The great master of English prose has left us suddenly, but to himself
not unexpectedly. In the maturity of his powers, with his enduring
position in literature fairly won and recognized, with the provision
which spurred him to constant work secured to those he loved, his death
saddens us rather through the sense of our own loss than from the tragic
regret which is associated with an unaccomplished destiny. More
fortunate than Fielding, he was allowed to take the measure of his
permanent fame. The niche wherein he shall henceforth stand was
chiselled while he lived. One by one the doubters confessed their
reluctant faith, unfriendly critics dropped their blunted steel, and no
man dared to deny him the place which was his, and his only, by right of
genius.
In one sense, however, he was misunderstood by the world, and he has
died before that profounder recognition which he craved had time to
mature. All the breadth and certainty of his fame failed to compensate
him for the lack of this: the man's heart coveted that justice which was
accorded only to the author's brain. Other pens may sum up the literary
record he has left behind: I claim the right of a friend who knew and
loved him to speak of him as a man. The testimony, which, while living,
he was too proud to have desired, may now be laid reverently upon his
grave.
There is a delicacy to be observed in describing one's intercourse with
a departed great man, since death does not wholly remove that privacy
which it is our duty to respect in life. Yet the veil which we
charitably drop upon weakness or dishonor may surely be lifted to
disclose the opposite qualities. I shall repeat no word of Thackeray's
which he would have wished unsaid or suppressed: I shall say no more
than he would himself have said of a contemporary to whom the world had
not done full justice. During a friendship of nearly seven years, he
permitted me to see that one true side of an author's nature which is
never so far revealed to the public that the malignant may avail
themselves of his candor to assail or the fools to annoy him. He is now
beyond the reach of malice, obtrusive sentiment, or vain curiosity; and
the "late remorse of love," which a better knowledge of the man may here
and there provoke, can atone for past wrong only by that considerate,
tender judgment of the living of which he was an example.
I made Thackeray's acquaintance in New York towards the close of the
year 1855. With the first grasp of his broad hand, and the first look of
his large, serious gray eyes, I received an impression of the essential
manliness of his nature,--of his honesty, his proud, almost defiant
candor, his ever-present, yet shrinking tenderness, and that sadness of
the moral sentiment which the world persisted in regarding as cynicism.
This impression deepened with my further acquaintance, and was never
modified. Although he belonged to the sensitive, irritable genus, his
only manifestations of impatience which I remember were when that which
he had written with a sigh was interpreted as a sneer. When so
misunderstood, he scorned to set himself right. "I have no brain above
the eyes," he was accustomed to say; "I describe what I see." He was
quick and unerring in detecting the weaknesses of his friends, and spoke
of them with a tone of disappointment sometimes bordering on
exasperation; but he was equally severe upon his own shortcomings. He
allowed no friend to think him better than his own deliberate estimate
made him. I have never known a man whose nature was so immovably based
on truth.
In a conversation upon the United States, shortly after we first met, he
said,--
"There is one thing in this country which astonishes me. You have a
capacity for culture which contradicts all my experience. There are
----" (mentioning two or three names well known in New York) "who I know
have arisen from nothing, yet they are fit for any society in the world.
They would be just as self-possessed and entertaining in the presence of
stars and garters as they are here to-night. Now, in England, a man who
has made his way up, as they have, doesn't seem able to feel his social
dignity. A little bit of the flunky sticks in him somewhere. I am,
perhaps, as independent in this respect as any one I know, yet I'm not
entirely sure of myself."
"Do you remember," I asked him, "what Goethe says of the boys in Venice?
He explains their cleverness, grace, and self-possession as children by
the possibility of any one of them becoming Doge."
"That may be the secret, after all," said Thackeray. "There is no
country like yours for a young man who is obliged to work for his own
place and fortune. If I had sons, I should send them here."
Afterwards, in London, I visited with him the studio of Baron
Marochetti, the sculptor, who was then his next-door neighbor in Onslow
Square, Brompton. The Baron, it appeared, had promised him an original
wood-cut of Albert Dürer's, for whom Thackeray had a special admiration.
Soon after our entrance, the sculptor took down a small engraving from
the wall, saying,--
"Now you have it, at last."
The subject was St. George and the Dragon.
Thackeray inspected it with great delight for a few minutes: then,
suddenly becoming grave, he turned to me and said,--
"I shall hang it near the head of my bed, where I can see it every
morning. We all have our dragons to fight. Do you know yours? I know
mine: I have not one, but two."
"What are they?" I asked.
"Indolence and Luxury!"
I could not help smiling, as I thought of the prodigious amount of
literary labor he had performed, and at the same time remembered the
simple comfort of his dwelling, next door.
"I am serious," he continued; "I never take up the pen without an
effort; I work only from necessity. I never walk out without seeing some
pretty, useless thing which I want to buy. Sometimes I pass the same
shop-window every day for months, and resist the temptation, and think
I'm safe; then comes the day of weakness, and I yield. My physician
tells me I must live very simply, and not dine out so much; but I cannot
break off the agreeable habit. I shall look at this picture and think of
my dragons, though I don't expect ever to overcome them."
After his four lectures on the Georges had been delivered in New York, a
storm of angry abuse was let loose upon him in Canada and the other
British Provinces. The British-Americans, snubbed both by Government and
society when they go to England, repay the slight, like true Christians,
by a rampant loyalty unknown in the mother-country. Many of their
newspapers accused Thackeray of pandering to the prejudices of the
American public, affirming that he would not dare to repeat the same
lectures in England, after his return. Of course, the papers containing
the articles, duly marked to attract attention, were sent to him. He
merely remarked, as he threw them contemptuously aside,--"These fellows
will see that I shall not only repeat the lectures at home, but I shall
make them more severe, just because the auditors will be Englishmen." He
was true to his promise. The lecture on George IV. excited, not, indeed,
the same amount of newspaper-abuse as he had received from Canada, but a
very angry feeling in the English aristocracy, some members of which
attempted to punish him by a social ostracism. When I visited him in
London, in July, 1856, he related this to me, with great good-humor.
"There, for instance," said he, "is Lord ----" (a prominent English
statesman) "who has dropped me from his dinner-parties for three months
past. Well, he will find that I can do without his society better than
he can do without mine." A few days afterwards Lord ---- resumed his
invitations.
About the same time I witnessed an amusing interview, which explained to
me the great personal respect in which Thackeray was held by the
aristocratic class. He never hesitated to mention and comment upon the
censure aimed against him in the presence of him who had uttered it. His
fearless frankness must have seemed phenomenal. In the present instance,
Lord ----, who had dabbled in literature, and held a position at Court,
had expressed himself (I forget whether orally or in print) very
energetically against Thackeray's picture of George IV. We had occasion
to enter the shop of a fashionable tailor, and there found Lord ----.
Thackeray immediately stepped up to him, bent his strong frame over the
disconcerted champion of the Royal George, and said, in his full, clear,
mellow voice,--"I know what you have said. Of course, you are quite
right, and I am wrong. I only regret that I did not think of consulting
you before my lecture was written." The person addressed evidently did
not know whether to take this for irony or truth: he stammered out an
incoherent reply, and seemed greatly relieved when the giant turned to
leave the shop.
At other times, however, he was kind and considerate. Reaching London
one day in June, 1857, I found him at home, grave and sad, having that
moment returned from the funeral of Douglas Jerrold. He spoke of the
periodical attacks by which his own life was threatened, and repeated
what he had often said to me before,--"I shall go some day,--perhaps in
a year or two. I am an old man already." He proposed visiting a lady
whom we both knew, but whom he had not seen for some time. The lady
reminded him of this fact, and expressed her dissatisfaction at some
length. He heard her in silence, and then, taking hold of the crape on
his left arm, said, in a grave, quiet voice,--"I must remove this,--I
have just come from poor Jerrold's grave."
Although, from his experience of life, he was completely
_désillusionné_, the well of natural tenderness was never dried in his
heart. He rejoiced, with a fresh, boyish delight, in every evidence of
an unspoiled nature in others,--in every utterance which denoted what
may have seemed to him over-faith in the good. The more he was saddened
by his knowledge of human weakness and folly, the more gratefully he
welcomed strength, virtue, sincerity. His eyes never unlearned the habit
of that quick moisture which honors the true word and the noble deed.
His mind was always occupied with some scheme of quiet benevolence. Both
in America and in England, I have known him to plan ways by which he
could give pecuniary assistance to some needy acquaintance or countryman
without wounding his sensitive pride. He made many attempts to procure a
good situation in New York for a well-known English author, who was at
that time in straitened circumstances. The latter, probably, never knew
of this effort to help him. In November, 1857, when the financial crisis
in America was at its height, I happened to say to him, playfully, that
I hoped my remittances would not be stopped. He instantly picked up a
note-book, ran over the leaves, and said to me, "I find I have three
hundred pounds at my banker's. Take the money now, if you are in want of
it; or shall I keep it for you, in case you may need it?" Fortunately, I
had no occasion to avail myself of his generous offer; but I shall never
forget the impulsive, open-hearted kindness with which it was made.
I have had personal experience of Thackeray's sense of justice, as well
as his generosity. And here let me say that he was that rarest of men, a
cosmopolitan Englishman,--loving his own land with a sturdy, enduring
love, yet blind neither to its faults nor to the virtues of other lands.
In fact, for the very reason that he was unsparing in dealing with his
countrymen, he considered himself justified in freely criticizing other
nations. Yet he never joined in the popular depreciation of everything
American: his principal reason for not writing a book, as every other
English author does who visits us, was that it would be superficial, and
might be unjust. I have seen him, in America, indignantly resent an
ill-natured sneer at "John Bull,"--and, on the other hand, I have known
him to take _our_ part, at home. Shortly after Emerson's "English
Traits" appeared, I was one of a dinner-party at his house, and the book
was the principal topic of conversation. A member of Parliament took the
opportunity of expressing his views to the only American present.
"What does Emerson know of England?" he asked. "He spends a few weeks
here, and thinks he understands us. His work is false and prejudiced and
shallow."
Thackeray happening to pass at the moment, the member arrested him
with--
"What do _you_ think of the book, Mr. Thackeray?"
"I don't agree with Emerson."
"I was sure you would not!" the member triumphantly exclaimed; "I was
sure you would think as I do."
"I think," said Thackeray, quietly, "that he is altogether too
laudatory. He admires our best qualities so greatly that he does not
scourge us for our faults as we deserve."
Towards the end of May, 1861, I saw Thackeray again in London. During
our first interview, we talked of little but the war, which had then but
just begun. His chief feeling on the subject was a profound regret, not
only for the nation itself, whose fate seemed thus to be placed in
jeopardy, but also, he said, because he had many dear friends, both
North and South, who must now fight as enemies. I soon found that his
ideas concerning the cause of the war were as incorrect as were those of
most Englishmen at that time. He understood neither the real nature nor
the extent of the conspiracy, supposing that Free Trade was the chief
object of the South, and that the right of Secession was tacitly
admitted by the Constitution. I thereupon endeavored to place
the facts of the case before him in their true light, saying, in
conclusion,--"Even if you should not believe this statement, you must
admit, that, if _we_ believe it, we are justified in suppressing the
Rebellion by force."
He said,--"Come, all this is exceedingly interesting. It is quite new to
me, and I am sure it will be new to most of us. Take your pen and make
an article out of what you have told me, and I will put it into the next
number of the 'Cornhill Magazine.' It is just what we want."
I had made preparations to leave London for the Continent on the
following day, but he was so urgent that I should stay two days longer
and write the article that I finally consented to do so. I was the more
desirous of complying, since Mr. Clay's ill-advised letter to the London
"Times" had recently been published, and was accepted by Englishmen as
the substance of all that could be said on the side of the Union.
Thackeray appeared sincerely gratified by my compliance with his wishes,
and immediately sent for a cab, saying,--"Now we will go down to the
publishers, and have the matter settled at once. I am bound to consult
them, but I am sure they will see the advantage of such an article."
We found the managing publisher in his office. He looked upon the
matter, however, in a very different light. He admitted the interest
which a statement of the character, growth, and extent of the Southern
Conspiracy would possess for the readers of the "Cornhill," but objected
to its publication, on the ground that it would call forth a
counter-statement, which he could not justly exclude, and thus introduce
a political controversy into the magazine. I insisted that my object was
not to take notice of any statements published in England up to that
time, but to represent the crisis as it was understood in the Loyal
States and by the National Government; that I should do this simply to
explain and justify the action of the latter; and that, having once
placed the loyal view of the subject fairly before the English people, I
should decline any controversy. The events of the war, I added, would
soon draw the public attention away from its origin, and the "Cornhill,"
before the close of the struggle, would probably be obliged to admit
articles of a more strongly partisan character than that which I
proposed to write. The publisher, nevertheless, was firm in his refusal,
not less to Thackeray's disappointment than my own. He decided upon what
then seemed to him to be good business-reasons; and the same
consideration, doubtless, has since led him to accept statements
favorable to the side of the Rebellion.