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THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE (1811-1863)
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See also:THACKERAY, See also: In " Mr and Mrs See also:Frank See also:Berry " (Men's Wives) there is a description of a fight at Slaughter House following on an incident almost identical with that used in Vanity See also:Fair for the fight between Dobbin and See also:Cuff. In both cases the brutality of school life, as it then was, is very fully recognized and described, but not to the exclusion of the See also:chivalry which may go alongside with it. In the first See also:chapter of " Mr and Mrs, Frank Berry," Berry himself and old See also:Hawkins both have a See also:touch of the heroic, and in this See also:story the See also:bully whom Berry gallantly challenges is completely defeated, and one hears no more of him. In Vanity Fair Cuff the swaggerer is defeated as completely as is Berry's opponent, but regains his popularity by one well-timed stroke of magnanimity, and afterwards shows the truest kindness to his conqueror. Thackeray left See also:Charter-house in 1828 to join his mother and her See also:husband at Larkbeare in See also:Devonshire, near Ottery St See also:Mary. Ottery St Mary is the" Clavering St Mary," as See also:Exeter and See also:Sidmouth are respectively the " See also:Chatteris " and " Baymouth " of Pendennis.
In See also:February 1829 Thackeray went to Trinity See also:College, See also:Cam-See also:bridge, and in that See also:year contributed some engaging lines on " Timbuctoo," the subject for the See also:Prize Poem (the prize for which was won in that year by See also:Tennyson), to a little See also:paper called The Snob, a See also:title which Thackeray afterwards utilized in the famous Book of Snobs. The first See also:stanza has become tolerably well known, but is See also:worth quoting as an See also:early instance of the See also:direct comic force afterwards employed by the author in See also:verse and See also:prose burlesques:
" In See also:Africa—a See also:quarter of the See also:world
Men's skins are See also:black; their See also:hair is crisp and curled; And somewhere there, unknown to public view, A mighty See also:city lies, called Timbuctoo."
One other passage at least in The Snob, in the See also:form of a skit on a See also:paragraph of fashionable intelligence, seems to See also:bear traces of Thackeray's handiwork. At See also:Cambridge, See also: His visit to Weimar See also:bore See also:fruit in the keen sketches of life at a small See also:German See also:court which appear in Fitz-Boodle's Confessions and in Vanity Fair. In G. H. See also:Lewes's Life of See also:Goethe is a letter containing Thackeray's impressions of the German poet. On his return to England in 1831 he entered the See also:Middle See also:Temple. He did not care to pursue the study of the See also:law, but he found in his experience of the Temple the material for some See also:capital scenes in Pendennis. In 1832 he came of See also:age, and inherited a sum which, according to Trollope, " seems to have amounted to about five See also:hundred a year." The See also:money was soon lost—some in an Indian See also:bank, some at See also:play and some in two See also:newspapers, The See also:National See also:Standard (with a See also:long sub-title) and The Constitutional. In Lovel the Widower these two papers are indicated under one name as The Museum, in connexion with which our friends Honeyman and Sherrick of The Newcomes are briefly brought in. Thackeray's adventures and losses at play were utilized in his See also:literary See also:work on three occasions, in " A Caution to Travellers " (The Paris See also:Sketch-Book), in the first of the Deuceace narrations (The See also:Memoirs of Mr C. J. Yellowplush), and in Pendennis, vol. ii. See also:chap. v., in a story (wherein Deuceace reappears) told to See also:Captain Strong by " Colonel Altamont." As to Deuceace, See also:Sir See also:Theodore See also: His See also:gift proved of See also:great value to him in illustrating much of his own literary work in a See also:fashion which, despite all incorrectness of draughtsmanship, conveyed vivid suggestions that could not have been so well given by anyone but himself. Perhaps his See also:pencil was at its best technically in such fantastic work as is found constantly in the initial letters which he frequently used for chapters in his various kinds of work, and in those drawings made for the amusement of some child friends which were the origin of The See also:Rose and the See also:Ring. In 1836' Thackeray married See also:Isabella, daughter of Colonel See also:Matthew Shawe. There were three daughters born of the See also:marriage, one dying in See also:infancy. The eldest daughter, Anne Isabella (b. 1837), married in 1877 Mr Richmond See also:Ritchie, of the India See also:Office, who in 1907 was created a K.C.B. She inherited literary talent from her father and wrote several charming See also:works of fiction, notably See also:Miss See also:Angel (1875), and subsequently edited Thackeray's works and published some volumes of See also:criticism and reminiscences. The younger daughter, Harriet Marian (b. 1840), married (Sir) See also:Leslie See also:Stephen in 1867 and died in 1875. Thackeray's own See also:family life was early broken, for Mrs Thackeray, to quote Trollope, " became See also:ill and her mind failed her," in 1840, and he " became as it were a widower to the end of his days "; Mrs Thackeray did not See also:die till 1892. In 1837 Thackeray came to See also:London, worked at various kinds of journalism, and became a See also:regular contributor to See also:Fraser's See also:Magazine. In this in 1841 appeared The See also:History of Mr See also:Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty See also:Diamond, a work filled with instances of the wit, See also:humour, See also:satire, pathos, which found a more ordered if not a fresher expression in his later and longer works. For freshness, indeed, and for a See also:fine See also:perception which enables the author to perform among other feats that of keeping up throughout the story the curious simplicity of its supposed narrator's See also:character, The Great Hoggarty Diamond can scarcely be surpassed. The characters, from See also:Lady See also:Drum, Lady Fanny Rakes, Lady Jane and See also:Edmund See also:Preston, to See also:Brough, Mrs and Miss Brough, Mrs Roundhand, Gus See also:Hoskins, and, by no means least, Samuel Titmarsh's aunt, Mrs Hoggarty, with her See also:store of " Rosolio," are full of life; the book is crammed with honest fun; and for pure pathos, the See also:death of the child, and the See also:meeting of the husband and wife over the empty See also:cradle, stands, if not alone in its own See also:line, at least in the See also:company of very few such scenes in English fiction. The Great Hoggarty Diamond, oddly enough, met with the See also:fate that afterwards befell one of See also:Lever's best stories which appeared in a periodical See also:week by week—it had to be cut See also:short at the bidding of the editor. In 1840 came out The Paris Sketch-Book, much of which had been written and published at an earlier date. The book contains among other things some curious divagations in criticism, along with some really fine See also:critical work, and a very powerful sketch called " A Gambler's Death." In 1838 Thackeray had begun, in Fraser, The Yellow See also:plush Papers, with their See also:strange touches of humour, satire, tragedy (in one See also:scene, the closing one of the history of Mr Deuceace), and their sublimation of fantastic See also:bad spelling (M`Arony for See also:macaroni is one of the typical touches of this) ; and this was followed by See also:Catherine, a strong story, and too disagreeable perhaps for its purpose, founded closely on the actual career of a criminal named Catherine See also:Hayes, and intended to counteract the then growing practice of making ruffians and harlots prominent characters in fiction. Now, when Pendennis was coming out in serial form (1850), Miss Catherine Hayes, a See also:singer of Irish birth and a famous prima donna (See also:Sims See also:Reeves described her as " the sweetest See also:Lucia [di Lammermoor] he had ever sung with ") was much before the public. A reflective passage in a number of Pendennis referred indignantly and scornfully to Catherine Hayes, the criminal of old time, coupling her name with that of a then recently notorious murderer. It would appear that Thackeray had for the moment, oddly enough, omitted to think of Miss Catherine Hayes, the justly famed See also:soprano, while certain Irish folk were obviously ignorant or oblivious of the history of Catherine I-Iayes the murderess. Anyhow, there was a great outcry in the Irish See also:press, and Thackeray was beset by private letters of indignation from enthusiastic compatriots of the prima donna. In deference to susceptibilities innocently outraged Thackeray afterwards suppressed the passage which had given offence. The thing is worth mention if only because it explains the initial letter See also:drawn by Thackeray for chap. xv., vol. ii., of Pendennis. The See also:drawing is in itself highly comic, but must seem quite meaning-less without the See also: There soon followed Fitz-Boodle's Confessions and Professions, including the series Men's Wives, already mentioned; and slightly before these, the Shabby Genteel Story, a work interrupted by Thackeray's domestic affliction and afterwards re-published as an introduction to The Adventures of See also: To this See also:charge he had partly given an anticipatory See also:answer (in the third chapter) in the statement that " it is impossible, in our See also:condition of society, not to be sometimes a Snob," and in giving the name of " Mr Snob " to the supposed historian of snobs throughout the series. Thackeray's connexion with Punch came practically to an end in 1851. The severance was due partly to See also:differences in See also:political See also:opinion. His See also:personal relations with the See also:staff of Punch always remained cordial. See also:Special mention may be made of one other contribution of his to the paper, " Punch's Prize Novelists," containing some brilliant parodies of Edward See also:Lytton Bulwer, Lever, See also:Benjamin Disraeli (in " Codlingsby," perhaps the most perfect of the series), and others. Among See also:minor but admirable works of the same See also:period are found A See also:Legend of the See also:Rhine (a See also:burlesque of the great See also:Dumas's Othon l'See also:Archer), brought out in George See also:Cruikshank's Table Book, edited by See also: "Occasionally to step down from the See also:platform, and talk about them; if they are good and kindly, to love and shake them by the See also:hand; if they are See also:silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's See also:sleeve; if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms politeness admits of. Otherwise you might See also:fancy it was I who was sneering at the practice of devotion, which 718 Miss See also:Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was ! who laughed goodhurnouredly at the railing old See also:Silenus of a See also:baronet—whereas the See also:laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for prosperity, and no See also:eye for anything beyond success. Such See also:people there are living and flourishing in the world—Faithless, Hopeless, Charityless: let us have at them, dear friends, with might and See also:main. Some there are, and very successful too, See also:mere quacks and See also:fools; and it was to combat and expose such as those, no doubt, that laughter was made." As to another See also:accusation which was brought against the book when it first came out, that the See also:colours were laid on too thick, in the sense that the villains were too villainous, the good people too goody-goody, the best and completest answer to that can be found by anyone who chooses to read the work with care. See also:Osborne is, and is meant to be, a poor enough creature, but he is an eminently human being, and one whose poorness of character is See also:developed as he allows bad influences to tell upon his vanity and folly. The good in him is fully recognized, and comes out in the beautiful passage describing his farewell to Amelia on the See also:eve of See also:Waterloo, in which passage may be also found a sufficient enough answer to the statement that Amelia is absolutely insipid and uninteresting. So with the See also:companion picture of Rawdon Crawley's farewell to Becky Sharp: who that reads it can resist sympathy, in spite of Rawdon's vices and shady shifts for a living, with his See also:simple bravery and devotion to his wife? As for Becky, a character that has since been imitated a See also:host of times, there is certainly not much to be said in her See also:defence. We know of her, to be sure, that she thought she would have found it easy to be good if she had been See also:rich, and we know also what happened when Rawdon, released without her knowledge from a spunginghouse, surprised her alone with and singing to Lord Steyne in the house in Mayfair. After a See also:gross insult from Steyne, " Rawdon Crawley, springing out, seized him by the neckcloth, until Steyne, almost strangled, writhed and See also:bent under his See also:arm. ` You See also:lie, you See also:dog,' said Rawdon ; ` you lie, you See also:coward and villain!' And he struck the peer twice over the See also:face with his open hand, and flung him bleeding to the ground. It was all done before Rebecca could interpose. She stood there trembling before him. She admired her' husband, strong, brave, and victorious." This admiration is, as Thackeray himself thought it, the capital touch in a scene which is as powerful as any Thackeray ever wrote—as powerful, indeed, as any in English fiction. Its full merit, it may be noted in passing, has been curiously accented by an See also:imitation of it in See also:Alphonse See also:Daudet's Fromont Jeune et Risler Airte. As to the extent of the miserable Becky's See also:guilt in the Steyne matter, Thackeray leaves it practically open to the reader to form what conclusion he will. There is, it should be added, a distinct touch of good in Becky's conduct to Amelia at See also:Ostend in the last chapter of the book, and those who think that too little See also:punishment is meted out to the brilliant adventuress in the end may remember this to her See also:credit. It is supreme art in the treatment of her character that makes the reader understand and feel her attractiveness, though he knows her extraordinarily evil qualities; and in this no writer subsequent to Thackeray who has tried to depict one of the genus Becky Sharp has even faintly succeeded. Among the minor characters there is not one—and this is not always the See also:case even with Thackeray's See also:chief figures—who is incompletely or inconsistently depicted; and no one who wishes fully to understand and appreciate the book can afford to miss a word of it. Vanity Fair was followed by Pendennis, Esmond and The eweornes, which appeared respectively in 185o, 1852 and 1854. It might be more easy to pick holes critically in Pendennis than in Vanity Fair. Pendennis himself, after his boyish See also:passion and university escapades, has disagreeable touches of flabbiness and worldliness; and the important See also:episode of his relations with Fanny See also:Bolton, which Thackeray could never have treated otherwise than delicately, is so lightly and tersely handled that it is a little vague even to those who read between the lines. It can hardly be said that there is adequate preparation for the final announcement that those relations have been See also:innocent,and one can hardly see why it should have been so long delayed. This does not, of course, affect the value of the book as a picture of middle- and upper-class life of the time, the time when See also:Vauxhall still existed, and the haunt for suppers and songs which Thackeray in this book called the Back See also:Kitchen, and it is a picture filled with striking figures. In some of these, notably in that of Foker, Thackeray went, it is supposed, very See also:close to actual life for his material, and in that particular case with a most agreeable result. As for the two " umbrae " of Lord Steyne, it is difficult to believe that they were intended as caricatures of two well-known persons. If they were, for once Thackeray's hand forgot its cunning. Here, as in the case of Amelia See also:Sedley (Vanity Fair), the heroine has been thought a little insipid; and there may be good ground for finding Laura Pendennis dull, though she has a spirit of her own. In later books she becomes, what Thackeray's people very seldom are, a tiresome as well as an uninviting See also:person. Costigan is unique, and so is Major Pendennis, a type which, allowing for differences of periods and See also:manners, will exist as long as society exists, and which has been seized and depicted by Thackeray as by no other novelist. The Major's two encounters, from both of which he comes out victorious, one with Costigan in the first, the other with See also:Morgan in the second See also:volume, are true touches of See also:genius. In opposition to the worldliness of the Major, with which Pendennis does not See also:escape being tainted, we have See also:Warrington, whose See also:nobility of nature has come unscathed through a severe trial, and who, a thorough See also:gentleman if a rough one, is really the See also:guardian of Pendennis's career. There is, it should be noted, a characteristic and acknowledged confusion in the See also:plot of Pendennis, which will not spoil any intelligent reader's See also:pleasure. Probably most readers of The Newcomes (1854) to whom the book is mentioned think first of the fine, chivalrous and simple figure of Colonel Newcome, who stands out in the See also:relief of almost ideal beauty of character against the See also:crowd of more or less imperfect and more or less See also:base personages who move through the novel. At the same time, to say, as has been said, that this book " is full of satire from the first to the last See also:page " is to convey an impression which is by no means just. There is plenty of kindliness in the treatment of the young men who, like Clive Newcome himself and Lord See also:Kew, possess no very shining virtue beyond that of being See also:honourable gentlemen; in the character of J. J. See also:Ridley there is much tenderness and pathos, and no one can help liking the Bohemian " F. B.," and looking tolerantly on his failings. It may be that there is too close an insistence on the fiendish See also:temper of Mrs See also:Mackenzie and on the sufferings she inflicts on the colonel; but it must be remembered that this heightens the singular pathos of the closing- scenes of the colonel's life. It has seemed convenient to take The Newcomes after Pendennis, because Pendennis and his wife reappear in this book as in The Adventures of Philip; but Esmond (1852) was written and published before The Newcomes. To some students Esmond seems and will seem Thackeray's capital work. It has not been rivalled as a romance reproducing with unfailing See also:interest and accuracy the figures, manners and phrases of a past time, and it is full of beautiful touches of character. But Beatrix, upon whom so much hinges, is an unpleasing character, although one understands fully why men were captivated by her insolent beauty and brilliancy; and there is some truth in Thackeray's own saying, that " Esmond was a prig." Apart from this, the story is, like the illusion of a past time in the narrative, so See also:complete in all its details, so harmoniously worked out, that there is little See also:room for criticism. As to Esmond's marriage with the lady whom he has served and loved as a boy, that is a matter for individual See also:judgment. Beatrix, it has been indicated above, is wonderfully drawn: and not the least wonderful thing about her is her reappearance as the jaded, battered, worldly, not altogether unkindly, Baroness in The Virginians. It was just what Beatrix must have come to, and her decline is handled with the lightest and finest touch. In 1851 Thackeray had written The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century, delivered as a series of lectures at See also:Willis's Rooms in the same year, and re-delivered in the See also:United States in 1852 and 18J3, as was afterwards the series called The Four Georges. Both sets were written for the purpose of lecturing. In 18J4 was published a most delightful burlesque, The Rose and the Ring, whereof the origin has already been mentioned. In 18J7 Thackeray stood unsuccessfully as a See also:parliamentary See also:candidate for See also:Oxford against Mr See also:Cardwell, and in the same year appeared the first number of The Virginians, a sequel to Esmond. This is a most unequal work—inferior, as sequels are apt to be, to Esmond as an See also:historical romance, less compact and coherent, prone to divagation and desultoriness, yet charming enough in its lifelikeness, in tie wit and See also:wisdom of its re-flexions, and, as has been said, in its portrait of Beatrix grown old. The last number of The Virginians came out in 1859, and in the same year Thackeray undertook the editorship of the Cornhill Magazine. This was a task which, as readers of his Roundabout Paper " Thorns in the See also:Cushion " will remember, the kindliness and sensitiveness of his disposition made irksome to him, and he resigned the editorship in See also:April 1862, though he continued to write for the magazine until he died. In the Cornhill appeared from his See also:pen Level the Widower, previously written, with different names for some of the personages, in dramatic form; The Adventures of Philip (1861–62); the Roundabout Papers; and (1860–63) the story, unhappily never finished, called See also:Denis See also:Duval. Lovel the Widower, changed from the dramatic to the narrative form, remains a piece of high comedy in which the characters are indicated rather than fully worked out, with a bold and practised touch. The See also:Round-about Papers, a small storehouse of some of Thackeray's best qualities as an essayist, came out in the Cornhill Magazine simultaneously with Lovel the Widower and with The Adventures of Philip. Among these papers is one differing in form from the See also:rest, called " The Notch on the See also:Axe—a Story A. la Mode." It is an almost perfect specimen of the author's genius for burlesque story-telling; but it contains an See also:odd instance, which a careful reader will not fail to discover, of that odd See also:habit of inaccuracy of which Thackeray himself was conscious. The Adventures of Philip is, as has been before said, in the nature of a sequel to or a completion of A Shabby Genteel Story. As with the other direct sequel, it is a work of great inequality. It contains scenes of humour, pathos, satire, which rank with Thackeray's best work; some old friends from others of the novels make brief but pleasant reappearances in its pages; there are fine sketches of journalistic, See also:artistic and See also:diplomatic life, and the scene from the last-named in Paris is inimitable. The Little See also:Sister is altogether delightful; the See also:Twysden family are terribly true and vastly diverting; the minor characters, among whom old Ridley, " J. J.'s " father, should be mentioned, are wonder-fully hit off; nor did Thackeray ever write a better scene ,than that of the See also:quarrel between Bunch, See also:Baynes and M'Whirter in the Paris See also:pension. Philip himself is impossible; one cannot say that the character is ill-drawn—it is not drawn at all. It is an entirely different personage in different chapters; and it has here and there a very unpleasant touch which may perhaps have come of rapid See also:writing. Yet so admirable are many parts of the book that Philip cannot be left out of the See also:list of Thackeray's most considerable works. Denis Duval, which reached only three numbers, promised to be a first-See also:rate work, more or less in the Esmond manner. The author died while it was in progress, on the See also:day before See also:Christmas day 1863. He was buried in Kensal See also:Green, and a bust by See also:Marochetti was put tip to his memory in See also:Westminster See also:Abbey. Little has yet been said of Thackeray's performances in See also:poetry. They formed a small but not the least significant See also:part of his life's work. The See also:grace and the apparent spontaneity of his versification are beyond question. Some of the more serious efforts, such as " The See also:Chronicle of the Drum " (1841); are full of power, and See also:instinct with true poetic feeling. Both the See also:half-humorous, half-pathetic See also:ballads and the wholly extravagant ones must be classed with the best work in that kind; and the See also:translations from See also:Beranger are as good as verse translations can be. Thackeray had the true poetic instinct, and proved719 it by writing poetry which equalled his prose in grace and feeling. There can be little doubt that Thackeray will always be ranked among the foremost English writers of fiction, or that his more infrequent work as essayist and poet will go hand in hand with his wider achievements as a novelist. Many attempts have been made at many times to See also:institute a comparison between Thackeray and See also:Dickens as novelists. In truth it would be as much to the purpose, to See also:borrow a homely See also:metaphor, to compare See also:chalk with See also:cheese. The two authors were so radically different in their purviews, in their modes of thought, in their methods of expression, that critical comparison between them is of its nature absolutely unprofitable. It is better to recognize simply that the two novelists stood, each in his own way, distinctly above even their most distinguished See also:con-temporaries. As to preference, that is a matter with which criticism has nothing, and individual inclination has every-thing, to do. The books of reference that can be best commended to the student of Thackeray's life and works are Mcrivale and Marzials' Life of Thackeray (1891); R. H. Shepherd, Bibliography of Thackeray (188o) ; C. P. 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