his child-wife. She would have been less and less a companion for him. He would have been more and more sensible of what was wanting in his home. She wouldn't have improved. It is better as it is." "Oh, Dora, dearest, dearest, do not speak to me so. Every word seems a reproach!" "No, not a syllable!" she answers, kissing me. "Oh, my dear, you never deserved it, and I loved you far too well to say a reproachful word to you in earnest-it was all the merit I had except being pretty-or you thought me NO. Is it lonely down stairs, Doady?" "Very! very!" "Don't cry! Is my chair there?" "In its old place." "Oh, how my poor boy cries! Hush, hush! Now, make me one promise. I want to speak to Agnes. When you go down stairs tell Agnes so, and send her up to me; and while I speak to her let no one come-not even aunt. I want to speak to Agnes by herself. I want to speak to Agnes quite alone." I promise that she shall, immediately; but I cannot leave her, for my grief. "I said that it was better as it is!" she whispers, as she holds me in her arms. "Oh, Doady, after more years you never could have loved your child-wife better than you do; and, after more years, she would so have tried and disappointed you, that you might not have been able to love her half so well! I know I was too young and foolish. It is much better as it is!" Agnes is down stairs, when I go into the parlour; and I give her the message. She disappears, leaving me alone with Jip. His Chinese house is by the fire; and he lies within it, on his bed of flannel, querulously trying to sleep. The bright moon is high and clear. As I look out on the night my tears fall fast, and my undisciplined heart is chastened heavily-heavily. I sit down by the fire, thinking with a blind remorse of all those secret feelings I have nourished since my marriage. I think of every little trifle between me and Dora, and feel the truth, that trifles make the sum of life. Ever rising from the sea of my remembrance is the image of the dear child as I knew her first, graced by my young love and by her own with every fascination wherein such love is rich. Would it, indeed, have been better if we had loved each other as a boy and girl and forgotten it? Undisciplined heart, reply! How the time wears I know not; until I am recalled by my child-wife's old companion. More restless than he was he crawls out of his house, and looks at me, and wanders to the door, and whines to go up stairs. "Not to-night, Jip! Not to-night!" He comes very slowly back to me, licks my hand, and lifts his dim eyes to my face. "Oh, Jip! It may be, never again!" He lies down at my feet, stretches himself out as if to sleep, and with a plaintive cry, is dead. "Oh, Agnes! Look, look, here!" -That face, so full of pity, and of grief, that rain of tears, that awful mute appeal to that solemn hand upraised towards heaven! Agnes?" me, 66 It is over. Darkness comes before my eyes; and, for a time, all things are blotted out of my remembrance. TO THE RAINBOW. Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky When storms prepare to part, I ask not proud philosophy To teach me what thou art : Still seem as to my childhood's sight, Betwixt the earth and heaven. Can all that optics teach unfold When Science from Creation's face And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams, When o'er the green undelug'd earth Heaven's covenant thou didst shine, How came the world's gray fathers forth To watch thy sacred sign. And when its yellow lustre smiled O'er mountains yet untrod, Each mother held aloft her child To bless the bow of God. Methinks, thy jubilee to keep, The first-made anthem rang On earth deliver'd from the deep, And the first poet sang. Nor ever shall the Muse's eye Be still the prophet's theme! The earth to thee her incense yields, How glorious is thy girdle cast O'er mountain, tower, and town, As fresh in yon horizon dark, As young thy beauties seem, As when the eagle from the ark First sported in thy beam. For, faithful to its sacred page, Heaven still rebuilds thy span, Nor lets the type grow pale with age That first spoke peace to man. THOMAS CAMPBELL WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. REMINISCENCES OF HIS LIFE AND CHARACTER. 1 It is now nearly twenty years since I first saw him and came to know him pretty familiarly in London. I was very much in earnest to have him come to America, and read his series of lectures on "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," and when I talked the matter over with some of his friends at the little Garrick Club, they all said he could never be induced to leave London long enough for such an expedition. Next morning, after this talk at the Garrick, the elderly damsel of all work announced to me, as I was taking breakfast at my lodgings, that Mr. Sackville had called to see me, and was then waiting below. Very soon I heard a heavy tread on the stairs, and enter a tall, white-haired stranger, who held out his hand, bowed profoundly, and with a most comical expression announced himself as Mr. Sackville. Recognizing at once the face from published portraits, I knew that my visitor was none other than Thackeray himself, who, having heard the servant give the wrong name, determined to assume it on this occa 1 From the "Whispering Gallery" of the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, January, 1871. Thackeray was born at Calcutta, 1811, and died in London, 24th December, 1863. sion. For years afterwards, when he would drop in unexpectedly, both at home and abroad, he delighted to call himself Mr. Sackville, until a certain Milesian waiter at the Tremont House addressed him as Mr. Thackuary, when he adopted that name in preference to the other. I had the opportunity, both in England and America, for observing the literary habits of Thackeray, and it always seemed to me that he did his work with comparative ease, but was somewhat influenced by a custom of procrastination. Nearly all his stories were written in monthly instalments for magazines, with the press at his heels. He told me that when he began a novel he rarely knew how many people were to figure in it, and, to use his own words, he was always very shaky about their moral conduct. He said that sometimes, especially if he had been dining late and did not feel in remarkably good humour next morning, he was inclined to make his characters villanously wicked; but if he rose serene, with an unclouded brain, there was no end to the lovely actions he was willing to make his men and women perform. When he had written a passage that pleased him very much, he could not resist clapping on his hat and rushing forth to find an acquaintance to whom he might instantly read his successful composition. Gilbert Wakefield, universally acknowledged to have been the best Greek scholar of his time, said he would have turned out a much better one, if he had begun earlier to study that language; bát unfortunately he did not begin till he was fifteen years of age. Thackeray, in quoting to me this saying of Wakefield, remarked, My English would have been very much better if I had read Fielding before I was ten." This observation was a valuable hint, on the part of Thackeray, as to whom he considered his master in art. One day, in the winter of 1852, I met Thackeray sturdily ploughing his way down Beacon Street with a copy of Henry Esmond (the English edition, then just issued), under his arm. Seeing me some way off, he held aloft the volumes and began to shout in great glee. When I came up to him he cried out, "Here is the very best I can do, and I am carrying it to Prescott, as a reward of merit for having given me my first dinner in America. I stand by this book, and am willing to leave it, when I go, as my card." As he wrote from month to month, and liked to put off the inevitable chapters till the last moment, he was often in great tribulation. I happened to be one of a large company whom he had invited to a six o'clock dinner at Green- | speakers, were to precede him, he intended to wich one summer afternoon, several years ago. We were all to go down from London, assembled in a particular room in the hotel, where he was to meet us at six o'clock, sharp. Accordingly, we took steamer and gathered ourselves together in the reception-room at the appointed time. When the clock struck six, our host had not fulfilled his part of the compact. His burly figure was yet wanting among the company assembled. As the guests were nearly all strangers to each other, and as there was no one present to introduce us, a profound silence fell upon the room, and we anxiously looked out of the windows, hoping every moment that Thackeray would arrive. This untoward state of things went on for one hour, still no Thackeray and no dinner. English reticence would not allow any remark as to the absence of our host. Everybody felt serious, and a great gloom fell upon the assembled party. Still no Thackeray. The landlord, the butler, and the waiters rushed in and out the room, shrieking for the master of the feast, who as yet had not arrived. It was confidentially whispered by a fat gentleman, with a hungry look, that the dinner was utterly spoiled twenty minutes ago, when we heard a merry shout in the entry and Thackeray bounced into the room. He had not changed his morning dress, and ink was still visible upon his fingers. Clapping his hands and pirouetting | briskly on one leg, he cried out, "Thank Heaven the last sheet of the Virginians has just gone to the printer." He made no apology for his late appearance, introduced nobody, shook hands heartily with everybody, and begged us all to be seated as quickly as possible. His exquisite delight at completing his book swept away every other feeling, and we all shared his pleasure, albeit the dinner was overdone throughout. The most finished and elegant of all lecturers, Thackeray often made a very poor appearance when he attempted to make a set speech to a public assembly. He almost always broke down after the first two or three sentences. Once he asked me to travel with him from London to Manchester to hear a great speech he was going to make at the founding of the Free Library Institution in that city. All the way down he was discoursing of certain effects he intended to produce on the Manchester dons by his eloquent appeals to their pockets. This passage was to have great influence with the rich merchants, this one with the clergy, and so on. He said that although Dickens and Bulwer and Sir James Stephen, all eloquent beat each of them on this special occasion. He insisted that I should be seated directly in front of him, so that I should have the full force of his magic eloquence. The occasion was a most brilliant one; tickets had been in demand at unheard-of prices several weeks before the day appointed; the great hall, then opened for the first time to the public, was filled by an audience such as is seldom convened, even in England. The three speeches which came before Thackeray was called upon were admirably suited to the occasion, and most eloquently spoken. Sir John Potter, who presided, then rose, and after some complimentary allusions to the author of Vanity Fair, introduced him to the crowd, who welcomed him with ringing plaudits. As he rose he gave me a half-wink from under his spectacles, as if to say: "Now for it; the others have done very well, but I will show 'em a grace beyond the reach of their art." He began in a clear and charming manner, and was absolutely perfect for three minutes. In the middle of a most earnest and elaborate sentence, he suddenly stopped, gave a look of comic despair at the ceiling, crammed both hands into his trouserspockets, and deliberately sat down. Everybody seemed to understand that it was one of Thackeray's unfinished speeches, and there were no signs of surprise or discontent among his audience. He continued to sit on the platform in a perfectly composed manner; and when the meeting was over, he said to me, without a sign of discomfiture, "My boy, you have my profoundest sympathy; this day you have accidentally missed hearing one of the finest speeches ever composed for delivery by a great British orator." And I never heard him mention the subject again. Thackeray rarely took any exercise, thus living in striking contrast to the other celebrated novelist of our time, who was remarkable for the number of hours he daily spent in the open air. It seems to me almost certain now, from concurrent testimony, gathered from physicians and those who knew him best in England, that Thackeray's premature death was hastened by an utter disregard of the natural laws. His vigorous frame gave ample promise of longevity, but he drew too largely on his brain, and not enough on his legs. High living and high thinking, he used to say, was the correct reading of the proverb. He was a man of the tenderest feelings, very apt to be cajoled into doing what the world calls foolish things, and constantly performing feats of unwisdom, which performances he was immoderately laughing at all the while in his | in advance of, his receipts. His pecuniary books. No man has impaled snobbery with object in visiting America the second time was such a stinging rapier, but he always accused to lay up, as he said, a pot of money" for his himself of being a snob, past all cure. two daughters, and he left the country with more than half his lecture engagements unfulfilled. He was to have visited various cities in the Middle and Western States; but he took up a newspaper, one night, in his hotel, in New York, before retiring, saw a steamer advertised to sail the next morning for England, was seized with a sudden fit of home-sickness, rang the bell for his servant, who packed up his luggage that night, and the next day he sailed. The first intimation I had of his departure was a card which he sent by the pilot of the steamer, with these words upon it: In London he had been very curious in his inquiries about American oysters, as marvellous stories, which he did not believe, had been told him of their great size. We had taken care that the largest specimens to be procured should startle his unwonted vision when he came to the table, although, I blush at the remembrance of it now, we apologized in our wicked waywardness to him for what we called the extreme smallness of the oysters, promising that we would do better next time. Six bloated Falstaffian bivalves lay before him in their shells. I noticed that he gazed at them anxiously with fork upraised, then he whispered to me, with a look of anguish, "How shall I do it?" I described to him the simple process by which the free-born citizens of America were accustomed to accomplish such a task. He seemed satisfied that the thing was feasible, selected the smallest one in the half dozen, and then bowed his head as if he were saying grace. All eyes were upon him to watch the effect of a new sensation in the person of a great British author. Opening his mouth very wide, he struggled for a moment, and then all was over. I shall never forget the comic look of despair he cast upon the other five over-occupied shells. I broke the perfect stillness by asking him how he felt. 66 Profoundly grateful," he gasped, "and as if I had swallowed a little baby.' Thackeray's playfulness was a marked peculiarity; a great deal of the time he seemed like a school-boy just released from his task. In the midst of the most serious topic under discussion he was fond of asking permission to sing a comic song, or he would beg to be allowed to enliven the occasion by the instant introduction of a brief double-shuffle. During Thackeray's first visit to America his jollity knew no bounds, and it became necessary often to repress him when he was walking the streets. I well remember his uproarious shouting and dancing when he was told that the tickets to his first course of readings were all sold; and when we rode together from his hotel to the lecture hall, he insisted on thrusting both his long legs out of the carriage-window, in deference, as he said, to his magnanimous ticket-holders. Thackeray's motto was never to perform today what could be postponed till to-morrow. Although he received large sums for his writings, he managed without much difficulty to keep his expenditures fully abreast, and often Good-by and God bless everybody, says W. M. T." Of course, he did not avail himself of the opportunity afforded him for receiving a very large sum in America; and he afterwards told me in London, that if Mr. Astor had offered him half his fortune if he would allow that particular steamer to sail without him, he should have declined the well-intentioned but impossible favour, and gone on board. Sometimes, to puzzle his correspondent, he would write in so small a hand that the note could not be read without the aid of a magnifying-glass. Caligraphy was to him one of the fine arts, and he once told Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, that if all trades failed he would earn sixpences by writing the Lord's Prayer and the Creed (not the Athanasian) in the size of that coin. He greatly delighted in rhyming and lisping notes and billets. Here is one of them, dated from Baltimore, without signature: "Dear F-th! (Fields.) The thanguinary fateth (I don't know what their anger meanth) brought me your letter of the eighth, yethterday only the fifteenth! What blunder cauthed by chill delay (thee Doctor Johnthon'th noble verthe). Thuth kept my longing thoul away, from all that motht I love on earth? Thankth for the happy contenth-thothe, Dithpatched to J. G. K. and Thonth, and that thmall letter you inclothe from Parith, from my dearetht oneth! I pray each month may tho increathe my thmall account with J. G. King, that all the thipth which croth the theath, good tidingth of my girlth may bring!--that every blething fortune yeildth, I altho pray, may come to path on Mithter and Mrth. J. T. F- th, and all good friendth in Bothton, Math!" I once made a pilgrimage with Thackeray (at my request, of course, the visits were planned) to the various houses where his books had been written; and I remember when we came to Young Street, Kensington, he said, with mock gravity, "Down on your knees, you rogue, for here Vanity Fair' was penned! And I will go down with you, for I have a high opinion of that little production myself." He was always perfectly honest in his expressions about his own writings, and it was delightful to hear him praise them when he could depend on his listeners. A friend congratulated him once on that touch in "Vanity Fair" in which Becky "admires" her husband when he is giving Steyne the punishment which ruins her for life. "Well," he said, "when I wrote the sentence, I slapped my fist on the table, and said, 'That is a touch of genius!"" a over to shake hands with him. "Oh, that indomitable youth is an old crony of mine," he replied; and then, quoting Falstaff, goodly, portly man, i' faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage." It was the manner of saying this, then and there in the London street, the cabman moving slowly off on his sorry vehicle, with one eye (an eye dewy with gin and water, and a tear of gratitude, perhaps) on Thackeray, and the great man himself so jovial and so full of kindness! farmers, and in very earnest talk about the crops. "I don't believe," said Thackeray, "that these village cronies of his ever looked upon him as the mighty poet, I wish you could have heard him, as I once did, discourse of Shakspeare's probable life in Stratford among his neighbours. He painted, as he alone could paint, the great man saunHe told me he was nearly forty years old tering about the lanes without the slightest before he was recognized in literature as belong-show of greatness, having a crack with the ing to a class of writers at all above the ordinary magazinists of his day. "I turned off far better things then than I do now," said he, "and I wanted money sadly (my parents were rich, but respectable, and I had spent my guineas in my youth), but how little I got for my work! It makes me laugh," he continued, "at what the Times pays me now, when I think of the old days, and how much better I wrote for them then, and got a shilling where I now get ten." One day he wanted a little service done for a friend, and I remember his very quizzical expression, as he said, "Please say the favour asked will greatly oblige a man of the name of Thackeray, whose only recommendation is, that he has seen Napoleon and Goethe, and is the owner of Schiller's sword." I think he told me he and Tennyson were at one time intimate; but I distinctly remember a description he gave me of having heard the poet, when a young man, storming about in the first rapture of composing his poem of Ulysses." One line of it he greatly revelled 46 in: "And see the great Achilles whom we knew." “He went through the streets," said Thackeray, "screaming about his great Achilles, whom we knew, as if we had all made the acquaintance of that gentleman, and were very proud of it." One day, many years ago, I saw him chaffing on the sidewalk in London, in front of the Athenæum Club, with a monstrous-sized cabman, copiously ebriose," and I judged from the driver's ludicrously careful way of landing the coin deep down in his breeches-pocket, that Thackeray had given him a very unusual fare. Who is your fat friend?" I asked, crossing 'Sailing with supreme dominion but simply as a wholesome, good-natured citi- Every one remembers the enormous circulation achieved by the Cornhill Magazine when it was first started with Thackeray for its editor-in-chief. The announcement by his publishers that a sale of a hundred and ten thousand of the first number had been reached made the editor half delirious with joy, and he ran away to Paris to be rid of the excitement for a few days. I met him by appointment at his hotel in the Rue de la Paix, and I found him wild with exultation and full of enthusiasm for excellent George Smith, his publisher. "London," he exclaimed, "is not big enough to contain me now, and I am obliged to add Paris to my residence! Great heavens!" said he, "throwing up his long arms, "where will this tremendous circulation stop? Who knows but that I shall have to add Vienna and Rome to my whereabouts. the worst comes to the worst, New York also If |