Part 79 (2/2)

*Mrs. Ritchie's introduction to Contributions to Punch.

The Book of Sn.o.bs brought Thackeray into notice, and now that he was becoming well known and making more money, he once more made a home for his daughters, and they came to London to live with their father. Everything was new and strange to the little girls. There was a feeling of London they thought, in the new house, and ”London smelt of tobacco.” Thus once more, says his daughter, ”after his first happy married years, my father had a home and a family--if a house, two young children, three servants, and a little black cat can be called a family.”

Thackeray was a very big man, being six feet three or four. He must have seemed a very big papa to the little girls of six and eight, who were, no doubt, very glad to be again beside their great big kind father, and he, on his side, was very glad to have his little girls to love, and he took them about a great deal to the theater and concerts. They helped him in many little ways and thought it joy to leave lessons in the schoolroom upstairs and come downstairs to help father, and be posed as models for his drawings.

It was now that Thackeray wrote his first great novel, his greatest some people think, Vanity Fair. I cannot tell you about it now, but when you are a very little older you will like to read of clever and disagreeable Becky Sharp, of dear Dobbin, and foolish Amelia, and all the rest of the interesting people Thackeray creates for us. Thackeray has been called a cynic, that is one who does not believe in the goodness of human nature, and who sneers at and finds fault with everything. And reading Vanity Fair when we are very young we are apt to think that is so, but later we come to see the heart of goodness there is in him, and when we have read his books we say to ourselves, ”What a truly good man Thackeray must have been.” ”He could not have painted Vanity Fair as he has,” says another writer,* ”unless Eden had been s.h.i.+ning brightly in his inner eyes.”

*George Brimley.

Though Thackeray is no cynic he is a satirist as much as Pope or Dryden, but the most kindly satirist who ever wrote. His thrusts are keen and yet there is always a humorous laugh behind, and never a spark of malice or uncharitableness. Thackeray bore no hatred in his heart towards any man. He could not bear to give pain, and as he grew older his satire became more gentle even than at first, and he regretted some of his earlier and too sharp sayings.

After Vanity Fair other novels followed, the best of all being Esmond. Esmond is perhaps the finest historical novel in our language. It is a story of the time of Queen Anne, and when we read it we feel as if the days of Addison and Steele lived again.

But with Thackeray the historical novel is very different from the historical novel of Scott. With Thackeray his imaginary people hold the chief place, the real people only form a background, while in many of Scott's novels the real people claim our attention most.

Before Esmond was written Thackeray had added the profession of lecturer to that of author. He was a very loving father and was always anxious not only that his daughters should be happy when they were young, but that when he died he should leave them well off. Again and again in his letters we find him turning to this thought: ”If I can't leave them a fortune, why, we must try to leave them the memory of having had a good time,” he says. But he wanted to leave them a fortune, and so he took to lecturing.

His lectures were a great success, and he delivered them in many places in England, Scotland, Ireland and America.

It was while he was lecturing in Scotland that he heard a little boy read one of his ballads. It was a satirical ballad, and somehow Thackeray did not like to hear it from the little boy's lips. Turning away he said to himself, ”Pray G.o.d I may be able some day to write something good for children. That will be better than glory or Parliament.”

But already he had written something good for children in the fairy tale of The Rose and the Ring. One year he spent the winter with his children in Rome, and wrote the fairy tale for them and their friends, and drew the pictures too.

I have no room in this book to tell you the story, but there is a great deal of fun in it, and I hope you will read it for yourselves. Here, for instance, is what happened to a porter for being rude to the fairy Blackstick. After saying many other rude things, he asked if she thought he was going to stay at the door all day.

”'You are going to stay at that door all day and all night, and for many a long year,' the fairy said, very majestically; and Gruffenuff, coming out of the door, straddling before it with his great calves, burst out laughing, and cried 'Ha, ha, ha! this is a good un! Ha--ah what's this? Let me down--O-o-H'm!' and then he was dumb.

”For as the fairy waved her wand over him, he felt himself rising off the ground, and fluttering up against the door, and then, as if a screw ran into his stomach, he felt a dreadful pain there, and was pinned to the door; and then his arms flew up over his head; and his legs, after writhing about wildly, twisted under his body; and he felt cold, cold, growing over him, as if he was turning into metal; and he said, 'O-o-H'm!' and could say no more, because he was dumb.

”He was turned into metal! He was from being brazen, bra.s.s! He was neither more nor less than a knocker! An there he was, nailed to the door in the blazing summer day, till he burned almost red-hot; and there he was, nailed to the door all the bitter winter nights, till his bra.s.s nose was dropping with icicles. And the postman came and rapped at him, and the vulgarist boy with a letter came and hit him up against the door.

And the King and Queen coming home from a walk that evening, the King said, 'Hallo, my dear! you have had a new knocker put on the door. Why, it's rather like our porter in the face. What has become of that old vagabond?' And the housemaid came and scrubbed his nose with sand-paper; and once when the Princess Angelica's little sister was born, he was tied up in an old kid glove; and another night, some larking young men tried to wrench him off, and put him to the most excruciating agony with a turnscrew. And then the queen had a fancy to have the colour of the door altered, and the painters dabbed him over the mouth and eyes, and nearly choked him, as they painted him pea-green. I warrant he had leisure to repent of having been rude to the Fairy Blackstick.”

As the years went on, Thackeray became ever more and more famous, his company more and more sought after. ”The kind, tall, amusing, grey-haired man”* was welcome in many a drawing-room.

Yet with all his success he never forgot his little girls. They were his fast friends and companions, and very often they wrote while he dictated his story to them. He worked with a lazy kind of diligence. He could not, like Scott, sit down and write a certain number of pages every morning. He was by nature indolent, yet he got through a great deal of work.

*Lord Houghton.

Death found him still working steadily. He had not been feeling well, and one evening he went to bed early. Next morning, Christmas Eve of 1863, he was found dead in bed.

Deep and widespread was the grief of Thackeray's death. The news ”saddened England's Christmas.” His friends mourned not only the loss of a great writer but ”the cheerful companions.h.i.+p, the large heart, and open hand, the simple courteousness, and the endearing frankness of a brave, true, honest gentleman.”*

*In Punch.

Although he was buried in a private cemetery, a bust was almost at once placed in Westminster by his sorrowing friends.

The following verses were written by the editor of Punch* in his memory:--

*s.h.i.+rley Brooks.

”He was a cynic! By his life all wrought Of generous acts, mild words, and gentle ways; His heart wide open to all kindly thought, His hand so great to give, his tongue to praise.

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