have been almost impossible,—would have been better in manner had he been delayed neither by suffering nor by that palsying of the energies whivh suffering produces.
This ought to have been the happiest period of his life, and should have been very happy. He had become fairly easy in his circumstances. He had succeeded in his work, and had made for himself a great name. He was fond of popularity, and especially anxious to be loved by a small circle of friends. These good things he had thoroughly achicved. Immediately after the publication of Vanity Fair he stood high among the literary heroes of his country, and had endeared himself especially to a special knot of friends. His face and figure, his six feet four in height, with his flowing hair, already nearly gray,
40 THACKERAY. [cHap,
and his broken nose, his broad forehead and ample chest, encountered everywhere either love or respect; and his daughters to him were all the world,—the ‘bairns of whom he says, at the end of the White Squall ballad ;
I thought, as day was breaking,
My little girls were waking,
And smiling, and making
A prayer at home for me.
Nothing could have been more tender or endearing than his relations with his children. But still there was a skeleton in his cupboard,—or rather two skeletons. His home had been broken up by his wife’s malady, and his own health was shattered. When he was writing Pen- dennis, in 1849, he had a severe fever, and then those Spasms came, of which four or five years afterwards he wrote to Mr. Reed. His home, as a home should be, was never restored to him,—or his health. Just at that period of life at which a man generally makes a happy exchange in taking his wife’s drawing-room in lieu of the smoking- room of his club, and assumes those domestic ways of living which are becoming and pleasant for matured years, that drawing-room and those domestic ways were closed against him. The children were then no more than babies, as far as society was concerned,—things to kiss and play with, and make a home happy if they could only have had their mother with them. I have no doubt there were those who thought that Thackeray was very jolly under his adversity. Jolly he was. It was the manner of the man to be so,—if that continual playful- ness which was natural to him, lying over a melancholy which was as continual, be compatible with jollity. He laughed, and ate, and drank, and threw his pearls about with miraculous profusion. But I fancy that he was far
1] BIOGRAPHICAL. Al
from happy. I remember once, when I was young, receiv- ing advice as to the manner in which I had better spend my evenings ; I was told that I ought to go home, drink tea, and read good books. It was excellent advice, but I found that the reading of good books in solitude was not an occupation congenial tome. It was so I take it, with Thackeray. He did not like his lonely drawing-room, and went back to his life among the clubs by no means with contentment.
In 1853, Thackeray having then his own two girls to provide for, added a third to his family, and adopted Amy Crowe, the daughter of an old friend, and sister of the well-known artist now among us. How it came to pass that she wanted a home, or that this special home suited her, if would be unnecessary here to tell even if I knew. But that he did give a home to this young lady, making her in all respects the same as another daughter, should be told of him. He was a man who liked to broaden his back for the support of others, and to make himself easy under such burdens. In 1862, she married a Thackeray cousin, a young officer with the Victoria Cross, Edward Thackeray, and went out to India,—where she died.
In 1854, the year in which The Newcomes came out, Thackeray had broken his close alliance with Punch. In December of that year there appeared from his pen an article in The Quarterly on John Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character. It is a rambling discourse on picture- illustration in general, full of interest, but hardly good as a criticism,—a portion of literary work for which he was not specially fitted. In it he tells us how Richard Doyle, the artist, had given up his work for Punch, not having been able, as a Roman Catholic, to endure the skits which, at
42 THACKERAY. fonae,
that time, were appearing in one number after another against what was then called Papal aggression. The reviewer,—Thackeray himself,—then tells us of the secession of himself from the board of brethren. *‘ Another member of Mr. Punch’s cabinet, the biographer of Jeames, the author of The Snob Pupers, resigned his functions, on account of Mr. Punch’s assaults upon the present Emperor of the French nation, whose anger Jeames thought it was unpatriotic to arouse.” How hard it must be for Cabinets to agree! This man or that is sure to have some pet conviction of his own, and the better the man the stronger the conviction! Then the reviewer went on in favour of the artist of whom he was specially speaking, making a comparison which must at the time have been odious enough to some of the brethren. ‘There can be no blinking the fact that in Mr. Punch’s Cabinet John Leech is the right-hand man. Fancy a number of Punch without Leech’s pictures! What would you give for it?” Then he breaks out into strong admiration of that one friend,—perhaps with a little disregard as to the feelings of other friends.* This Critical Review, if it may properly be so called,—at any rate it 1s so named as now published,—is to be found in our author’s collected works, in the same volume with Catherine. It is there preceded by another, from Zhe Westminster Review, written fourteen years earlier, on
* For a week there existed at the Punch office a grudge against Thackeray in reference to this awkward question: “What would you give for your Punch without John Leech ?” Then he asked the confraternity to dinner,—more Thackerayano,—and the con- fraternity came. Who can doubt but they were very jolly over the little blunder? For years afterwards Thackeray was a guest at the well-known Punch dinner, though he was no longer one of the contributors.
1] ' BIOGRAPHICAL, 43
The Genius of Cruikshank. This contains a descriptive catalogue of Cruikshank’s works up to that period, and is interesting from the piquant style in which it is written. I fancy that these two are the only efforts of the kind which he made,—and in both he dealt with the two great caricaturists of his time, he himself being, in the imaginative part of a caricaturist’s work, equal in power to elther of them.
We now come to a phase of Thackeray’s life in which he achieved a remarkable success, attributable rather to his fame as'a writer than to any particular excellence in the art which he then exercised. He took upon himself the functions of a lecturer, being moved to do so by a hope that he might thus provide a sum of money for the future sustenance of his children. No doubt he had been advised to this course, though I do not know from whom specially the advice may have come. Dickens had already considered the subject, but had not yet consented to read in public for money on his own account. John Forster, writing of the year 1846, says of Dickens and the then only thought-of exercise of a new profession ; “I continued to oppose, for reasons to be stated in their place, that which he had set his heart upon too strongly to abandon, and which I still can wish he had preferred to surrender with all that seemed to be its enormous gain.” And again he says, speaking of a proposition which had been made to Dickens from the town of Bradford; “ At first this was entertained, but was abandoned, with some reluctance, upon the argument that to become publicly a reader must alter, without improving, his position publicly as a writer, and that it was a change to be justified only when the higher calling should have failed of the old success.” The meaning of this was that the money to be made
Ad THACKERAY. - Tomar.
would be sweet, but that the descent to a profession which was considered to be lower than that of literature itself would carry with it something that was bitter. It was as though one who had sat on the woolsack as Lord Chancellor should raise the question whether for the sake of the income attached to it, he might, without disgrace, occupy a seat on a lower bench; as though an architect should consider with himself the propriety of making his fortune as a contractor; or the head of a college lower his dignity, while he increased his finances, by taking pupils. When such discussions arise, money generally carries the day,—and should doso. When convinced that money may be earned without disgrace, we ought to allow money to carry the Jay. When we talk of sordid gain and filthy lucre, we are generally hypocrites. If gains be sordid and lucre filthy, where is the priest, the lawyer, the doctor, or the man of literature, who does not wish for dirty hands? An income, and the power of putting by something for old age, something for those who are to come after, is the wholesome and acknowledged desire of all professional men. Thackeray having children, and being gifted with no power of making his money go very far, was anxious enough on the subject. We may say now, that had he confined himself to his pen, he would not have wanted while he lived, but would have left but little behind him. That he was anxious we have seen, by his attempts to subsidise his literary gains by a Government office. I cannot but think that had he under- taken public duties for which he was ill qualified, and received a salary which he could hardly have earned, he would have.done less for his fame than by reading to the public. Whether he did that well or ill, he did it well enough for the money. The people who heard him, and
1] BIOGRAPHICAL AB
who paid for their seats, were satisfied with their bargain, -—as they were also in the case of Dickens ; and I venture to say that in becoming publicly a reader, neither did Dickens or Thackeray “alter his position as a writer,” and “that it was a change to be justified,” though the success of the-old calling had in no degree waned. What Thackeray did enabled him to leave a comfortable income for his children, and one earned honestly, with the full approval of the world around him.
Having saturated his mind with the literature of Queen Anne’s time,—not probably in the first instance as a preparation for Esmond, but in such a way as to induce him to create an Esmond,—he took the authors whom he knew so well as the subject for his first series of lectures. He wrote Zhe English Humourists of the Highteenth Century in 1851, while he must have been at work on Esmond, and first delivered the course at Willis’s Rooms in that year. He afterwards went with these through many of our provincial towns, and then carried them to the United States, where he delivered them to large audiences in the winter of 1852 and 1853. Some few words as to the merits of the composition I wili endeavour to say in another place. I myself never heard him lecture, and can therefore give no opinion of the performance. That which I have heard from others has been very various. It is, I think, certain that he had none of those wonderful gifts of elocution which made ita pleasure to listen to Dickens, whatever he read or what- ever he said ; nor had he that power of application by using which his rival taught himself with accuracy the - exact effect to be given to every word. The rendering of a piece by Dickens was composed as an oratorio is com- posed, and was then studied by heart as music is studied
| CHAP
And the piece was all given by memory, without any looking at the notes or words. There was nothing of this with Thackeray. But the thing read was in itself of great interest to educated people. The words were given clearly, with sufficient intonation for easy understanding, so that they who were willing to hear something from him felt on hearing that they had received full value for their money. At any rate, the lectures were successful. The money was made,—and was kept.
He came from his first trip to America to his new house in Onslow Square, and then published Zhe Newcomes. This, too, was one of his great works, as to which I shall have to speak hereafter. Then, having enjoyed his success in the first attempt to lecture, he prepared a second series. He never essayed the kind of reading which with Dickens became so wonderfully popular. Dickens recited portions from his well-known works. Thackeray wrote his lectures expressly for the purpose. They have since been added to his other literature, but they were prepared as lectures. The second series were The Four Georges. In a lucrative point of view they were even more successful than the first, the sum of money realised in the United States having been considerable. In England they were less popular, even if better attended, the subject chosen having been dis- tasteful to many. There arose the question whether too much freedom had not been taken with an office which, though it be no longer considered to be founded on divine right, is still as sacred as can be anything that is human. If there is to remain among us a sovereign, that sovereign, even though divested of political power, should’ be endowed with all that personal respect can give. If we wish ourselves to be high, we should treat
1. | BIOGRAPHICAL. 44
that which is over us as high, And this should not de- pend altogether on personal character, though we know, —as we have reason to know,—how much may be added to the firmness of the feeling by personal merit. The respect of which we speak should, in the strongest degree, be a possession of the Immediate occupant, and will natu- rally become dim,—or perhaps be exaggerated,—in regard to the past, as history or fable may tell of them. No one need hesitate to speak his mind of King John, let him be ever so strong a stickler for the privileges of majesty, But there are degrees of distance, and the throne of which we wish to preserve the dignity seems to be assailed when unmeasured evil is said of one who has sat there within our own memory. There would seem to each of us to be a personal affront were a departed relative delineated with all those faults by which we must own that even our near relatives have been made imperfect. Itis a general convic- tion as to this which so frequently turns the biography of those recently dead into mere eulogy. The fictitious charity which is enjoined by the de mortuis nil nist bonum banishes truth. The feeling of which I speak almost leads me at this moment to put down my pen. And, if so much be due to all subjects, is less due to a sovereign 3 Considerations such as these diminished, I think, the popularity of Thackeray’s second series of lectures; or, rather, not their popularity, but the estimation in which they were held. On this head he defended himself more than once very gallantly, and had a great deal to sey on his side of the question. “Suppose, for example, in America,—in Philadelphia or in New York,—that I had spoken about George IV. in terms of praise and affected reverence, do you believe they would have hailed his name with cheers, or have heard it with anything of
48 THACKERAY. Tonap,
respect?” And again; “ We degrade our own honour and the sovereign’s by unduly and unjustly praising him ; and the mere slaverer and flatterer is one who comes forward, as it were, with flash notes, and pays with false coin his tribute to Ceasar. I don’t disguise that I feel somehow on ny trial here for loyalty,—for honest English feeling.” This was said by Thackeray at a dinner at Edinburgh, in 1857, and shows how the matter rested on his mind. Thackeray’s loyalty was no doubt true enough, but was mixed with but little of reverence. He was one who revered modesty and innocence rather than power, against which he had in the bottom of his heart something of republican tendency. His leaning was no doubt of the more manly kind. But in what he said at Edinburgh he hardly hit the nail on the head. No one had suggested that he should have said good things of a king which he did not believe to be true. The question was whether it may not be well sometimes for us to hold our tongues. An American literary man, here in England, would not lecture on the morals of Hamilton, on the manners of General Jackson, on the general amenities of President Johnson.
In 1857 Thackeray stood for Oxford, in the liberal interest, in opposition to Mr. Cardwell. He had heen induced to do this by his old friend Charles Neate, who himself twice sat for Oxford, and died now not many months since. He polled 1,017 votes, against 1,070 by Mr. Cardwell; and was thus again saved by his good fortune from attempting to fill a situation in which he would not have shone. There are, no doubt, many to whom a seat in Parliament comes almost as the birthright of a well-born and well-to-do English gentleman. They go there with no more idea of’ shining than they do when
1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 49
they are elected to a first-class club ;—hardly with more idea of being useful. It is the thing to do, and the House of Commons is the place where a man ought to be—for a certain number of hours. Such men neither succeed nor fail, for nothing is expected of them. From such a one as Thackeray something would have been expected, which would not have been forthcoming. He was too desultory for regular work,—full of thought, but too vague for practical questions. He could not have endured to sit for two or three hours at a time with his hat over his eyes, pretending to listen, as is the duty of a good legislator. He was a man intolerant of tedium, ‘and in the best of his time impatient of slow work. Nor, though his liberal feelings were very strong, were his political convictions definite or accurate. He was a man who mentally drank in much, feeding his fancy hourly with what he saw, what he heard, what he read, and then pouring it all out with an immense power of amplification, But it would have been impossible for him to study and bring home to himself the various points of a complicated bill with a hundred and fifty clauses. In becoming a man of letters, and taking that branch of letters which fell to him, he obtained the special place that was fitted for him. He was a round peg inaround hole, There was no other hole which he would have fitted nearly so well. But he had his moment of political ambition, like others,—and paid a thousand pounds for his attempt.
In 1857 the first number of The Virginians appeared, and the last,—the twenty-fourth,—in October, 1859, This novel, as all my readers are aware, is a continuance of Esmond, and’ will be spoken of in its proper place. He was then forty-eight years old, very gray, with much of
EB
50 THACKERAY. [ CHAP.
age upon him, which had come from suffering,—age shown by dislike of activity and by an old man’s way of thinking about many things,—speaking as though the world were all behind him instead of before; but still with a stalwart outward bearing, very erect in his gait, and a countenance peculiarly expressive and capable of much dignity. I speak of his personal appearance at this time, because it was then only that I became acquainted with him. In 1859 he undertook the last great work of his life, the editorship of The Cornhill Mugazine, a periodical set on foot by Mr. George Smith, of the house of Smith and Elder, with an amount of energy greater than has generally been bestowed upon: such enterprises. It will be well remembered still how much The Cornhill was talked about and thought of before it first appeared, and how much of that thinking and talking was due to the fact that Mr. Thackeray was to edit it. Macmillan’s, I think, was the first of the shilling magazines, having preceded The Cornhill by a month, and it would ill become me, who have been a humble servant to each of them, to give to either any preference. But it must be acknowledged that a great deal was expected from Zhe Cornhill, and I think it will be confessed that it was the general opinion that a great deal was given by it. Thackeray had become big enough to give a special éclat to any literary exploit to which he attached himself. Since the days of The Constitutional he had fought his way up the ladder and knew how to take his stand there with an assurance of success. When it became known to the world of readers that a new magazine was to appear under Thackeray’s editorship, the world of readers was quite sure that there would be a large sale, Of the first number over one hundred and ten
1. BIOGRAPHICAL. 51
thousand were sold, and of the second and third over one hundred thousand. It is in the nature of such things that the sale should fall off when the novelty is over. People believe that a new delight has come, a new joy for ever, and then find that the joy is not quite so perfect or enduring as they had expected. Dut the commencement of such enterprises may be taken as a measure of what will follow. The magazine, either by Thackeray’s name or by its intrinsic merits,—probably by both,—achieved a great success. My acquaintance with him grew from my having been one of his staff from the first.
About two months before the opening day I wrote to him suggesting that he should accept from me a series of four short stories on which I was engaged. I got back a long letter in which he said nothing about my short stories, but asking whether I could go to work at once and let him have a long novel, so that it might begin with the first number. At the same time I heard from the publisher, who suggested some interesting little details as to honorarium. The little details were very interesting, but absolutely no time was allowed to me. It was re- quired that the first portion of my book should be in the printer’s hands within a month. Now it was my theory,— and ever since this occurrence has been my practice,— to see the end of my own work before the public should see the commencement.' If I did this thing I must not only abandon my theory, but instantly contrive a story, or
* I had begun an Irish story and half finished it, which would reach just the required length. Would that do, asked. I was civilly told that my Irish story would no doubt be charming, ~ but was not quite the thing that was wanted. Could I not begin a new one,—English,—and if possible about clergymen? The details were so interesting that had a couple of archbishops been demanded, I should have produced them.
EQ
52 THACKERAY. TOHAP,
begin to write it before it was contrived, That was what I did, urged by the interesting nature of the details. A novelist cannot always at the spur of the moment make his plot and create his characters who shall, with an arranged sequence of events, live with a certain degree of eventfil decorum, through that portion of their lives which is to be portrayed. I hesitated, but allowed myself to be allured to what I felt to be wrong, much dreading the event. How seldom is it that theories stand the wear and tear of practice! I will not say that the story which came was good, but it was received with greater favour than any I had written before or have written since. I think that almost anything would have been then accepted coming under Thackeray’s editorship.
I was astonished that work should be required in such haste, knowing that much preparation had been made, and that the service of almost any English novelist might have been obtained if asked for in due time. It was my readiness that was needed, rather than any other gift! The riddle was read to me after a time. Thackeray had himself intended to begin with one of his own great novels, but had put it off till it was too late. Lovel the W*dower was commenced at the same time with my own story, but Lovel the Widower was not substantial enough to appear as the principal joint at the banquet. Though your guests will undoubtedly dine off the little delicacies you provide for them, there must be a heavy saddle of mutton among the viands prepared. I was the saddle of mutton, Thackeray having omitted to get his joint down to the fire in time enough, My fitness lay in my capacity for quick roasting.
It may be interesting to give a list of the contributors to the first number. My novel called Framley Parsonage
1] BIOGRAPHICAL. 53
came first. At this banquet the saddle of mutton was served before the delicacies. Then there was a paper by Sir John Bowring on The Chinese and Outer Barbarians. The commencing number of Lovel the Widower followed. George Lewes came next with his first chapters of Studies in Animal Life. Then there was Father Prout’s Inauguration Ode, dedicated to the author of Vanity Farr, —which should have led the way. I need hardly say that Father Prout was the Rev. F. Mahony. Then followed Our Volunteers, by Sir John Burgoyne; A Man of Letters of the Last Generation, by Thornton Hunt ; The Search for Sir John Franklin, from a private journal of an officer of the Fox, now Sir Allen Young; and The First Morning of 1860, by Mrs. Archer Clive. The number was concluded by the first of those Roundabout Papers by Thackeray himself, which became so delightful a portion of the literature of The Cornhill Maguztne.
It would be out of my power, and hardly interesting, to give an entire list of those who wrote for The Cornhill under Thackeray’s editorial direction. But I may name a few, to show how strong was the support which he received. Those who contributed to the first number I have named. Among those who followed were Alfred Tennyson, Jacob Omnium, Lord Houghton, William Russell, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Browning, Robert Bell, George Augustus Sala, Mrs. Gaskell, James Hinton, Mary Howitt, Jolin Kaye, Charles Lever, Frederick Locker, Laurence Oliphant, John Ruskin, Fitzjames Stephen, T. A. Trollope, Henry Thomp- son, Herman Merivale, Adelaide Proctor, Matthew Arnold, the present Lord Lytton, and Miss Thackeray, now Mrs. Ritchie. Thackeray continued the editorship for two years and four months, namely, up to April, 1862; but, as all readers will remember, he continued to write for it till he
54. THACKERAY. [orar
died, the day before Christmas Day, in 1863. His last contribution was, I think, a paper written for and pub- lished in the November number, called, “ Strange to say on Club Pupev,” in which he vindicated Lord Clyde from the accusation of having taken the club stationery home with him. It was not a great subject, for no one could or did believe that the Field-Marshal had been guilty of any meanness; but the handling of it has made it interesting, and his indignation has made it beautiful. The magazine was a great success, but justice compels me to say that Thackeray was not a good editor. As he would have been an indifferent civil servant, an indifferent member of Parliament, so was he perfunctory as an editor. It has sometimes been thought well to select a popular literary man as an editor; first, because his name will attract, and then with an idea that he who can write well himself will be a competent judge of the writings of others. The first may sell a magazine, but will hardly make it good; and the second will not avail much, unless the editor so situated be patient enough to read what is sent to him. Of a magazine editor it is required that he should be patient, scrupulous, judicious, but above all things hard-hearted. JI think it may be doubted whether Thackeray did bring himself to read the basketfuls of manuscripts with which he was deluged, but he pro- bably did, sooner or later, read the touching little private notes by which they were accompanied,—the heartrending appeals in «which he was told that if this or the other little article couid be accepted and paid for, a starving family might be saved from starvation fora month. He tells us how he felt on receiving such letters in one of his Rouwnd- about Papers, which he calls “ Thorns in the cushion.” “How am I to know,” he says—‘ though to be sure I
1] BIOGRAPHICAL. 55
begin to know now,—as I take the letters off the tray, which of those envelopes contains a real bona fide letter, and which athorn? One of the best invitations this year I mistook for a thorn letter, and kept it without opening.” Then he gives the sample of a thorn letter. Itis from a governess with a poem, and with a prayer for insertion and payment. ‘‘ We have known better days, sir. I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers and sisters who look to me.” He could not stand this, and the money would be sent, out of his own pocket, though the poem might be—postponed, till happily it should be lost.
From such material a good editor could not be made. Nor, in truth, do I think that he did much of the editorial work. JI had once made an arrangement, not with Thackeray, but with the proprietors, as to some little story. The story was sent back to me by Thackeray— rejected. Virginibus puerisque/ That was the gist of his objection. There was a project ina gentleman’s mind, —as told in my story,—to run away with a married woman! Thackeray’s letter was very kind, very regretful, —full of apology for such treatment to such a contri- butor. But—Virgintbus puerisque / I was quite sure that Thackeray had not taken the trouble to read the story himself. Some moral deputy had read it, and dis approving, no doubt properly, of the little project to which I have alluded, had incited the editor to use his authority. That Thackeray had suffered when he wrote it was easy to see, fearing that he was giving pain to one he would fain have pleased. I wrote him a long letter in return, as full of drollery as I knew how to make it. In four or five days there came a reply in the same spirit,— boiling over with fun. He had kept my letter by him, not
ole) THACKERAY, | CHAP.
daring to open it,—as he says that he did with that eligible invitation. At last he had given it to one of his girls to examine,—to see whether the thorn would be too sharp, whether I had turned upon him with reproaches. A man so susceptible, so prone to work by fits and starts, so unmethodical, could not have been a good editor.
In 1862 he went into the new house which he had built for himself at Palace Green. J remember well, while this was still being bu'lt, how his friends used to discuss his imprudence in building it. Though he had done well with himself, and had made and was making a large income, was he entitled to live in a house the rent of which could not be counted at less than from five hundred to six hundred pounds a year? Before he had been there two years, he solved the question by dying,—when the house was sold for two thousand pounds more than it had cost. He himself, in speaking of his project, was wont to declare that he was laying out his money in the best way he could for the interest of his children ;—and it turned out that he was right.
In 1863 he died in the house which he had built, and at the period of his death was writing a new novel in numbers, called Denis Duval, In The Cornhill, The Adventures of Philip had appeared. This new enterprise was destined for commencement on Ist January, 1864, and, though the writer was gone, it kept its promise, as far as it went. Three numbers, and what might probably have been intended for half of a fourth, appeared. It may be seen, therefore, that he by no means held to my theory, that the author should see the end of his work before the public sees the commencement. But neither did Dickens or Mrs. Gaskell, both of whcm died with stories not completed, which, when they died, were in the
1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 87
course of publication. All the evidence goes against the necessity of such precaution. Nevertheless, were I giving advice to a tiro in novel writing, I should recommend it.
With the last chapter of Denis Duval was published in the magazine a set of notes on the book, taken for the most part from Thackeray’s own papers, and showing how much collateral work he had given to the fabrication of his novel. No doubt in preparing other tales, especially Esmond, a very large amount of such collateral labour was found necessary. He was a man who did very much of such work, delighting to deal in little historical incidents. They will be found in almost everything that he did, and I do not know that he was ever accused of gross mistakes. But I doubt whether on that account he should be called a laborious man. He could go down to Winchelsea, when writing about the little town, to see in which way the streets lay, and to provide himself with what we call local colouring. He could jot down the suggestions, as they came to his mind, of his future story. There was an irregularity in such work which was to his taste. His very notes would be delightful to read, partaking of the nature of pearls when prepared only for his own use. But he could not bring himself to sit at his desk and do an allotted task day after day. He accomplished what must be considered as quite a sufficient life’s work. He had about twenty-five years for the purpose, and that which he has left is an ample produce for the time. Nevertheless he was a man of fits and starts, who, not having been in his early years drilled to method, never achieved it in his career.
He died on the day before Christmas Day, as has been said above, very suddenly, in his bed, early in the morning, in the fifty-third year of his life. To those who
58 THACKERAY. [cHap.
saw him about in the world there seemed to be no reason why he should not continue his career for the next twenty years. But those who knew him were so well aware of his constant sufferings, that, though they expected no sudden catastrophe, they were hardly surprised when it came. His death was probably caused by those spasms of which he had complained ten years before, in his letter to Mr. Reed. On the last day but one of the year, a crowd of sorrowing friends stood over his grave as he was laid to rest in Kensal Green ; and, as quickly afterwards as it could be executed, a bust to his memory was put up in Westminster Abbey. It is a fine work of art, by Marochetti ; but, as a likeness, is, I think, less effective than that which was modelled, and then given to the Garrick Club, by Durham, and has lately been put into marble, and now stands in the upper vestibule of the club. Neither of them, in my opinion, give so accurate an idea of the man asa statuette in bronze, by Bochm, of which two or three copies were made. One of them is in my possession. It has been alleged, in reference to this, that there is something of a caricature in the lengthi- ness of the figure, in the two hands thrust into the trousers pockets, and in the protrusion of the chin. But this feeling has originated in the general idea that any face, or any figure, not made by the artist more beautiful or more graceful than the original is an injustice. The face must be smoother, the pose of the body must be more dignified, the proportions more perfect, than in the person represented, or satisfaction is not felt. Mr. Boehm has certainly not flattered, but, as far as my eye ean judge, he has given the figure of the man exactly as he used to stand before us. J havea portrait of him in crayon, by Samuel Lawrence, as like, but hardly as natural,
1] BIOGRAPHICAL. BD
A. little before his death Thackeray told me that he had then succeeded in replacing the fortune which he had lost as a young man. He had, in fact, done better, for he left an income of seven hundred and fifty pounds behind him.
It has been said of Thackeray that he was a cynic. This has been said so generally, that the charge against him has become proverbial. This, stated barely, leaves one of two impressions on the mind, or perhaps the two together,—that this cynicism was natural to his character and came out in his life, or that it is the characteristic of his writings. Of the nature of his writings generally, I will speak in the last chapter of this little book. As to his personal character as a cynic, I must find room to quote the following first stanzas of the little poem which appeared to his memory in Punch, from the pen of Tom Taylor ;
He wasacynic! By his life all wrought Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways;
His heart wide open to all kindly thought, His hand so quick to give, his tongue to praise!
He was acynic! You might read it writ
In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair; In those blue eyes, with childlike candour lit,
zn that sweet smile his lips were wont to wear!
He was a cynic! By the love that clung About him from his children, friends, and kin; By the sharp pain light pen and gossip tongue Wrought in him, chafing the soft heart within!
The spirit and nature of the man have been caught here with absolute truth, A public man should of course be judged from his public work. If he wrote as a cynic,—a point which I will not discuss here,—it may be
60 THACKERAY. (car.
fair that he who is to be known as a writer should be so called. But, as a man, I protest that it would be hard to find an individual farther removed from the character. Over and outside his fancy, which was the gift which made him so remarkable,—a certain feminine softness was the most remarkable trait about him. To give some immediate pleasure was the great delight of his life,—a sovereign to a schoolboy, gloves to a girl, a dinner to a man, a compliment toa woman. His charity was over- flowing. His generosity excessive. I heard once a story of woe from a man who was the dear friend of both of us. The gentleman wanted a large sum of money instantly,— something under two thousand pounds,—had no natural friends who could provide it, but must go utterly to the wall without it. Pondering over this sad condition of things just revealed to me, I met Thackeray between the two mounted heroes at the Horse Guards, and told him the story. ‘ Do you mean to say that I am to find two thousand pounds?” he said, angrily, with some expletives. I explained that I had not even suggested the doing of anything,—only that we might discuss the matter. Then there came over his face a peculiar smile, and a wink in his eye, and he whispered his suggestion, as though half ashamed of his meanness. “TI’ll go half,” he said, “if anybody will do the rest.” And he did go half, at a day or two’s notice, though the gentleman was no more than simply a friend. Iam glad to be able to add that the money was quickly repaid. I could tell various stories of the same kind, only that I lack space, and that they, if simply added one to the other, would lack interest.
He was no cynic, but he was a satirist, and could now and then be a satirist in conversation, hitting very hard when he did hit, When he was in America he met
1.] BIOGRAPHICAL. 61
at dinner a literary gentleman of high character, middle- aged, and most dignified deportment. The gentleman was one whose character and acquirements stood very high,— deservedly so,—but who, in society, had that air of wrapping his toga around him, which adds, or is sup- posed to add, many cubits to a man’s height. But he had a broken nose. At dinner he talked much of the tender passion, and did so in a manner which stirred up Thackeray’s feeling of the ridiculous. “ What has the world come to,” said Thackeray out loud to the table, “‘when two broken-nosed old fogies like you and me sit talking about love to each other!” The gentleman was astounded, and could only sit wrapping his toga in silent dismay for the rest of the evening, Thackeray then, as at other similar times, had no idea of giving pain, but when he saw a foible he put his foot upon it, and tried to stamp it out.
Such is my idea of the man whom many call a cynic, Lut whom I regard as one of the most soft-hearted of human beings, sweet as Charity itself, who went about the world dropping pearls, doing good, and never wilfully inflicting a wound.
CHAPTER IL FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH,
How Thackeray commenced his connection with Fraser’s Magazine I am unable to say. We know how he had come to London with a view to a literary career, and thai he had at one time made an attempt to earn his bread as a correspondent to a newspaper from Paris. It is pro- bable that he became acquainted with the redoubtable Oliver Yorke, otherwise Dr. Maginn, or some of his staff, through the connection which he had thus opened with the press. He was not known, or at any rate he was un- recognised, by Fraser in January, 1835, in which month an amusing catalogue was given of the writers then employed, with portraits of them, all seated at a symposium. I can trace no article to his pen before November, 1837, when the Yellowplush Correspondence was commenced, though it is hardly probable that he should have commenced with a work of so much pretension. There had been published a volume called My Book, or the Anatomy of Conduct, by John Skelton, and a very absurd book no doubt it was. We may presume that it contained maxims on etiquette, and that it was intended to convey in print those invaluable lessons on deportment which, as Dickens has told us, were subsequently given by Mr. Turveydrop, in the academy kept by him for that
CHAP, II. | FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 63
purpose. Thackeray took this as his foundation for the Fashionable Fux and Polite Annygoats, by Jeames Yellow- plush, with which he commenced those repeated attacks against snobbism which he delighted to make through a considerable portion of his literary life, Oliver Yorke has himself added four or five pages of his own to Thackeray’s lucubrations; and with the second, and some future numbers, there appeared illustrations by Thackeray himself, illustrations at this time not having been common with the magazine. From all this I gather that the author was already held in estimation by Fraser’s confraternity. I remember well my own delight with Yellowplush at the time, and how I inquired who was the author. It was then that I first heard Thackeray’s name,
The Yellowplush Papers were continued through nine numbers. No further reference was made to Mr. Skelton and his book beyond that given at the beginning of the first number, and the satire is only shown by the attempt made by Yellowplush, the footman, to give his ideas generally on the manners of noble life. The idea seems to be that a gentleman may, in heart and in action, be as vulgar as a footman. No doubt he may, but the chances are very much that he won’t. But the virtue of the memoir does not consist in the lessons, but in the general drollery of the letters. The “ orthogwaphy is inaccuwate,” as a certain person says in the memoirs,—“ so inaccuwate ” as to take a positive study to “ compwehend” it; but the joke, though old, is so handled as to be very amusing. Thackeray soon rushes away from his criticisms on snobbism to other matters, There are the details of a card- - sharping enterprise, in which we cannot but feel that we recognise something of the author’s own experiences in the misfortunes of Mr, Dawkins; there is the Earl of Crab’s,
64 LHAUKNNAY, [cHaP,
and then the first of those attacks which hé was tempted to make on the absurdities of his brethren of letters, and the only one which now has the appearance of having been ill-natured. His first victims were Dr. Dionysius Lardner and Mr. Edward Bulwer Lytton, as he was then. We can surrender the doctor to the whip of the satirist ; and for “ Sawedwadgeorgeearliitinbuiwig,” as the novelist is made to call himseli, we can well believe that he must himself have enjoyed the YVellowplush Memoirs if he ever re-read them in after life. The speech in which he is made to dissuade the footman from joining the world of letters is so good that I will venture to insert it: “ Bullwig was violently affected; a tear stood in his glistening i, ‘Yellowplush,’ says he, seizing my hand, ‘ you are right. Quit not your present occupation; black boots, clean knives, wear plush all your life, but don’t turn literary man. Look at me. I am the first novelist in Europe I have ranged with eagle wings over the wide regions of literature, and perched on every eminence in its turn. [ have gazed with eagle eyes on the sun of philosophy, and fathomed the mysterious depths of the human mind. All languages are familiar to me, all thoughts are known to me, all men understood by me. I have gathered wisdom from the honeyed lips of Plato, as we wandered in the gardens of the Academies; wisdom, too, from the mouth of Job Johnson, as we smoked our backy in Seven Dials. Such must be the studies, and such is the mission, in this world of the Poet-Philosopher. But the knowledge is only emptiness ; the initiation is but misery ; the initiated aman shunned and banned by his fellows. Oh!” said Bullwig, clasping his hands, and throwing his fine i’s up to the chandelier, ‘the curse of Pwomethus descends upon his wace.. Wath and punishment pursue them from
ne, FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH 65
genewation to genewation! Wo to genius, the heaven- scaler, the fire-stealer! Wo and thrice-bitter desolation ! Earth is the wock on which Zeus, wemorseless, stwetches his withing wietim ;—men, the vultures that feed and fatten on him. Ai, ai! it is agony eternal,—gwoaning and solitawy despair! And you, Yellowplush, would penetwate these mystewies ; you would waise the awful veil, and stand in the twemendous Pwesence. Beware, as you value your peace, beware! Withdwaw, wash Neophyte! For heaven’s sake! O for heaven’s sake!’ —Here he looked round with agony ;—‘ give me a glass of bwandy-and-water, for this clawet is beginning to disagwee with me.” It was thus that Thackeray began that vein of satire on his contemporaries of which it may be said that the older he grew the more amusing it was, and at the same time less likely to hurt the feelings of the author satirised.
The next tale of any length from Thackeray’s pen, in the magazine, was that called Catherine, which is the story taken from the life of a wretched woman called Catherine Hayes. It is certainly not pleasant reading, and was not written with a pleasant purpose. It assumes to have come from the pen of Ikey Solomon, of Horse- monger Lane, and its object is to show how disgusting would be the records of thieves, cheats, and murderers if their doings and language were described according to their nature instead of being handled in such a way as to create sympathy, and therefore imitation. Bulwer’s Eugene Aram, Harrison Ainsworth’s Jack Sheppard, and Dickens’ Nancy were in his mind, and it was thus that he preached his sermon against the selection of such heroes and heroines by the novelists of the day. “Be it ranted,” he says, in his epilogue, “‘Solomon is dull; but
66 THACKERAY, fouar,
don’t attack his morality. He humbly submits that, in his poem, no man shall mistake virtue for vice, no man shall allow a single sentiment of pity or admiration to enter his bosom for any character in the poem, it being from beginning to end a scene of unmixed rascality, per- formed by persons who never deviate into good feeling.” The intention is intelligible enough, but such a story neither could have been written nor read,—certainly not written by Thackeray, nor read by the ordinary reader of a first-class magazine,—had he not been enabled to adorn it by infinite wit. Captain Brock, though a brave man, is certainly not described as an interesting or gallant soldier; but he is possessed of great resources. Captain Macshane, too, is a thorough blackguard ; but he is one with a dash of loyalty about him, so that the reader can almost sympa- thise with him, and is tempted to say that Ikey Solomon has not quite kept his promise.
Catherine appeared in 1839 and 1840. In the latter of those years The Shabby Genteel story also came out. Then in 1841 there followed The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond, illustrated by Samuel’s cousin, Michael Angelo. But though so announced in Fraser, there were no illustrations, and those attached to the story im later editions are not taken from sketches by Thackeray. This, as far as I know, was the first use of the name Titmarsh, and seems to indicate some intention on the part of the author of creating a hoax as to two personages,—one the writer and the other the illustrator. If it were so he must soon have dropped the idea. In the last paragraph he has shaken off his cousin Michael. The main object of the story is to expose the villany of bubble companies, and the danger they run who venture to have dealings with city matters which they do not
Ti. | FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. €?
understand. I eannot but think that he altered his mint and changed his purpose while he was writing it, actuated probably by that editorial monition as to its length.
In 1842 were commenced The Confessions of Georqe Fitz-Boodle, which were continued into 1843. I do not think that they attracted much attention, or that they have become peculiarly popular since. They are supposed to contain the reminiscences of a younger son, who moans over his poverty, complains of womankind generally, laughs at the world all round, and intersperses his pages with one or two excellent ballads. I quote one, written for the sake of affording a parody, with the parody along with it, because the two together give so strong an ex- ample of the condition of Thackeray’s mind in regard to literary products. The “humbug” of everything, the pretence, the falseness of affected sentiment, the remote- ness of poetical pathos from the true condition of the average minds of men and women, struck him so strongly, that he sometimes allowed himself almost to feel,—or at any rate, to say,—that poeticak expression, as being above nature, must be unnatural. He had declared to himself that all humbug was odious, and should be by him laughed down to the extent of his capacity. His Yellowplush, his Catherine Hayes, his Fitz-Boodle, his Barry Lyndon, and Becky Sharp, with many others of this kind, were aul invented and treated for this purpose and after this fashion. I skall have to say more on the same subject when I come to The Snob Papers. In this instanca he wrote a very pretty ballad, Zhe Willow Trve,-—so good that if left by itself it would create no idea of absurdity or extravagant pathos in the mind of the ordinary reader,— simply that he might render his own work absurd by nis own parody.
KF 2
68 THACKERAY.
THE WILLOW-TRHEE. No. I.
Know ye the willow-tree, Whose gray leaves quiver, Whispering gloomily To yon pale river? Lady, at eventide Wander not near it! They say its branches hide A sad lost spirit!
Once to the willow-tree A maid came fearful,
Pale seemed her cheek to be, Her blue eye tearful.
Soon as she saw the tree, Her steps moved fleeter. No one was there—ah me !—
No one to meet her!
Quick beat her heart to hear , The far bells’ chime
Toll from the chapel-tower The trysting-time.
But the red sun went down In golden flame,
And though she looked around, Yet no one came!
Presently came the night, Sadly to greet her,—
Moon in her silver light, Stars in their glitter.
Then sank the moon awéy Under the billow.
Still wept the maid alone— There by the willow!
(CHAP.
THE WILLOW-TREE. No. II.
Long by the willow-tree Vainly they sought her,
Wild rang the mother’s screams O’er the gray water.
“ Where is my lovely one? Where is my daughter ?
Rouse thee, sir constable— Rouse thee and look. Fisherman, bring your net, Boatman, your hook. Beat in the lily-beds, Dive in the brook.”
Vainly the constable Shouted and called her.
Vainly the fisherman Beat the green alder.
Vainly he threw the net. Never it hauled her!
Mother beside the fire Sat, her night-cap in;
Father in easychair, Gloomily napping;
When at the window-sill Came a light tapping.
And a pale countenance Looked throughthe casement. Loud beat the mother’s heart, Sick with amazement, And at the vision which Came to surprise her! Shrieking in an agony-—— Lor’! it’s Elizar !”’
iL] FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNO. B9
Througn the long darkness, By the stream rolling,
Hour after hour went on Tolling and tolling.
Long was the darkness, Lonely and stilly.
Sbrill came the night wind, Piercing and chilly.
Shrill blew the morning breeze, Biting and cold.
Bleak peers the gray dawn Over the wold!
Bleak over moor and stream Looks the gray dawn,
Gray with dishevelled hair.
Still stands the willow there— The maid is gone!
Domine, Domine! Sing we a litany—- Sing for poor maiden-heurts broken and weary ; Sing we a litany, Wail we and weep we a wild miserere!
Yes, twas Elizabeth ;— Yes, twas their girl;
Pale was her cheek, and her Hair out of curl.
“ Mother!” the loved one, Blushing, exclaimed,
“Let not your innocent Lizzy be blamed.
Yesterday, going to Aunt Jones’s to tea,
Mother, dear mother, I Forgot the door-key! And as the night was cold, And the way steep,
Mrs. Jones kept me to Breakfast and sleep.”
Whether her pa and ma Fully believed her, That we shall never know. Stern they received her ; And for the work of that Cruel, though short, night,—~ Sent her to bed without Tea for a fortnight.
Moral.
Hey diddle diddlety, Cat and the fiddlety, Maidens of England take caution by she! — Let love and suicide Never tempt you aside, And always remember to take the door-key !
Mr. George Fitz-Boodle gave his name to other narratives beyond his own Conjessions. A series of stories was carried on by him in Fraser, called Men's Wives, containing three,
70 THACKERAY. (crrae,
Ruvenving, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry, and Dennis Hoggartys Wife. The first chapter in Mr. and Mrs. Frank Berry describes “The Fight at Slaughter House.” Slaughter House, as Mr. Venables reminded us in the last chapter, was near Smithfield in London,—the school which afterwards became Grey Friars; and the fight between Biggs and Berry is the record of one which took place in the flesh when Thackeray was at the Charter House. Dut Mr. Fitz-Boodle’s name was afterwards attached to a greater work than these, to a work so great that subsequent editors have thought him to be unworthy of the honour. Inthe January number, 1844, of Fraser's Mugazine, are commenced the Memoirs of Burry Lyndon, and the authorship is attributed to Mr. Fitz-Boodle. The title given in the magazine was The Luch of Barry Lyndon: a Romance of the last Century. By Fitz-Boodle. In the collected edition of Thackeray’s works the Memoirs are given as “ Written by himself,” and were, I presume, so brought out by Thackeray, after they had appeared in Fraser. Why Mr. George Fitz-Boodle should have been robbed of so great an honour I do not know.
In imagination, language, construction, and general literary capacity, Thackeray never did anything more re- markable than Barry Lyndon. I have quoted the words which he put into the mouth of Ikey Solomon, declaring that in the story which he has there told he has created nothing but disgust for the wicked characters he has pro- duced, and that he has “used his humble endeavours to cause the public also to hate them.” Here, in Barry Lyndon, he has, probably unconsciously, acted in direct opposition to his own principles. Barry Lyndon is as great a scoundrel as the mind of man ever conceived. He is one who might have taken as his motto Satan’s
1. ] FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 71
words; “Evil, be thou my good.” And yet his story is so written that it is almost impossible not to entertain something of a friendly feeling for him. He tells his own adventures as a card-sharper, bully, and liar; as a heartless wretch, who had neither love nor gratitude in his composition; who had no sense even of loyalty ; who regarded gambling as the highest occupation to which a man could devote himself, and fraud as always justified by success; a man possessed by all meannesses except cowardice. And the reader is so carried away by his frankness and energy as almost to rejoice when he succeeds, and to grieve with him when he is brought to the ground,
The man is perfectly satisfied as to the reasonableness, —I might almost say, as to the rectitude,—of his own con- duct throughout. He is one of a decayed Irish family, that could boast of good blood. His father had obtained possession of the remnants of the property by turning Protestant, thus ousting the elder brother, who later on becomes his nephew’s confederate in gambling. The elder brother is true to the old religion, and as the law stood in the last century, the younger brother, by changing his religion, was able to turn him out. Barry, when a boy, learns the slang and the gait of the debauched gentlemen of the day. He is specially proud of being a gentleman by birth and manners. He had been kid- napped, and made to serve as a common soldier, but boasts that he was at once fit for the occasion when enabled to show as a court gentleman. “I came to it at once,” he says, “and as if I had never done anything else all my life. I had a gentleman to wait upon me, a French friseur to dress my hair of a morning. I knew the taste of chocolate as by intuition almost, and could distinguish
72 THACKERAY. TOuAP.
between the right Spanish and the French before I had been a week in my new position. I had rings on all my fingers and watches in both my fobs, canes, trinkets, and snuffboxes of all sorts. I had the finest natural taste for lace and china of any man I ever knew.”
To dress well, to wear a sword with a grace, to carry away his plunder with affected indifference, and to appear to be equally easy when he loses his last ducat, to be agreeable to women, and to look like a gentleman,—these are his accomplishments. In one place he rises to the height of a grand professor in the art of gambling, and gives his lessons with almost a noble air. “ Play grandly, honourably. Be not of course cast down at losing; but above all, be not eager at winning, as mean souls are.” And he boasts of his accomplishments with so much eloquence as to make the reader sure that he believes in them. He is quite pathetic over himself, and can describe with heartrending words the evils that befall him when others use against him successfully any of the arts which he practises himself.
The marvel of the book is not so much that the hero should evidently think well of himself, as that the author should so tell his story as to appear to be altogether on the hero’s side. In Catherine, the horrors described are most truly disgusting,—so much that the story, though very clever, is not pleasant reading. The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon axe very pleasant to read. There is nothing to shock or disgust. The style of narrative is exactly that which might be used’as to the exploits of a man whom the author intended to represent as deserving of sympathy and praise,—so that the reader is almost brought to sympathise, But I should be doing an injustice to Thackeray if I were to leave an impression that he had
iI. | FRASER'S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 73
taught lessons tending to evil practice, such as he supposed to have been left by Jack Sheppard or Eugene Aram. No one will be tempted to undertake the life of a chevalier d’industrie by reading the book, or be made to think that cheating at cards is either an agreeable or a profitable profession. The following is excellent as a tirade in favour of gambling, coming from Redmond de Balibari, as he came to be called during his adventures abroad, but it will hardly persuade anyone to be a gambler ;
- “We always played on parole with anybody,—any person, that is, of honour and noble lineage. We never pressed for our winnings, or declined to receive promissory notes in lieu of gold. But woe to the man who did not pay when the note became due! Redmond de Balibari was sure to wait upon him with his bill, and I promise you there were very few bad debts. On the contrary, gentlemen were grateful to us for our forbearance, and our character for honour stood unimpeached. In latter times, a vulgar national prejudice has chosen to cast a slur upon the character of men of honour engaged in the profession of play; but I speak of the good old days of Europe, before the cowardice of the French aristocracy (in the shameful revolution, which served them right) brought discredit upon our order. They cry fie now upon men engaged in play; but I should like to know how much more honourable zhecr modes of livelihood are than ours. The broker of the Exchange, who bulls and bears, and buys and sells, and dabbles with lying loans, and trades upon state secrets,—what is he but a gamester? The merchant who deals in teas and tallow, is he any better ? His bales of dirty indigo are his dice, his cards come up every year instead of every ten minutes, and the sea is his
rd. THACKERAY. [orap.
green-table. You call the profession of the law an honourable one, where a man will lie for any bidder ;—lie down poverty for the sake of a fee from wealth; lie down right because wrong is in his brief. You call a doctor an honourable man,—a swindling quack who does not believe in the nostrums which he prescribes, and takes your guinea for whispering in your ear that it is a fine morning. And yet, forsooth, a gallant man, who sits him down before the baize and challenges all comers, his money against theirs, his fortune against theirs, is proscribed by your modern moral world! It is a conspiracy of the middle- class against gentlemen. It is only the shopkeeper cant which is to go down nowadays. I say that play was an institution of chivalry. It has been wrecked along with other privileges of men of birth. When Seingalt engaged a man for six-and-thirty hours without leaving the table, do you think he showed no courage? How have we had the best blood and the brightest eyes too, of Europe throbbing round the table, as I and my uncle have held the cards and the bank against some terrible player, who was matching some thousands out of his millions against ourall, which was there on the baize ! When we engaged that daring Alexis Kosslofisky, and won seven thousand louis on a single coup, had we lost we should have been beggars the next day ; when /e lost, he was only a village and a few hundred serfs in pawn the worse. When at Toeplitz the Duke of Courland brought fourteen lacqueys, each with four bags of florins, and challenged our bank to play against the sealed bags, what did we ask? ‘Sir,’ said we, ‘we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, or two hundred thousand at three months. If your highness’s bags do not contain more than eighty thousand we will meet you.’ And we
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did ; and after eleven hours’ play, in which our bank was at one time reduced to two hundred and three ducats, we won seventeen thousand florins of him. Is ¢his not some- thing like boldness? Does this profession not require skill, and perseverance, and bravery? Four crowned heads looked on at the game, and an imperial princess, when I turned up the ace of hearts and made Paroll, burst mto tears. No man on the European Continent held a higher position than Redmond Barry then ; and when the Duke of Courland lost he was pleased to say that we had won nobly. And so we had, and spent nobly what we won.” This is very grand, and is put as an eloquent man would put it who really wished to defend gambling.
The rascal, of course, comes to a miserable end, but the tone of the narrative is continued throughout. He is brought to live at last with his old mother in the Fleet prison, on a wretched annuity of fifty pounds per annum, which she has saved out of the general wreck, and there he dies of delirium tremens. For an assumed tone of continued irony, maintained through the long memoir of a life, never becoming tedious, never unnatural, astounding us rather by its naturalness, I know nothing equal to Barry Lyndon.
As one reads, one sometimes is struck by a conviction that this or the other writer has thoroughly liked the work on which he is engaged. There is a gusto about his passages, a liveliness in the language, a spring in the motion of the words, an eagerness of description, a lilt, if I may so call it, in the progress of the narrative, which makes the reader feel that the author has himself greatly enjoyed what he has written. He has evidently gone on with his work without any sense of weariness, or doubt ;
76 THACKERAY. [cllAap,
and the words have come readily to him. So it has been with Barry Lyndon. “My mind was filled full with those blackguards,” Thackeray once said toa friend. It is easy enough to see that it was so. Iv the passage which I have above quoted, his mind was running over with the idea that a rascal might be so far gone in rascality as to be in love with his own trade.
This was the last of Thackeray’s long stories in Fraser. I have given by no means a complete catalogue of his contributions to the magazine, but I have perhaps men- tioned those which are best known. There were many short pieces which have now been collected in his works, such as Little Travels and Roadside Sketches, and the Carmen Lilliense, in which the poet is supposed to be detained at Lille by want of money. There are others which I think are not to be found in the collected works, such as a Bow of Novels by Titmarsh, and Titmarsh in the Picture Galleries. After the name of Titmarsh had been once assumed it was generally used in the papers which he sent to Fraser.
Thackeray’s connection with Punch began in 1843, and, as far as I can learn, Miss Tickletoby’s Lectures on English History was his first contribution. They, how- ever, have not been found worthy of a place in the collected edition. His short pieces during a long period of his life were so numerous that to have brought them all together would have weighted his more important works with too great an amount of extraneous matter. The same lady, Miss Tickletoby, gave a series of lectures. There was The History of the next French Revolution, and The Wanderings of our Fat Contributor,—the first of which is, and the latter is not, perpetuated in his works. Our old friend Jeames Yellowplush, or De la Pluche,—for
TT. | FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PONCH. 7
we cannot for a moment doubt that he is the same Jeames, —is very prolific, and as excellent in his orthography, his sense, and satire, as ever. These papers began with The Lucky Speculator. He lives in The Albany; he hires a brougham ; and is devoted to Miss Emily Flimsey, the daughter of Sir George, who had been his master,—to the great injury of poor Maryanne, the fellow-servant who had loved him in his kitchen days, Then there follows that wonderful ballad, Jeames of Backley Square. Upon this he writes an angry letter to Punch, dated from his chambers in The Albany; “ Hasa reglar suscriber to your amusing paper, I beg leaf to state that I should never have done so had I supposed that it was your ’abbit to igspose the mistaries of privit life, and to hinger the delligit feelings of umble individyouls like myself.” He writes in his own defence, both as to Maryanne and to the share-dealing by which he had made his fortune; and he ends with declaring his right to the position which he holds. ‘You are corrict in stating that I am of hancient Normin fam’ly. This is more than Peal can say, to whomb I applied for a barnetcy ; but the primmier being of low igstraction, natrally stikles for his horder.” And the letter is signed “‘ Fitzjames De la Pluche.” Then follows his diary, beginning with a description of the way in which he rushed into Punch’s office, declaring his mis- fortunes, when losses had come upon him. “I wish to be paid for my contribewtions to your paper. Suckm- stances is altered with me.” Whereupon he gets a cheque upon Messrs. Pump and Aldgate, and has himself ¢arried away to new speculations. He leaves his diary behind him, and Punch surreptitiously publishes it. There is much in the diary which comes from Thackeray’s very heart. Who does not remember his indignation agains}
78 THACKERAY. [CHAP
Lord Bareacres? “I gave the old humbug a few shares out of my own pocket. ‘There, old Pride,’ says I, ‘I like to seo youdown on your knees to a footman. There, old Pomposity! Take fifty pounds. I like to see you come cringing and begging for it!’ Whenever I see him in a very public place, I take my change for my money. I digg him in the ribbs, or clap his padded old shoulders. I call him ‘ Bareacres, my old brick,’ and I see him wince, It does my ’art good.” It does Thackeray’s heart good to pour himself out in indignation against some imaginary Bareacres. He blows off his steam with such an eagerness that he forgets fora time, or nearly forgets, his cacography. Then there are “ Jeames on Time Bargings,” “ Jeames on the Guage Question,” “Mr. Jeames again.” Of all our authors herocs Jeames is perhaps the most amusing. There is not much in that joke of bad spelling, and we should have been inclined to say beforehand, that Mrs. Malaprop had done it so well and so sufficiently, that no repetition of it would be received with great favour. Like other dishes, it depends upon the cooking. Jeames, with his “suckmstances,” high or low, will be immortal.
There were The Travels in London, a long series of them ; and then Punch’s Prize Novelists, in which Thackeray imitates the language and plots of Bulwer, Disrael1, Charles Lever, G. P. R. James, Mrs. Gore, and Cooper, the American. They are all excellent ; perhaps Codlingsby is the best. Mendoza, when he is fighting with the bargeman, or drinking with Codlingsby, or receiving Louis Philippe in his rooms, seems to have come direct from the pen of our Premier. Phil Fogerty’s jump, and the younger and the elder horsemen, as they come riding into the story, one in his armour and the other with his feathers, have the very savour.and tone of Lever and
11. ] FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 79
James; but then the savour and the tone are not so piquant. I know nothing in the way of imitation to equal Codlingsby, if it be not The Tale of Drury Lane, by W. 8. in the Rejected Addresses, of which it is said that Walter Scott declared that he must have written it him- self. The scene between Dr. Franklin, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and Tatua, the chief of the Nose-rings, as told in The Stars and Stripes, is perfect in its way, but it fails as being a caricature of Cooper. The caricaturist has been carried away beyond and above his model, by his own sense of fun.
Of the ballads which appeared in Punch I will speak elsewhere, as I must give a separate short chapter to our author’s power of versification ; but I must say a word of The Snob Papers, which were at the time the most popular and the best known of all Thackeray’s contributions to Punch. I think that perhaps they were more charming, more piquant, more apparently true, when they came out one after another in the periodical, than they are now as collected together. JI think that one at a time would be better than many. And I think that the first half in the long list of snobs would have been more manifestly snobs to us than they are now with the second half of the list appended. In fact, there are too many of them, till the reader is driven to tell himself that the meaning of it all is that Adam’s family is from first to last a family of snobs. “ First,” says Thackeray, in preface, “ the world was made ; then, as a matter of course, snobs ; they existed for years and years, and were no more known than America. But presently,—ingens patebat tellus,— the: people became darkly aware that there was such a race. Not above five-and-twenty years since, a name, an expressive monosyllable, arose to designate that case. That
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name has spread over England like railroads subsequently ; snobs are known and recognised throughout an empire on which I am given to understand the sun never sets. Punch appears at the right season to chronicle their his tory; and the individual comes forth to write that history in Punch.
“T have,—and for this gift I congratulate myself with a deep and abiding thankfulness,—an eye fora snob. If the truthful is the beautiful, it is beautiful to study even the snobbish ;—-to track snobs through history as certain little dogs in Hampshire hunt out truffles; to sink shafts in society, and come upon rich veins of snob-ore. Snob- bishness is like Death, in a quotation from Horace, which I hope you never heard, ‘ beating with equal foot at poor men’s doors, and kicking at the gates of emperors.’ It is a great mistake to judge of snobs lightly, and think they exist among the lower classes merely. An immense percentage of snobs, I believe, is to be found in every rank of this mortal life. You must not judge hastily or vulgarly of snobs ; to do so shows that you are yourself a snob. I myself have been taken for one.”
The state of Thackeray’s mind when he commenced his delineations of snobbery is here accurately depicted. Written, as these papers were, for Punch, and written, as they were, by Thackeray, it was a necessity that every idea put forth should be given as a joke, and that the satire on society in general should be wrapped up in burlesque absurdity. But not the less eager and serious was his intention, "When he tells us, at the end of the first chapter, of a certain Colonel Snobley, whom he met at “Bagnigge Wells,” as he says, and with whom he was so disgusted that he determined to drive the man out of the house, we are well aware that he had met an
HW.) FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 81
offensive military gentleman,—probably at Tunbridge. Gentlemen thus offensive, even though tamely offensive, were peculiarly offensive to him. We presume, by wnat follows, that this gentleman, ignorantly,—for himself most unfortunately,—spoke of Publicola. Thackeray was dis- gusted,—diseusted that such a name should be lugged into ordinary conversation at all, and then that a man should talk about a name with which he was so little acquainted as not to know how to pronounce it. The man was therefore a snob, and ought to be put down ; in all which I think that Thackeray was unnecessarily hard on the man, and gave him too much importance.
So it was with him in his whole intercourse with snobs, —as he calls them. He saw something that was dis- tasteful, and a man instantly became a snob in his estimation. “But you can draw,” a man once said to him, there having been some discussion on the subject of Thackeray’s art powers. The man meant no doubt to be civil, but meant also to imply that for the purpose needed the drawing was good enough, a matter on which he was competent to form an opinion. Thackeray instantly put the man down as a snob for flattering him. The little courtesies of the world and the little discourtesies became snobbish to him. A man could not wear his hat, or carry his umbrella, or mount his horse, without falling into some error of snobbism before his hypercritical eyes. St. Michael would have carried his armour amiss, and St. Cecilia have been snobbish as she twanged her harp.
i fancy that a policeman considers that every man in the street would be properly “run in,” if only all the truth about the man had been known. The tinker thinks that every pot is unsound, The cobbler doubts the
fe!
ge THACKERAY. Conap.
stability of every shoe. So at last it grew to be the case with Thackeray. There was more hope that the city should be saved because of its ten just men, than for society, if society were to depend on ten who were not snobs. All this arose from the keenness of his vision into that which was really mean. But that keenness became so aggravated by the intenseness of his search that the slightest speck of dust became to his eyes as afoul stain. Publicdla, as we saw, damned one poor man to a wretched immortality, and another was called pitilessly over the coals, because he had mixed a grain of flattery with a bushel of truth. Thackeray tells us that he was born to hunt out snobs, as certain dogs are trained to find truffles. But we can imagine that a dog, very energetic at producing truffles, and not finding them as plentiful as his heart desired, might occasionally produce roots which were not genuine,—might be carried on in his energies till to his senses every fungus-root became a truffle. I think that there has been something of this with our author’s snob-hunting, and that his zeal was at last greater than his discrimination.
The nature of the task which came upon him made this fault almost unavoidable. When a hit is made, say with a piece at a theatre, or with a set of illustrations, or with a series of papers on this or the other subject,—when something of this kind has suited the taste of the moment, and gratified the public, there is a natural inclination on the part of those who are interested to continue that which has been found to be good. It pays and it pleases, and it seems to suit everybody. Then it is continued usque ad nauseam. We see it in everything. When the king said he liked partridges, partridges were served to him every day. The world was pleased with certain
ir.] FRASER’S MAGAZINE AND PUNCH. 83
tidiculous portraits of its big men. The big men were soon used up, and the little men had to be added.
We can imagine that even Punch may occasionally be at a loss for subjects wherewith to delight its readers. In fact, The Snob Papers were too good to be brought to an end, and therefore there were forty-five of them. <A dozen would have been better. As he himself says in his last paper, ‘‘for a mortal year we have been together flattering and abusing the human race.” It was exactly that. Of course we know,—everybody always knows,— that a bad specimen of his order may be found in every division of society. There may be a snop king, a snob parson, a snob member of parliament, a snob grocer, tailor, goldsmith, and the like. But that is not what has been meant. We did not want a special satirist to tell us what we all knew before. Had snobbishness been divided for us into its various attributes and characteristics, rather than attributed to various classes, the end sought,—the exposure, namely, of the evil,—would have been better attained. ‘The snobbishness of flattery, of falsehood, of cowardice, lying, time-serving, money-worship, would have been perhaps attacked to a better purpose than that of kings, priests, soldiers, merchants, or men of letters. The assault as made by Thackeray seems to have been niade on the profession generally.
The paper on clerical snobs is intended to be essentially generous, and is ended by an allusion to certain old clerical friends which has a sweet tone of tenderness in it. “ How should he who knows you, not respect you or your calling? May this pen never write a pennyworth again if it ever casts ridicule upon either.” But in the meantime he has thrown his stone at the covetousness of bishops, because of certain Irish prelates who died rich many years before
84 THACKERAY. (CHAP,
he wrote. The insinuation is that bishops generally take more of the loaves and fishes than they ought, whereas the fact is that bishops’ incomes are generally so msuf- ficient for the requirements demanded of them, that a feeling prevails that a clergyman to be fit for a bishopric should have a private income. He attacks the snobbish- ness of the universities, showing us how one class of young men consists of fellow-commoners, who wear lace and drink wine with their meals, and another class con- sists of sizars, or servitors, who wear badges, as being poor, and are never allowed to take their food with their fellow-students. That arrangements fit for past times are not fit for these is true enough. Consequently they should gradually be changed; and from day to day are changed. But there is no snobbishness in this. Was the fellow-commoner a snob when he acted in accordance with the custom of his rank and standing? or the sizar who accepted aid in achieving that education which he could not have got witnout it? or the tutor of the college, who carried out the rules entrusted to him? There are two military snobs, Rag and Famish. One is a swindler and the other a debauched young idiot. No doubt they are both snobs, and one has been, while the other is, an officer. But there is,—I think, not an unfairness so much as an absence of intuition,—in attaching to soldiers especially two vices to which all classes are open. Rag was a gambling snob, and Famish a drunken snob,—but they were not specially military snobs. There is a chapter devoted to dinner-giving snobs, in which I think the doctrine laid down will not hold water, and therefore that the snobbism imputed is not proved. ‘“ Your usual style of meal,” says the satirist —“ that is plenteous, comfortable, and in its perfection,—should be that to which you welcome your
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friends.” Then there is something said about the “ Brum- magem plate pomp,” and we are told that it is right that dukes should give grand dinners, but that we,—of the middle class,—should entertain our friends with the sim- plicity which is customary with us. In all this there is, I think, a mistake. The duke gives a grand dinner be- cause he thinks his friends will like it, sitting down when alone with the duchess, we may suppose, with a retinue and grandeur less than that which is arrayed for gala occasions. So is it with Mr. Jones, who is no snob because he pro- vides a costly dinner,—if he can afford it. He does it because he thinks his friends will like it. It may be that the grand dinner is a bore,—and that the leg of mutton with plenty of gravy and potatoes all hot, would be nicer. I generally prefer the leg of mutton myself. ButIdo not think that snobbery is involved in the other. A man, no doubt, may be a snob in giving a dinner. Iam not a snob because for the occasion I eke out my own dozen silver forks with plated ware; but if I make believe that my plated ware is true silver, then J am a snob.
In that matter of association with our betters,—we will for the moment presume that gentlemen and ladies with titles or great wealth are our betters,—great and delicate questions arise as to what is snobbery, and what is not, in speaking of which Thackeray becomes very indignant, and explains the intensity of his feelings as thoroughly by a charming little picture as by his words. It is a picture of Queen Elizabeth as she is about to trample with disdain on the coat which that snob Raleigh is throwing for her use on the mud before her. This is intended to typify the low parasite nature of the Englishman which has been described in the previous page or two. “And of these calm moralists,’—-it matters not for our present purpose
86 THACKERAY. [oHAP.
who were the moralists in question,“ is there one I wonder whose heart would not throb with pleasure if he could be seen walking arm-in-arm with a couple of dukes down Pall Mall? No; it is impossible, in our condition of society, not to be sometimes a snob.” And again: * How should it be otherwise in a country where lordolatry is part of our creed, and where our children are brought up to respect the ‘Peerage’ as the Englishman’s second Bible.” Then follows the wonderfully graphic picture of Queen Elizabeth and Raleigh.
In ali this Thackeray has been carried away from the truth by his hatred for a certain meanness of which there are no doubt examples enough. As for Raleigh, I think we have always sympathised with the young man, instead of despising him, because he felt on the impulse of the moment that nothing was too good for the woman and the queen combined. The idea of getting something in return for his coat could hardly have come so quick to him as that impulse in favour of royalty and womanhood. If one of us to-day should see the queen passing, would he not raise his hat, and assume, unconsciously, something of an altered demeanour because of his reverence for majesty ? In doing so he would have no mean desire of getting any- thing. The throne and its occupant are to him honour- able, and he honours them. There is surely no greater mistake than to suppose that reverence is snobbishness, I meet a great man in the street, and some chance having brought me to his knowledge, le stops and says a word to me. Am Ia snob because I feel myself to be graced by his notice? Surely not. And if his acquaintance goes further and he asks me to dinner, am I not entitled so far to think well of myself because I have been found worthy of his society ?
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They who have raised themselves in the world, and they, too, whose position has enabled them to receive all that estimation can give, all that society can furnish, all that intercourse with the great can give, are more likely to be pleasant companions than they who have been less fortunate. That picture of two companion dukes in Pall Mall is too gorgeous for human eye to endure, <A man would be scorched to cinders by so much light, as he would be crushed by a sack of sovereigns even though he might be allowed to have them if he could carry them away. But there can be no doubt that a peer taken at random as a companion would be preferable to a clerk from a counting-house,—taken at random. The clerk might turn out a scholar on your hands, and the peer no better than a poor spendthrift ;—but the chances are the other way.
A tufthunter is a snob, a parasite is a snob, the man who allows the manhood within him to be awed by a coronet is a snob. The man who worships mere wealth is asnob. But so also is he who, in fear lest he should bs called a snob, is afraid to seek the acquaintance,—or if it come to speak of the acquaintance,— of those whose acquaintance is manifestly desirable. In all this I feel that Thackeray was carried beyond the truth by his intense desire to put down what is mean.
Tt is in truth well for us all to know what constitutes snobbism, and I think that Thackeray, had he not been driven to dilution and dilatation, could have told us. If you will keep your hands from picking and stealing, and your tongue from evil speaking, lying, and slandering, you will not be a snob. The lesson seems to be simple, and perhaps a little trite, but if you look into it, it will be found to contain nearly all that is necessary.
$8 THACKERAY. [owat
But the excellence of each individual picture as it is drawn is not the less striking because there may be found some fault with the series as a whole. What can excel the telling of the story of Captain Shindy at his club,— which is, I must own, as.true as itis graphic. Captain Shindy is a real snob. “‘ Look at it, sir; is it cooked ? Smell it, sir. Is it meat fit for a gentleman?’ he roars out to the steward, who stands trembling before him, and who in vain tells him that the Bishop of Bullock- smithy has just had three from the same loin.” The telling as regards Captain Shindy is excellent, but the sidelong attack upon the episcopate is cruel. “All the waiters in the club are huddled round the captain’s mutton-chop. He roars out the most horrible curses at John for not bringing the pickles. He utters the most dreadful oaths because Thomas has not arrived with the Harvey sauce. Peter comes tumbling with the water- jug over Jeames, who is bringing the ‘glittering canistors with bread.’
% * % * #
“Poor Mrs. Shindy and the children are, meanwhile, in dingy lodgings somewhere, waited upon by a charity girl in pattens,”
The visit to Castle Carabas, and the housekeeper’s description of the wonders of the family mansion, is as good. ‘The Side Entrance and ’All,’ says the house. keeper. ‘The. halligator hover the mantelpiece was brought home by Hadmiral St. Michaels, when a capting with Lord Hanson. The harms on the cheers is the harms of the Carabas family. The great ‘all is seventy feet in lenth, fifty-six in breath, and thirty-eight feet igh. The carvings of the chimlies, representing the
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buth of Venus and ’Ercules and “Eyelash, is by Van Chislum, the most famous sculpture of his hage and country. The ceiling, by Calimanco, represents Painting, Harchitecture, and Music,—the naked female figure with the barrel-organ,—introducing George, first Lord Carabas, to the Temple of the Muses. The winder ornaments is by Vanderputty. The floor is Patagonian marble ; and the chandelier in the centre was presented to Lionel, second marquis, by Lewy the Sixteenth, whose ’ead was cut hoff in the French Revolution. We now henter tha South Gallery,” etc. ete. All of which is very good fun, with a dash of truth in it also as to the snobbery; —only in this it will be necessary to be quite sure where the snobbery lies. If my Lord Carabas has a “buth of Venus,” beautiful for all eyes to see, there is no snobbery, only good-nature, in the showing it; nor is there snobbery in going to see it, if a beautiful “ buth of Venus” has charms for you. If you merely want to see the inside of a lord’s house, and the lord is puffed up with the pride of showing his, then there will be two snobs.
Of all those papers it may be said that each has that quality of a pearl about it which in the previous chapter I endeavoured to explain. In each some little point is made in excellent language, so as to charm by its neat- ness, incision, and drollery. But Zhe Snob Papers had better be read separately, and not taken in the lunip.
Thackeray ceased to write for Punch in 1852, either entirely or almost so.
CHAPTER ITT. VANITY FAIR,
SoMETSING has been said, in the biographical chapter, of the way in which Vanity Fuir was produced, and of the period in the author’s life in which it was written. He had become famous,—to a limited extent,—bDy the exquisite nature of his contributions to periodicals ; but he desired to do something larger, something greater, something, perhaps, less ephemeral. For though Barry Lyndon and others have not proved to be ephemeral, it was thus that he regarded them. In this spirit he went to work and wrote Vanity Furr.
It may be as well to speak first of the faults which were attributed to it. It was said that the good people were all fools, and that the clever people were all knaves. When the critics,—the talking critics as well as the writing critics,—began to discuss Vanity Fair, there had already grown up a feeling as to Thackeray as an author—that he was one who had taken up the business of castigating the vices of the world. Scott had dealt with the heroics, whether displayed in his Flora MacIvors or Meg Merrilieses, in his Ivanhoes or Ochiltrees. Miss Edgeworth had been moral; Miss Austen conventional; Bulwer had been poetical and sentimental; Marryat and Lever had been funny and pugnacious, always with a dash of gallantry,
CHAP. III. | VANITY FAIR. Si
displaying funny naval and funny military life; and Dickens had already become great in painting the virtues of the lower orders. But by all these some kind of virtue had been sung, though it might be only the virtue of riding a horse or fighting a duel. Even Eugene Aram and Jack Sheppard, with whom Thackeray found so much fault, were intended to be fine fellows, though they broke into houses and committed murders. The primary object of all those writers was to create an interest by exciting sympathy. To enhance our sympathy personages were introduced who were very vile indeed,—as Bucklaw, in the guise of a lover, to heighten our feelings for Ravens- wood and Lucy; as Wild, as a thief-taker, to make us more anxious for the saving of Jack ; as Ralph Nickleby, to pile up the pity for his niece Kate. But each of these novelists might have appropriately begun with an Arma virumque cano. The song was to be of something god- like,—even with a Peter Simple. With Thackeray it had been altogether different. Alas, alas! the meanness of human wishes; the poorness of human results! That had been his tone. There can be no doubt that the heroic had appeared contemptible to him, as being untrue. The girl who had deceived her papa and mamma seemed more probable to him than she who perished under the willow-tree from sheer love,—as given in the last chapter. ° Why sing songs that are false? Why tell of Lucy Ashtons and Kate Nicklebys, when pretty girls, let them be ever so beautiful, can be silly and sly? Why pour philosophy out of the mouth of a fashionable young gentleman like Pelham, seeing that young gentlemen of that sort rarely, or we may say never, talk after that fashion? Why make a house- breaker a gallant charming young fellow, the truth being
92 THACKERAY. fomar.
that housebreakers as a rule are as objectionable in their manners as they are in their morals? Thackeray’s mind had in truth worked in this way, and he had become a satirist. That had been all very well for Fraser and Punch; but when his satire was continued through a long novel, in twenty-four parts, readers,—who do in truth like the heroic better than the wicked,—began to declare that this writer was no novelist, but only a cynic.
Thence the question arises what a novel should be,— which I will endeavour to discuss very shortly in a later chapter. But this special fault was certainly found with Vanity Fatr at the time. Heroines should not only be beautiful, but should be endowed also with a quasi celestial grace,— grace of dignity, propriety, and reticence. A heroine should hardly want to be married, the arrange- ment being almost too mundane,—and, should she be brought to consent to undergo such bond, because of its acknowledged utility, it should be at some period so dis- tant as hardly to present itself to the mind as a reality. Eating and drinking should be altogether indifferent to her, and her clothes should be picturesque rather than smart, and that from accident rather than design. Thackeray’s Amelia does not at all come up to the description here given. She is proud of having a lover, constantly declaring to herself and to others that he is “‘the greatest and the best of men,”—whereas the young gentleman is, in truth, a very little man. She is not at all indifferent as to her finery, nor, as we see incidentally, to enjoying her suppers at Vaux- hall. She is anxious to be married,—and as soon as possible. A hero too should be dignified and of a noble presence ; a man who, though he may be as poor as Nicholas Nickleby, should nevertheless be beautiful on all
It. | VANITY FAIR. 33
occasions, and never deficient in readiness, address, or self-assertion. Vanity Fair is specially declared by the author to be “a novel without a hero,” and therefore we have hardly a right to complain of deficiency of heroic conduct in any of the male characters. But Captain Dobbin does become the hero, and is deficient. Why was he called Dobbin, except to make him ridiculous ? Why is he so shamefully ugly, so shy, so awkward? Why was he the son of a grocer? Thackeray in sc depicting him was determined to run counter to the recognised taste of novel readers. And then again there was the feeling of another great fault. Let there be the virtuous in a novel and let there be the vicious, the dignified and the undignified, the sublime and the ridicu- lous,—only let the virtuous, the dignified, and the sublime be in the ascendant. Edith Bellenden, and Lord Evan- dale, and Morton himself would be too stilted, were they not enlivened by Mause, and Cuddie, and Pound- text. But here, in this novel, the vicious and the absurd have been made to be of more importance than the good and the noble. Becky Sharp and Rawdon Crawley are the real heroine and hero of the story. It is with them that the reader is called upon to interest himself. It is of them that he will think when he is - reading the book. It is by them that he will judge the book when he has read it. There was no doubt a feeling with the public that though satire may be very well in its place, it should not be made the backbone of a work so long and so important as this, A short story such as Catherine or Barry Lyndon might be pronounced to have been called for by the iniquities of an outside world; but this seemed to the readers to have been addressed almost to themselves. Now men and women like to be painted ag
QL THACKERAY. (cap. .
Titian would paint them, or Raffaelle,—not as Rembrandt, or even Rubens.
Whether the ideal or the real is the best form of a novel may be questioned, but there can be no doubt that as there are novelists who cannot descend from the bright heaven of the imagination to walk with their feet upon the earth, so there are others to whom it is not siven to soar among clouds. The reader must please him- self, and make his selection if he cannot enjoy both. There are many who are carried into a heaven of pathos by the woes of a Master of Ravenswood, who fail alto- gether to be touched by the enduring constancy of a Dobbin. There are others,—and I will not say but they may enjoy the keenest delight which literature can give, —who cannot employ their minds on fiction unless it be conveyed in poetry. With Thackeray it was essential that the representations made by him should be, to his own thinking, lifelike. A Dobbin seemed to him to be such a one as might probably be met with in the world, whereas to his thinking a Ravenswood was simply a creature of the imagination. He would have said of such, as we would say of female faces by Raffaelle, that women would like to be like them, but are not like them. Men might like to be like Ravenswood, and women may dream of men so formed and constituted, but such men do not exist. Dobbins do, and therefore Thackeray chose to write of a Dobbin.
So also of the preference given to Becky Sharp and to Rawdon Crawley. Thackeray thought that more can be done by exposing the vices than extolling the virtues of mankind. No doubt. he had a more thorough belief in the one than in the other. The Dobbins he did en- counter—seldom; the Rawdon Crawleys very often. He
Il. | VANITY FAIR. 95
saw around him so much that was mean | He was hurt so often by the little vanities of people! It was thus that he was driven to that overthoughtfulness about snobs of which I have spoken in the last chapter. It thus be- came natural to him to insist on the thing which he hated with unceasing assiduity, and only to break out now and again into a rapture of love for the true nobility which was dear to him,—as he did with the character of Captain Dobbin.
Tt must be added to all this that, before he has done with his snob or his knave, he will generally weave in some: little trait of humanity by which the sinner shall be relieved from the absolute darkness of utter iniquity. He deals with no Varneys or Deputy-Shepherds, all villany and all lies, because the snobs and knaves he had seen had never been all snob or all knave. Even Shindy probably had some feeling for the poor woman he left at home. Rawdon Crawley loved his wicked wife dearly, and there were moments even with her in which some redeeming trait half reconciles her to the reader.
Such were the faults which were found in Vanity Fazr ; but though the faults were found freely, the book was read by all. Those who are old enough can well remember the effect which it had, and the welcome which was given to the different numbers as they appeared. Though the story is vague and wandering, clearly commenced without any idea of an ending, yet there is something in the telling which makes every portion of it perfect in itself. There are absurdities in it which would not be admitted to anyone who had not a peculiar gift of making even his absurdities delightful. No schoolgirl who ever lived would have thrown back her gift-book, as Rebecca did the “ dixonary,” out of the carriage window as.she was taken
O4 THACKERAY. (cHapP. .
Titian would paint them, or Raffaelle,—not as Rembrandt, or even Rubens.
Whether the ideal or the real is the best form of a novel may be questioned, but there can be no doubt that as there are novelists who cannot descend from the bright heaven of the imagination to walk with their feet upon the earth, so there are others to whom it is not siven to soar among clouds. The reader must please him- self, and make his selection if he cannot enjoy both. There are many who are carried into a heaven of pathos by the woes of a Master of Ravenswood, who fail alto- gether to be touched by the enduring constancy of a Dobbin. There are others,—and I will not say but they may enjoy the keenest delight which literature can give, —wwho cannot employ their minds on fiction unless it be conveyed in poetry. With Thackeray it was essential that the representations made by him should be, to his own thinking, lifelike. A Dobbin seemed to him to be such a one as might probably be met with in the world, whereas to his thinking a Ravenswood was simply a creature of the imagination. He would have said of such, as we would say of female faces by Raffaelle, that women would like to be like them, but are not like them. Men might like to be like Ravenswood, and women may dream of men so formed and constituted, but such men do not exist. Dobbins do, and therefore Thackeray chose to write of a Dobbin.
So also of the preference given to Becky Sharp and to Rawdon Crawley. Thackeray thought that more can be done by exposing the vices than extolling the virtues of mankind. No doubt he hada more thorough belief in the one than in the other. The Dobbins he did en- counter—seldom; the Rawdon Crawleys very often. He
III. ] VANITY FAIR. 95
saw around him so much that was mean ! He was hurt so often by the little vanities of people! It was thus that he was driven to that overthoughtfulness about snobs of which I have spoken in the last chapter. It thus be- came natural to him to insist on the thing which he hated with unceasing assiduity, and only to break out now and again into a rapture of love for the true nobility which was dear to him,—-as he did with the character of Captain Dobbin.
It must be added to all this that, before he. has done with his snob or his knave, he will generally weave in some: little trait of humanity by which the sinner shall be relieved from the absolute darkness of utter iniquity. He deals with no Varneys or Deputy-Shepherds, all villany and all lies, because the snobs and knaves he had seen had never been all snob or all knave. Even Shindy probably had some feeling for the poor woman he left at home. Rawdon Crawley loved his wicked wife dearly, and there were moments even with her in which some redeeming trait half reconciles her to the reader.
Such were the faults which were found in Vanity Fazr; but though the faults were found freely, the book was read by all. Those who are old enough can well remember the effect which it had, and the welcome which was given to the different numbers as they appeared. Though the story is vague and wandering, clearly commenced without any idea of an ending, yet there is something in the telling which makes every portion of it perfect in itself. There are absurdities in it which would not be admitted to anyone who had not a peculiar gift of making even his absurdities delightful. No schoolgirl who ever lived would have thrown back her gift-book, as Rebecea did the “ dixonary,” out of the carriage window as.she was taken
96 THACKERAY. [cHAP,
away from school, But who does not love that scene with which the novel commences? How could such a girl as Amelia Osborne have got herself into such society as that In which we see her at Vauxhall? But we for- give it all because of the telling, And then there is that crowning absurdity of Sir Pitt Crawley and his establishment.
I never could understand how Thackeray in his first serious attempt could have dared to subject himself and Sir Pitt Crawley to the critics of the time. Sir Pitt is a baronet, a man of large property, and in Parliament, to whom Becky Sharp goes as a governess at the end of a delightful visit with her friend Amelia Sedley, on leaving Miss Pinkerton’s school. The Sedley carriage takes her to Sir Pitt’s door. “ When the bell was rung a head appeared between the interstices of the dining-room shutters, and the door was opened by a man in drab breeches and gaiters, with a dirty old coat, a foul old neckcloth lashed round his bristly neck, a shining bald head, a leering red face, a pair of twinkling gray eyes, and a mouth perpetually on the grin.
“This Sir Pitt Crawley’s?’ says John from the box.
“6 < Wes,’ says the man at the door with a nod.
“¢¢ Hand down these ’ere trunks there,’ said John.
“¢ Hand ’em down yourself,’ said the porter.”
But John on the box declines to do this, as he cannot leave his horses.
“The bald-headed man, taking his hands out of his breeches’ pockets, advanced on this summons, and throwing Miss Sharp’s trunk over his shoulder, carried it into the house.” Then Becky is shown into the louse, and a
11.) VANITY FAIR. £7
dismantled dining-room is described, into which she is led by the dirty man with the trunk.
Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker and tongs, were, however, gathered round the fireplace, as was a saucepan over a feeble, sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese and bread and a tin candlestick on the table, and a litile black porter in a pint pot.
“Had your dinner, I suppose?” This was said by him of the bald head. “It is not too warm for you? Like a drop of beer P”
“Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?” said Miss Sharp majestically.
“He, he! I’m Sir Pitt Crawley. Rek’lect you owe me a pint for bringing down your luggage. He, he! ask Tinker if I ain’t.”
The lady addressed as Mrs. Tinker at this moment made her appearance, with a pipe and a paper of tobacco, for which she had been despatched a minute before Miss Sharp’s arrival; and she handed the articles over to Sir Pitt, who had taken his seat by the fire.
‘‘Where’s the farden?” said he. “I gave you three-half- pence; where’s the change, old Tinker P”’
“There,” replied Mrs. Tinker, flinging down the coin. “It’s only baronets as cares about farthings.”
Sir Pitt Crawley has always been to me a stretch of audacity which I have been unable to understand. But it has been accepted ; and from this commencement of Sir Pitt Crawley have grown the wonderful characters of the Crawley family,—old Miss Crawley, the worldly, wicked, pleasure-loving aunt, the Rev. Bute Crawley and his wife, who are quite as worldly, the sanctimonious elder son, who in truth is not less so, and Rawdon, who ultimately becomes Becky’s husband,—who is the bad hero of the book, as Dobbin is the good hero. They are admirable; but it is quite clear that Thackeray had known nothing of what was coming about them when he
H
98 THACKERAY. [oHaAr,
eaused Sir Pitt to eat his tripe with Mrs, Tinker in the London dining-room.
There is a double story running through the book, the parts of which are but lightly woven together, of which the former tells us the life and adventures of that singular young woman Becky Sharp, and the other the troubles and ultimate success of our noble hero Captain Dobbin. Though it be true that readers prefer, or pretend to prefer, the romantic to the common in their novels, and complain of pages which are defiled with that which is low, yet I find that the absurd, the ludicrous, and even the evil, leave more impression behind them than the grand, the beautiful, or even the good. Dominie Sampson, Dugald Dalgetty, and Bothwell are, I think, more re- membered than Fergus MacIvor, than Ivanhoe himself, or Mr. Butler the minister. It certainly came to pass that, in spite of the critics, Becky Sharp became the first attraction in Vanity Fair. When we speak now of Vanity Fair, it is always to Becky that our thoughts recur. She has made a position for herself in the world of fiction, and is one of our established personages.
I have already said how she left school, throwing t the « dixonary ” out of the window, like dust from her feet, _.and was taken to spend a few halcyon weeks with her friend Amelia Sedley, at the Sedley mansion in Russell Square. There she meets a brother Sedley home from India,—the immortal Jos,—at whom she began to set her hitherto untried cap. Here we become acquainted both with the Sedley and with the Osborne families, with all their domestic affections and domestic snobbery, and have to confess that the snobbery is stronger than the affection. As we desire to love Amelia Sedley, we wish that the people around her were less vulgar or less selfish,
HI.} VANITY FAIR. 99
especially we wish it in regard to that handsome young fellow, George Osborne, whom she loves with her whole heart. But with Jos Sedley we are inclined to be con- tent, though he be fat, purse-proud, awkward, a drunkard, and a coward, because we do not want anything better for Becky. Becky does not want anything better for herself, because the man has money. She has been born a pauper, She knows herself to be but ill qualified to set up asa beauty,—though by dint of cleverness she does succeed in that afterwards. She has no advantages in regard to friends or family as she enters lifé. “Shé must eam her ‘bread for herself. Young as she is, she loves money, and has a great idea of the power of money. Therefore, though Jos is distasteful at all points, she instantly makes her attack. She fails, however, at any rate for the present. She never becomes his wife, but at last she succeeds in getting.some of his money. But before that time comes she has many a suffering to endure, and many a triumph to enjoy.
She goes to Sir Pitt Crawley as governess for his second family, and is taken down to Queen’s Crawley in the country. There her cleverness prevails, even with the baronet, of whom I have just given Thackeray’s por- trait. She keeps his accounts, and writes his letters, and helps him to save money ; she reads with the elder sister books they ought not to have read; she flatters the sancti- monious son. In point of fact, she becomes all in all at Queen’s Crawley, so that Sir Pitt himself falls in love with her,—for there is reason to think that Sir Pitt may soon become again a widower. But there also came down to the baronet’s house, on an occasion of general enter- taining, Captain Rawdon Crawley. Of course Becky sets her cap at him, and of course succeeds, She always
H 2
100 THACKERAY. (CHAP.
succeeds. Though she is only the governess, he insists upon dancing with her, to the neglect of all the young ladies of the neighbourhood. They continue to walk together by moonlight,—or starlight,—the great, heavy, stupid, half-tipsy dragoon, and the intriguing, covetous, altogether unprincipled young woman. And the two young peopire absolutely come to love one another in their way,—the heavy, stupid, fuddled dragoon, and the false, covetous, altogether unprincipled young woman.
The fat aunt Crawley is a maiden lady, very rich, and Becky quite succeeds in gaining the rich aunt by her wiles. The aunt becomes so fond of Becky down in the country, that when she has to return to her own house in town, sick from over-eating, she cannot be happy without taking Becky with her. So Becky is installed in the house in London, having been taken away abruptly from her pupils, to the great dismay of the old lady’s long-established resident companion. They-all fall in love with her; she makes herself so charming, she is so clever ; she can even, by help of a little care in dressing, become so picturesque ! Asall this goes on, the reader feels what a great personage is Miss Rebecca Sharp.
Lady Crawley dies down in the country, while Becky is still staying with his sister, who will not part with her. Sir Pitt at once rushes up to town, before the funeral, looking for consolation where only he can find it. Becky brings him down word from his sister’s room that the old lady is too ill to see him.
“So much the better,” Sir Pitt answered ; “I want to see you, Mise Sharp. I want you back at Queen’s Crawley, miss,” the baronet said. His eyes had such a strange look, and were fixed upon her so stedfastly that Rebecca Sharp began almost to
IIt. | VANITY FATR. 101
tremble. Then she half promises, talks about the dear children, and angles with the old man. “TI tell you I want you,” he says; “I’m going back to the vuneral, will you come back ?—yes or no?”
“JT daren’t. I don’t think—it wouldn’t be right—to be alone —with yon, sir,” Becky said, seemingly in great agitation.
“TIT say again, I want you. I can’t get on without you. I didn’t see what it was till you went away. The house all goes wrong. It’s not the same place. All my accounts has got muddled again. You must come back. Do come back. Dear Becky, do come.”
* Come,—as what, sir P” Rebecca gasped out.
“Come as Lady Crawley, if you like. There, will that zatisfy you? Come back and be my wife. You’re vit for it. Birth be hanged. You’re as good a lady as everI see. You've got more brains in your little vinger than any baronet’s wife in the country. Will you come? Yes or no?” Rebecca is startled, but the old man goes on. “1’ll make you happy; zee if I don’t. You shall do what you like, spend what you like, and have it all your own way. I'll make you a settlement. I'll do every- thing regular. Look here,” and the old man fell down on his knees and leered at her like a satyr.
But Rebecca, though she had been angling, angling for favour and love and power, had not expected this. For once in her life she loses her presence of mind, and exclaims: “ Oh Sir Pitt; oh sir; I—I’m married already !” She has married Rawdon Crawley, Sir Pitt’s younger son, Miss Crawley’s favourite among those of her family who are looking for her money. But she keeps her secret for the present, and writes a charming letter to the Captain; “ Dearest,—Something tells me that we shall conquer. You shall leave that odious regiment. Quit gaming, racing, and be a good boy, and we shall all live in Park Lane, and ma tazte shall leave us all her money.”
102 THACKERAY. (crap,
Ma, tante’s money has been in her mind all through, but yet she loves him.
“Suppose the old lady doesn’t come to,” Rawdon said to hig little wife as they sat together in the snug little Brompton lodgings. She had been trying the new piano all the morning. The new gloves fitted her toa nicety. The new shawl became her wonderfully. The new rings glittered on her litile hands, and the new watch ticked at her waist.
“7T’ll make your fortune,’ she said; and Delilah patted Samson’s cheek.
“You can do anything,” he said, kissing the little hand. “By Jove you can! and we'll drive down to the Star and Garter and dine, by Jove!”
They were neither of them quite heartless at that moment, nor did Rawdon ever become quite bad. Then follow the adventures .of Becky. as a married woman, through all of which there is a glimmer of love for her stupid husband, while it is the real purpose of her heart to get money how she may,—by her charms, by her wit, by her lies, by her. readiness., She makes love to everyone,—even to her sanctimonious brother-in-law, who becomes Sir Pitt in his time,—and L_alw ays succeeds, But in her lovemaking there is nothing of love. She gets hold of that well-remembered old reprobate, the Marquis of Steyne, who possesses the two valuable gifts of being very dissolute and very rich, and from him she obtains money and jewels to her heart’s desire. The abominations of Lord Steyne are depicted in the strongest language of which Vanity Fair admits. The reader’s hair stands almost on end in horror at the wickedness of the two wretches,—at her desire for money, sheer money ; and his for wicked- ness, sheer wickedness. Then her husband finds her out, --poor Rawdon! who with all his faults and thick-
111] VANITY FAIR. 103
headed stupidity, has become absolutely entranced by the wiles of his little wife. He is carried off to a sponging- house, in order that he may be out of the way, and, on escaping unexpectedly from thraldom, finds the lord in his wife’s drawing-room. Whereupon he thrashes the old lord, nearly killing him; takes away the plunder which he finds on his wife’s person, and hurries away to seek assistance as to further revenge ;—for he is determined to shoot the marquis, or to be shot. He goes to one Captain Macmurdo, who is to act as his second, and there he pours out his heart. ‘ You don’t know how fond I was of that one,” Rawdon said, half-inarticulately. “Damme, f followed her like a footman! I gave up everything I had to her. I’m a beggar because I would marry her. By Jove, sir, I’ve pawned my own watch to get her anything she fancied. And she,—she’s been making a purse for herself all the time, and grudged me a hundred pounds to get me out of quod!” His friend alleges that the wife may be innocent after all. “It may be so,” Rawdon exclaimed sadly; “but this don’t look very innocent!” And he showed the captain the thousand-pound note which he had found in Becky’s pocketbook.
But the marquis can do better than fight ; and Rawdon, in spite of his true love, can do better than follow the quarrel up to his own undoing. The marquis, on the spur of the moment, gets the lady’s husband appointed governor of Coventry Island, with a salary of three thousand pounds a year; and poor Rawdon at last con- descends to accept the appointment. He will not see his wife again, but he makes her an allowance out of his income.
In arranging all this, Thackeray is enabled to have a
104 THACKERAY. [ CHAP.
side tclow at the British way of distributing patronage,— for the favour of which he was afterwards himself a can- didate. He quotes as follows from The Royalist newspaper : “ We bear that the governorship ’—of Coventry Island— “has been offered to Colonel Rawdon Crawley, C.B., a distinguished Waterloo officer. We need not only men of acknowledged bravery, but men of administrative talents to superintend the affairs of our colonies; and we have no doubt that the gentleman selected by the Colonial Office to fill the lamented vacancy which has occurred at Coventry Island, is admirably calculated for the post.” The reader, however, is aware that the officer in question cannot write a sentence or speak two words correctly.
Our heroine’s adventures are carried on much further, but they cannot be given here in detail. To the end_she is.the same,— utterly false, selfish, govetous, and successful, To have made such a woman Teally in love would have been a mistake. Her husband she likes best,—because he is, or was, her own. But there is no man so foul, SO wicked, so unattractive, but that she can ‘fawn over him for money and jewels. There are women to whéni nothing is nasty, either in person, language, scenes, actions, or principle,—and Becky is one of them; and yet she is herself attractive. A most wonderful sketch, for the perpetration of which all Thackeray’s power of combined indignation and humour was necessary !
The story of Amelia and her two lovers, George Oxborne and Captain, or as he came afterwards to be, Major, and Colonel Dobbin, is less interesting, simply because goodness and eulogy are less exciting than wickedness and censure. Amelia is a true, honest-hearted, thoroughly English young woman, who loves her love
1.) VANITY FAIR. 105
because he is grand,—to her eyes,—and loving him, loves him with all her heart. Readers have said that she is silly, only because she is not heroic. I do not know that she is more silly than many young ladies whom we who are old have loved in our youth, or than those whom our sons are loving at the present time. Readers complain of Amelia because she is absolutely true to nature. There are no Raffaellistic touches, no added graces, no divine romance. She is feminine all over, and British,—loving, true, thoroughly unselfish, yet with a taste for having things comfortable, forgiving, quite capable of jealousy, but prone to be appeased at once, at the first kiss; quite convinced that her lover, her husband, her children are the people in all the world to whom the greatest consideration is duc. Such a one is sure to be the dupe of a Becky Sharp, should a Becky Sharp come in her way,—as is the case with so many sweet Amelias whom we have known. But in a matter of love she is sound enough and sensible enough,—and she is as true as steel. I know no trait in Amelia which a man would be ashamed to find in his own daughter.
She marries her George Osborne, who, to tell the truth of him, is but a poor kind of fellow, though he is a brave soldier. He thinks much of his own person, and is selfish. Thackeray puts in a touch or two here and there by which he is made to be odious. He would rather give a present to himself than to the girl who loved him. Nevertheless, when her father is ruined he marries her, and he fights bravely at Waterloo, and is killed. “No more firing was heard at Brussels. The pursuit rolled miles away. Darkness came down on the field and the city,—and Amelia was praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet through his heart.”
106 THACKERAY. (CHAP.
Then follows the long courtship of Dobbin, the true hero,—he who has been the friend of George since their old school-days ; who has lived with him and served him, and has also loved Amelia. But he has loved her,—as one man may love another,—solely with a view to the profit of his friend. He has known all along that George and Amelia have been engaged to each other as boy and girl, George would have neglected her, but Dobbin would not allow it. George would have jilted the girl who loved him, but Dobbin would not let him. He had nothing to get for himself, but loving her as he did, it was the work of his life to get for her all that she wanted.
George is shot at Waterloo, and then come fifteen years of widowhood,—fifteen years during which Becky is carrying on her manceuvres,—fifteen years during which Amelia cannot bring herself to accept the devotion of the old captain, who becomes at last a colonel. But at the end she is won. ‘The vessel is in port. He has got the prize he has been trying for all his life. The bird has come in at last. There it is, with its head on its shoulder, billing and cooing clean up to his heart, with soft outstretched fluttering wings. This is what he has asked for every day and hour for eighteen years. This is what he has pined after. Here it is—the summit, the end, the last page of the third volume.”
The reader as he closes the book has on his mind a strong conviction, the strongest possible conviction, that among men George is as weak and Dobbin as noble as any that he has met in literature; and that among women Amelia is as true and Becky as vile as any he has en- countered. Of so much he will be conscious. In addition to this he will unconsciously have found that every page he has read will have been of interest to him. There has
111. | VANITY FAIR. 107
been no padding, no longueurs; every bit will have had its weight with him. And he will find too at the end, if he will think of it—though readers, I fear, seldom think much of this in regard to books they have read—that the lesson taught in every page has been good. ‘There may be details of evil painted so as to disgust,—painted almost too plainly,—but none painted so as to allure.
CHAPTER IV. PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES.
Tue absence of the heroic was, in Thackeray, so palpable to Thackeray himself that in his original preface to Pendennis, when he began to be aware that his reputation was made, he tells his public what they may expect and what they may not, and makes his joking complaint of the readers of his time because they will not endure with patience the true picture of a natural man. “Even the gentlemen of our age,” he says,—adding that the story of Pendennis is an attempt to describe one of them, just as he is,—“ even those we cannot show as they are with the notorious selfishness of their time and their education. Since the author of Zum Jones was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to depict to his utmost power a MAN. We must shape him, and give him a certain conventional temper.” Then he rebukes his audience because they will not listen to the truth. “ You will not hear what moves in the real world, what passes in society, in the clubs, colleges, mess-rooms,—what is the life and talk of your sons.” You want the Raffaellistic touch, or that of some painter of horrors equally removed from the truth. I tell you how a man really does act,— as did Fielding with Tom Jon:s,—-but it does not satisfy you. You will not sympathise with this young man of
cHAP. IvV.| PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES. 106
mine, this Pendennis, because he is neither angel nor imp. If it be so, let it be so. I will not paint for you angels or imps, because I do not see them. The young man of the (lay, whom I do see, and of whom I know the inside and the out thoroughly, him I have painted for you; and here he is, whether you like the picture or not. This is what Thackeray meant, and, having this in his mind, he produced Pendennis.
The object of a novel should be to instruct in morals while it amuses. I cannot think but that every novelist who has thought much of his art will have realised as much as that for himself. Whether this may best be done by the transcendental or by the common- place is the question which it more behoves the reader than the author to answer, because the author may be fairly sure that he who can do the one will not, probably cannot, do the other. If a lad be only five feet high he does not try to enlist in the Guards. Thackeray com- plains that many ladies have “zremonstrated and sub- scribers left him,” because of his realistic tendency. Nevertheless he has gone on with his work, and, in Pendennis, has painted a young man as natural as Tom Jones. Had he expended himself im the attempt, he could not have drawn a Master of Ravenswood.
It has to be admitted that Pendennis is not a fine fellow. He is not as weak, as selfish, as untrustworthy as that George Osborne whom Amelia married in Vanity Fair; but nevertheless, he is weak, and selfish, and untrustworthy. He is not such a one as a father would wish to see his son, or a mother to welcome as a lover for her daughter. But then, fathers are so often doomed to find their sons not all that they wish, and mothers to see their girls falling in love with young men who are not
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Paladins. In our individual lives we are contented to endure an admixture of evil, which we should resent if imputed to us in the general. We presume ourselves to be truth-speaking, noble in our sentiments, generous in our actions, modest and unselfish, chivalrous and devoted. But we forgive and pass over in silence a few delin- quencies among ourselves. What boy at school ever is a coward,—in the general? What gentleman ever tells a lie? What young lady is greedy? We take it for granted, as though they were fixed rules in life, that our boys from our public schools look us in the face and are manly ; that our gentlemen tell the truth as a matter of course ; and that our young ladies are refined and unselfish. Thackeray is always protesting that it is not so, and that no good is to be done by blinking the truth. He knows that we have our little home experiences. Let us have the facts out, and mend what is bad if we can. This novel of Pendennis is one of his loudest protests to this effect.
I will not attempt to tell the story of Pendennis, how his mother loved him, how he first came to be brought up together with Laura Bell, how he thrashed the other boys when he was a boy, and how he fell in love with Miss Fotheringay, née Costigan, and was determined to marry her while he was still a hobbledehoy, how he went up to Boniface, that well-known college at Oxford, and there did no good, spending money which he had not got, and learning to gamble. The English gentleman, as we know, never lies; but Pendennis is not quite truthful; when the college tutor, thinking that he hears the rattling of dice, makes his way into Pen’s room, Pen and his two companions are found with three Homers before them, and Pen asks the tutor with great gravity ; “ What was
Iv. | PENDENNIS AND THE NEWCOMES. lil
the present condition of the river Scamander, and whether it was navigable or no?” He tells his mother that, during a certain vacation he must Stay up and read, instead of coming home,—but, nevertheless, he goes up to London to amuse himself. The reader is soon made to understand that, though Pen may be a fine gentleman, he is not trustworthy. But he repents and comes home, and kisses his mother; only, alas! he will always be kissing somebody else also.
The story of the Amorys and the Claverings, and that wonderful French cook M. Alcide Mirobolant, forms one of those delightful digressions which Thackeray scatters through his novels rather than weaves into them. They generally have but little to do with the story itself, and are brought in only as giving scope for some incident to the real hero or heroine. But in this digression Pen is very much concerned indeed, for he js brought to the very verge of matrimony with that peculiarly disagreeable lady Miss Amory. He does escape at last, but only within a few pages of the end, when we are made un- happy by the lady’s victory over that poor young sinner Foker, with whom we have all come to sympathise, in spite of his vulgarity and fast propensities. She would to the last fain have married Pen, in whom she believes, thinking that he would make a name for her, “Il me faut des émotions,” says Blanche. Whereupon the author, as he leaves her, explains the nature of this Miss Amory’s feelings. “For this young lady was not able to carry out any emotion to the full, but had a sham enthusiasm, a sham hatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham grief; each of which flared and shone very vehemently for an instant, but subsided and gave place to the next sham emotion,” Thackeray, when he drew
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this portrait, must certainly have had some special young lady in his view. But though we are made unhappy for Foker, Foker too escapes 6 last, and Blanche, with her emotions, marries that very doubtful nobleman Comte Montmorenci de Valentinois.
But all this of Miss Amory is but an episode. The purport of the story is the way in which the hero is made to enter upon the world, subject as he has been to the sweet teaching of his mother, and subject as he is made to be to the worldly lessons of his old uncle the major. Then he is ill, and nearly dies, and his mother comes up to nurse him. And there is his friend War- rington, of whose family down in Suffolk we shall have heard something when we have read The Virginians,—one I think of the finest characters, as it is certainly one of the most touching, that Thackeray ever drew. War- rington, and Pen’s mother, and Laura are our hero’s better angels,—angels so good as to make us wonder that a creature so weak should have had such angels about him ; though we are driven to confess that their affection and loyalty for him are natural. There is a melancholy beneath the roughness of Warrington, and a feminine softness combined with the reticent manliness of the man, which have endeared him to readers beyond perhaps any character in the book. Major Pendennis has become immortal. Selfish, worldly, false, padded, caring alto- gether for things mean and poor in themselves; still the reader likes him. It is not quite all for himself. To Pen he is good,—to Pen who is the head of his family, and to come after him as the Pendennis of the day. To Pen and to Pen’s mother he is beneficent after his lights. In whatever he undertakes it is so contrived that the readex shall in some degree sympathise with him. And go it is
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with poor old Costigan, the drunken Irish captain, Liss Fotheringay’s papa. He was not a pleasant person. “ We have witnessed the déshabille of Major Pendennis,” says our author ; “will any one wish to be valet-de-chambre to our other hero, Costigan?’ It would seem that the cap- tain, before issuing from his bedroom, scented himself with otto of whisky.” Yet there is a kindliness about him which softens our hearts, though in truth he is very careful that the kindness shall always be shown to himself.
Among these people Pen makes his way to the end of the novel, coming near to shipwreck on various occasions, and always deserving the shipwreck which he has almost encountered. ‘Then there will arise the question whether it might not have been better that he should be altogether shipwrecked, rather than housed comfortably with such a wife as Laura, and left to that enjoyment of happiness forever after, which is the normal heaven prepared for heroes and heroines who have done their work well through three volumes. It is almost the only instance in all Thackeray’s works in which this state of bliss is reached. George Osborne, who is the beautiful lover in Vanity Fair, is killed almost before our eyes, on the field of battle, and we feel that Nemesis has with justice taken hold of him. Poor old Dobbin does marry the widow, after fifteen years of further service, when we know him to be a middle-aged man and her a middle-aged woman. That glorious Paradise of which I have spoken requires a freshness which can hardly be attributed to the second marriage of a widow who has been fifteen years mourning for her first husband. Clive Newcome, ‘the first young man,” if we may so call him, of the novel