From this house in Young Street the author of "Vanity Fair" moved to
Number Thirty-six Onslow Square, where he wrote "The Virginians." On the
south side of the Square there is a row of three-storied brick houses.
Thackeray lived in one of these houses for nine years. They were the
years when honors and wealth were being heaped upon him; and he was
worldling enough to let his wants keep pace with his ability to gratify
them. He was made of the same sort of clay as other men, for his standard
of life conformed to his pocketbook and he always felt poor.
From this fine house on Onslow Square he moved to a veritable palace,
which he built to suit his own taste, at Number Two Palace Green,
Kensington. But mansions on earth are seldom for long--he died here on
Christmas Eve, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-three. And Charles Dickens, Mark
Lemon, Millais, Trollope, Robert Browning, Cruikshank, Tom Taylor, Louis
Blanc, Charles Mathews and Shirley Brooks were among the friends who
carried him to his rest.
* * * * *
To take one's self too seriously is a great mistake.
Complacency is the unpardonable sin, and the man who says, "Now I'm sure
of it," has at that moment lost it.
Villagers who have lived in one little place until they think themselves
great, having lost the sense of proportion through lack of comparison,
are generally "in dead earnest."
Surely they are often intellectually dead, and I do not dispute the fact
that they are in earnest. All those excellent gentlemen in the days gone
by who could not contemplate a celestial bliss that did not involve the
damnation of those who disagreed with them were in dead earnest.
Cotton Mather once saw a black cat perched on the shoulder of an
innocent, chattering old gran'ma. The next day a neighbor had a
convulsion; and Cotton Mather went forth and exorcised Tabby with a
hymn-book, and hanged gran'ma by the neck, high on Gallows Hill, until
she was dead.
Had the Reverend Mr. Mather possessed but a mere modicum of humor he
might have exorcised the cat, but I am sure he would never have troubled
old gran'ma. But alas, Cotton Mather's conversation was limited to yea,
yea, and nay, nay--generally, nay, nay--and he was in dead earnest.
In the Boston Public Library is a book written in Sixteen Hundred
Eighty-five by Cotton Mather, entitled, "Wonders of the Invisible
World." This book received the endorsement of the Governor of the
Province and also of the President of Harvard College. The author cites
many cases of persons who were bewitched; and also makes the interesting
statement that the Devil knows Greek, Latin and Hebrew, but speaks
English with an accent. These facts were long used at Harvard as an
argument in favor of the Classics. And when Greek was at last made
optional, the Devil was supposed to have filed a protest with the Dean of
the Faculty.
The Reverend Francis Gastrell, who razed New Place, and cut down the
poet's mulberry-tree to escape the importunities of visitors, was in dead
earnest. Attila, and Herod, and John Calvin were in dead earnest. And
were it not for the fact that Luther had lucid intervals when he went
about with his tongue in his cheek he surely would have worked grievous
wrong.
Recent discoveries in Egyptian archeology show that in his lifetime Moses
was esteemed more as a wit than as a lawmaker. His jokes were posted upon
the walls and explained to the populace, who it seems were a bit slow.
Job was a humorist of a high order, and when he said to the wise men, "No
doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you," he struck
twelve. When the sons of Jacob went down into Egypt and Joseph put up the
price of corn, took their money, and then secretly replaced the coin in
the sacks, he showed his artless love of a quiet joke.
Shakespeare's fools were the wisest and kindliest men at court. When the
master decked a character in cap and bells, it was as though he had given
bonds for the man's humanity. Touchstone followed his master into exile;
and when all seemed to have forsaken King Lear the fool bared himself to
the storm and covered the shaking old man with his own cloak. And if
Costard, Trinculo, Touchstone, Jaques and Mercutio had lived in Salem in
Sixteen Hundred Ninety-two, there would have been not only a flashing of
merry jests, but a flashing of rapiers as well, and every gray hair of
every old dame's head would have been safe so long as there was a striped
leg on which to stand.
Lincoln, liberator of men, loved the motley. In fact, the individual who
is incapable of viewing the world from a jocular basis is unsafe, and can
be trusted only when the opposition is strong enough to laugh him into
line.
In the realm of English letters, Thackeray is prince of humorists. He
could see right through a brick wall, and never mistook a hawk for a
hernshaw. He had a just estimate of values, and the temperament that can
laugh at all trivial misfits. And he had, too, that dread capacity for
pain which every true humorist possesses, for the true essence of humor
is sensibility.
In all literature that lives there is mingled like pollen an indefinable
element of the author's personality. In Thackeray's "Lectures on English
Humorists" this subtle quality is particularly apparent. Elusive,
delicate, alluring--it is the actinic ray that imparts vitality.
When wit plays skittles with dulness, dulness gets revenge by taking wit
at his word. Vast numbers of people taking Thackeray at his word consider
him a bitter pessimist.
He even disconcerted bright little Charlotte Bronte, who went down to
London to see him, and then wrote back to Haworth that "the great man
talked steadily with never a smile. I could not tell when to laugh and
when to cry, for I did not know what was fun and what fact."
But finally the author of "Jane Eyre" found the combination, and she saw
that beneath the brusk exterior of that bulky form there was a woman's
tender sympathy.
Thackeray has told us what he thought of the author of "Jane Eyre," and
the author of "Jane Eyre" has told us what she thought of the author of
"Vanity Fair." One was big and whimsical, the other was little and
sincere, but both were alike in this: their hearts were wrung at the
sight of suffering, and both had tears for the erring, the groping, and
the oppressed.
A Frenchman can not comprehend a joke that is not accompanied by grimace
and gesticulation; and so M. Taine chases Thackeray through sixty solid
pages, berating him for what he is pleased to term "bottled hate."
Taine is a cynic who charges Thackeray with cynicism, all in the choicest
of biting phrase. It is a beautiful example of sinners calling the
righteous to repentance--a thing that is often done, but seldom with
artistic finish.
The fun is too deep for Monsieur, or mayhap the brand is not the yellow
label to which his palate is accustomed, so he spews it all. Yet Taine's
criticism is charming reading, although he is only hot after an aniseed
trail of his own dragging. But the chase is a deal more exciting than
most men would lead, were there real live game to capture.
If pushed, I might suggest several points in this man's make-up where God
could have bettered His work. But accepting Thackeray as we find him, we
see a singer whose cage Fate had overhung with black until he had caught
the tune. The "Ballad of Boullabaisse" shows a tender side of his spirit
that he often sought to conceal. His heart vibrated to all finer thrills
of mercy; and his love for all created things was so delicately strung
that he would, in childish shame, sometimes issue a growl to drown its
rising, tearful tones.
In the character of Becky Sharp, he has marshaled some of his own weak
points and then lashed them with scorn. He looked into the mirror and
seeing a potential snob he straightway inveighed against snobbery. The
punishment does not always fit the crime--it is excess. But I still
contest that where his ridicule is most severe, it is Thackeray's own
back that is bared to the knout.
The primal recipe for roguery in art is, "Know Thyself." When a writer
portrays a villain and does it well--make no mistake, he poses for the
character himself. Said gentle Ralph Waldo Emerson, "I have capacity in
me for every crime."
The man of imagination knows those mystic spores of possibility that lie
dormant, and like the magicians of the East who grow mango-trees in an
hour, he develops the "inward potential" at will. The mere artisan in
letters goes forth and finds a villain and then describes him, but the
artist knows a better way: "I am that man."
One of the very sweetest, gentlest characters in literature is Colonel
Newcome. The stepfather of Thackeray, Major Carmichael Smyth, was made to
stand for the portrait of the lovable Colonel; and when that all-round
athlete, F. Hopkinson Smith, gave us that other lovable old Colonel he
paid high tribute to "The Newcomes."
Thackeray was a poet, and as such was often caught in the toils of
doubt--the crux of the inquiring spirit. He aspired for better things,
and at times his imperfections stood out before him in monstrous shape,
and he sought to hiss them down.
In the heart of the artist-poet there is an Inmost Self that sits over
against the acting, breathing man and passes judgment on his every deed.
To satisfy the world is little; to please the populace is naught; fame is
vapor; gold is dross; and every love that has not the sanction of that
Inmost Self is a viper's sting. To satisfy the demands of the God within
is the poet's prayer.
What doubts beset, what taunting fears surround, what crouching sorrows
lie in wait, what dead hopes drag, what hot desires pursue, and what
kindly lights do beckon on--ah! "'tis we musicians know."
Thackeray came to America to get a pot of money, and was in a fair way of
securing it, when he chanced to pick up a paper in which a steamer was
announced to sail that evening for England. A wave of homesickness swept
over the big boy--he could not stand it. He hastily packed up his effects
and without saying good-by to any one, and forgetting all his
engagements, he hastened to the dock, leaving this note for the kindest
of kind friends: "Good-by, Fields; good-by, Mrs. Fields--God bless
everybody, says W.M.T."