English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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*Hallam, Lord Tennyson, Life of Tennyson.

Although Carlyle was older than Tennyson by fourteen years, this
was the beginning of a friendship which strengthened with years
and lasted when they were both gray-haired men. They talked and
smoked and walked about together often at night through the lamp-
lit streets, sometimes in the wind, and rain, Carlyle crying out
as they walked along against the dirt and squalor and noise of
London, "that healthless, profitless, mad and heavy-laden place,"
"that Devil's Oven."

The years passed and Carlyle added book to book. Perhaps of them
all that which we should be most grateful for is his Life and
Letters of Cromwell. For in this book he set Cromwell in a new
light, a better light than he had ever been set before. Carlyle
is a hero worshiper, and in Cromwell as a hero he can find no
fault. He had of course his faults like other men, and he had no
need of such blind championship. For in his letters and
speeches, gathered together and given to the world by Carlyle, he
speaks for himself. In them we find one to whom we may look up
as a true hero, a man of strength to trust. We find, too, a man
of such broad kindliness, a man of such a tender human heart that
we may love him.

Another great book was Carlyle's History of Frederick the Great.
It is a marvelous piece of historical work, and as volume after
volume appeared Carlyle's fame steadily rose.

"No critic," says his first biographer, Froude, "no critic after
the completion of Frederick, challenged Carlyle's right to a
place beside the greatest of English authors, past and present."
He was a great historian, but in the history he gives us not dead
facts, but living, breathing men and women. His pages are as
full of color and of life as the pages of Shakespeare.

The old days of struggle and want were long over, but the
Carlyles still lived the simple life in the little Chelsea house.
As another writer* has quaintly put it, "Tom Carlyle lives in
perfect dignity in a little 40 pound house in Chelsea, with a
snuffy Scotch maid to open the door; and the best company in
England ringing at it."

*Thackeray.

Then in 1865 Carlyle was chosen Lord Rector of Edinburgh
University, and although this could add little to his fame, he
was glad that his own country had recognized his greatness.

Fifty years before, he had left the University a poor and unknown
lad. Now at seventy-one, a famous man, he returned to make his
speech upon entering his office as Rector.

This speech was a splendid success, his reception magnificent, "a
perfect triumph," as a friend telegraphed to Mrs. Carlyle waiting
anxiously for news in London. For a few days Carlyle lingered in
Scotland. Then he was suddenly recalled home by the terrible
news that his wife had died suddenly while out driving. It was a
crushing blow. Only when it was too late did Carlyle realize all
that his wife had been to him. She was, as he wrote on her
tombstone, "Suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his
life as if gone out."

The light indeed had gone out. The rest of his life was a sad
twilight, filled with cruel remorse. He still wrote a little,
and friends were kind, but his real work in life was done, and he
felt bitterly alone.

Honors were offered him, a title if he would, a pension. But he
declined them all. For fifteen years life dragged along. Then
at the age of eighty-five he died.

He might have lain in Westminster among the illustrious dead.
But such had not been his wish, so he was buried beside his
father and mother in the old churchyard at Ecclefechan.

BOOKS TO READ

Stories from Carlyle, by D. M. Ford. Readings from Carlyle, by
W. Keith Leask.

Chapter LXXXIII THACKERAY--THE CYNIC?

A LITTLE time after Carlyle's French Revolution was published he
wrote to his brother, "I understand there have been many reviews
of a very mixed character. I got one in the Times last week.
The writer is one, Thackeray, a half-monstrous Cornish giant,
kind of painter, Cambridge man, and Paris newspaper
correspondent, who is now writing for his life in London. . . .
His article is rather like him, and I suppose calculated to do
the book good."

In these few sentences we have a sketch of William Makepeace
Thackeray's life, from the time he finished his education up to
the age of twenty-six, when Carlyle met him. He was the son of
Richmond Thackeray, a collector in the service of the East India
Company, and was born in Calcutta in 1811.

Little Billy-man, as his mother called him, in after years could
remember very little of India. He remembered seeing crocodiles
and a very tall, lean father. When Billy was quite a tiny chap,
his father died. Soon after, the little boy was sent home, as
Indian children always are, but his mother remained out in India,
and a year or two later married Major Henry Carmichael Smyth.
Major Smyth was a simple, kindly gentleman, and proved a good
stepfather to his wife's little boy, who, when he grew up and
became famous drew his stepfather's portrait in the character of
Colonel Newcome.

Meanwhile Billy-man was separated from both father and mother,
and sailed home under the care of a black servant. His ship
called at St. Helena, and there the black servant took the little
boy on a long walk over rocks and hills until they came to a
garden. In the garden a man was walking. "That is he," said the
black man, "that is Bonaparte. He eats three sheep every day,
and all the little children he can lay hands on." Ugh! We think
that the little boy did not want to stay there long.

William reached home safely and was very happy with kind aunts
and grandmother until he went to school. And school he did not
like at all. Long afterwards in one of his books he wrote, "It
was governed by a horrible little tyrant, who made our young
lives so miserable, that I remember kneeling by my little bed of
a night and saying, 'Pray God, I may dream of my mother.'"*

*Roundabout Papers.

But he left this school and when he was about eleven went to
Charterhouse. Here Thackeray was not much happier. He was a
pretty, gentle boy, and not particularly clever, either at games
or at lessons. The boys were rough and even brutal to each
other, and Thackeray had to take his share of the blows, and got
a broken nose which disfigured his good-looking face ever after.
And when he left school he took away with him a painful
remembrance of all he had had to suffer. But by degrees the
suffering faded out of his memory and he looked upon his old
school with kindly eyes, and called it no longer Slaughterhouse,
but Grey Friars, in his books.

Before Thackeray went to Charterhouse his mother and stepfather
had come home to England and made a home for the little boy where
he spent happy holidays. Thackeray was not very diligent, but in
his last term at school he writes to his mother, "I really think
I am becoming terribly industrious, though I can't get Dr.
Russell (the headmaster) to think so. . . . There are but three
hundred and seventy in the school. I wish there were only three
hundred and sixty-nine."

Soon he had his wish, and leaving Charterhouse he went to Trinity
College, Cambridge. He liked Cambridge better than Charterhouse,
but did not learn much more. In little more than a year he left
because he felt that he was wasting his time, and went abroad to
finish his education. After spending a happy year in Germany he
came home to study at the bar, but soon finding he had no taste
for law, he gave that up.

Thackeray was now of age and had come into a little fortuned of
about 500 pounds a year, left to him by his father. So he decided
to try his hand at literature, and bought a paper called the
National Standard, and became editor of it. He could not,
however, make his paper pay, and in that and other ways he had
soon lost all his money.

It was now necessary that he should do something to earn a
living, and he determined to be an artist, and went to Paris to
study. But although he was fond of drawing, and was able
afterwards to illustrate some of his own books, he never became a
real artist.

Meanwhile in Paris he met a young Irish lady with whom he fell in
love, and being offered the post of Paris correspondent on
another paper, he married. But very soon after he married the
paper failed and Thackeray and his young wife returned to London,
very poor indeed, and there he remained, as Carlyle said,
"writing for his life."

It was a struggle, doubtless, but not a bitter one, and Thackeray
was happy in his home with his wife and two little daughters.
Long afterwards one of these daughters wrote, "Almost the first
time I can remember my parents was at home in Great Coram Street
on one occasion, when my mother took me upon her back, as she had
a way of doing, and after hesitating for a moment at the door,
carried me into a little ground floor room where some one sat
bending over a desk. This some one lifted up his head and looked
round at the people leaning over his chair. He seemed pleased,
smiled at us, but remonstrated. Nowadays I know by experience
that authors don't get on best, as a rule, when they are
interrupted in their work--not even by their own particular
families--but at that time it was all wondering, as I looked over
my mother's shoulder."

But these happy days did not last long. The young mother became
ill; gradually she became worse, until at last the light of
reason died out of her brain, and although she lived on for many
years, it was a living death, for she knew no one and took no
notice of anything that went on around her.

The happy home was broken up. The children went to live with
their great-grandmother, who found them "inconveniently young,"
while Thackeray remained alone in London. But though he was
heart-broken and lonely, he kept a loving memory of the happy
days gone by. Long after he wrote to a friend who was going to
be married, "Although my own marriage was a wreck, as you know, I
would do it over again, for behold, Love is the crown and
completion of all earthly good. The man who is afraid of his
future never deserved one."

Thackeray was already making a way with his pen, and now he found
a new opening. Most of you know Punch. He and his dog Toby are
old friends. And Mr. Punch with his humped back and big nose
"comes out" every week to make us laugh. He makes us laugh, too,
with kindly laughter, for, as Thackeray himself said, "there
never were before published in this world so many volumes that
contained so much cause for laughing, so little for blushing. It
is easy to be witty and wicked, so hard to be witty and wise!"
But once upon a time there was no Punch, strange though it may
seem. It was just at this time, indeed, that Punch was published
and Thackeray became one of the earliest contributors, and
continued for ten years both to draw pictures and write papers
for it. It was in Punch that his famous "Snob Papers" appeared.
What is a Snob? Thackeray says, "He who meanly admires mean
things."

It has been said that by reason of writing so much about snobs
that Thackeray came to see snobbishness where there was none.
But certain it is he laid a smart but kindly finger on many a
small-minded prejudice. Several times in this book you have
heard of sizars and commoners, stupid distinctions which are
happily now done away with. Perhaps you would like to know what
Thackeray thought of them. For although it is not a very good
illustration of real snobbishness, it is interesting to read in
connection with the lives of many great writer.

"If you consider, dear reader, what profound snobbishness the
University System produced, you will allow that it is time to
attack some of those feudal Middle-age superstitions. If you go
down for five shillings to look at the 'College Youths,' you may
see one sneaking down the court without a tassel to his cap;
another with a gold or silver fringe to his velvet trencher; a
third lad with a master's gown and hat, walking at ease over the
sacred College grass-plats, which common men must not tread on.

"He may do it because he is a nobleman. Because a lad is a lord,
the University gives him a degree at the end of two years which
another is seven in acquiring. Because he is a lord, he has no
call to go through an examination. . . .

"The lads with gold and silver lace are sons of rich gentlemen,
and called Fellow Commoners; they are privileged to feed better
than the pensioners, and to have wine with their victuals, which
the latter can only get in their rooms.

"The unlucky boys who have no tassels to their caps, are called
sizars--servitors at Oxford--(a very pretty and gentlemanlike
title). A distinction is made in their clothes because they are
poor; for which reason they wear a badge of poverty, and are not
allowed to take their meals with their fellow students."

But the same pen that wrote sharply and satirically about snobs,
wrote loving letters in big round hand to his dear daughters, who
were living far away in Paris. For either child he used a
different hand, so that each might know at once to whom the
letter was addressed. Here is part of one to his "dearest
Nanny." "How glad I am that it is a black puss and not a black
nuss you have got! I thought you did not know how to spell
nurse, and had spelt it en-you-double-ess; but I see the spelling
gets better as the letters grow longer: they cannot be too long
for me. Laura must be a very good-natured girl. I hope my dear
Nanny is so too, not merely to her school mistress and friends,
but to everybody--to her servants and her nurses. I would sooner
have you gentle and humble-minded than ever so clever. Who was
born on Christmas Day? Somebody Who was so great, that all the
world worships Him; and so good that all the world loves Him; and
so gentle and humble that He never spoke an unkind word. And
there is a little sermon and a great deal of love and affection
from papa."*

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

The Book of Snobs 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 shining 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 God 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, brass! 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 brass 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 companionship, 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:--

*Shirley 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.

"He was a cynic! You might read it writ
In that broad brow, crowned with its silver hair,
In those blue eyes, with childlike candour lit,
In the sweet smile his lips were wont to wear.

"He was a cynic! By the love that clung
About him from his children, friends, and kin;
By the sharp pain, light pen and gossip tongue
Wrought in him chafing the soft heart within.
. . . . . .
"He was a cynic? Yes--if 'tis the cynic's part
To track the serpent's trail with saddened eye,
To mark how good and ill divide the heart,
How lives in chequered shade and sunshine lie:

"How e'en the best unto the worst is knit
By brotherhood of weakness, sin and care;
How even in the worst, sparks may be lit
To show all is not utter darkness there."

BOOK TO READ

The Rose and the Ring.
NOTE.--The Rose and the Ring can be found in any complete edition
of Thackeray's works.

Chapter LXXXIV DICKENS--SMILES AND TEARS

CHARLES DICKENS was a novelist who lived and wrote at the same
time as Thackeray. He was indeed only six months younger, but he
began to make a name much earlier and was known to fame while
Thackeray was still a struggling artist. When they both became
famous these two great writers were to some extent rivals, and
those who read their books were divided into two camps. For
though both are men of genius, they are men of widely differing
genius.

John Dickens, the father, was a clerk with a small salary in the
Navy Pay Office, and his son Charles was born in 1812 at Portsea.
When Charles was about four his father was moved to Chatham, and
here the little boy Charles lived until he was nine. He was a
very puny little boy, and not able to join in the games of the
other boys of his own age. So he spent most of his time in a
small room where there was some books and where no one else
besides himself cared to go. He not only read the books, but
lived them, and for weeks together he would make believe to
himself that he was his favorite character in whatever book he
might be reading. All his life he loved acting a part and being
somebody else, and at one time thought of becoming an actor.

Then when Charles was seven he went to a school taught by a young
Baptist minister. It was not an unhappy life for the "Very queer
small boy" as he calls himself. There were fields in which he
could play his pretending games, and there was a beautiful house
called Gad's Hill near, at which he could go to look and dream
that if he were very good and very clever he might some day be a
fine gentleman and own that house.

When the very queer small boy was nine he and all his family
moved to London. Here they lived in a mean little house in a
mean little street. There were now six children, and the father
had grown very poor, so instead of being sent to school Charles
used to black the boots and make himself useful about the house.
But he still had his books to read, and could still make believe
to himself. Things grew worse and worse however, and John
Dickens, who was kind and careless, got into debt deeper and
deeper. Everything in the house that could be done without was
sold, and one by one the precious books went. At length one day
men came and took the father away to prison because he could not
pay his debts.