In that fragrant bunch of _Theodore Roosevelt’s Letters to His Children_
which has just brightened and sweetened our too sadly strenuous times
there are some passages on novel-reading which are full of spirited good
sense. He says that he can read _Pendennis_, and _The Newcomes_, and
_Vanity Fair_ over and over again; he agrees with his boy in preferring
Thackeray to Dickens, and then he gives the reason—or at least _a_
reason—for this preference:
“Of course one fundamental difference ... is that Thackeray was a
gentleman and Dickens was not.”
The damnatory clause in this sentence seems to me too absolute, though
Roosevelt softens it by adding, “but a man might do some mighty good work
without being in any sense a gentleman.” That is certainly true, and
beyond a doubt Dickens did it—a wonderful plenty of it. It is also true
that in several perfectly good senses he was a brave and kind gentleman,
despite his faults in manners and dress.
But it is the laudatory clause in Roosevelt’s judgment that interests me.
Thackeray’s work is pervaded with his personality to an unusual degree.
It is a saturated solution of the man. We can taste him in every page.
And it is because we like the taste, because we find something strong
and true, bracing and stimulant in it, that we love to read him. ’Tis
like being with a gentleman in any enterprise or adventure; it gives us
pleasure and does us unconscious good.