demned by some critics, but not all readers are willing to lose the personalities-the Burnses, Goldsmiths, Fieldings, Hawthornes, Johnsons, and Tennysons-from our literature. What a wonderful range these personal asides from the manager of the plays cover! Here is a bit of moralizing; there a solid chunk of philosophy; now a touch of pathos and sentiment, or even of sentimentality; and, again, a sting of waspish satire, with the poison quickly deadened by the application of the soothing balm of love from his own tender heart. It is sometimes a question as to which is to be admired most, the artist whose deft hand so vividly portrays the comedy and tragedy of life on his broad canvas; the moralist who proclaims with a simple faith the Christian ideal; the philosopher who gives so much of the practical wisdom of everyday living and striving; the satirist who so persistently and kindly tells the world of its foibles, laughing them to scorn with his inimitable humor; or the good, kind-hearted man behind it all.

Above all, we feel that we can safely put ourselves under the guidance of so powerful an intellect. We know, as by intuition, that we are in the presence of a gigantic mind. The great, tall figure and broad face of the man looms before us while his giant brain is turning out, for our entertainment, products among the best in the world's prose literature. There is a firmness of conviction, a precision of judgment, a dignity of expression, a restraint of enthusiasm, a mildness, a mellowness, a simplicity of style, that adds a hundredfold to the power and impress of every word he says. Critics have generally placed George Eliot in the first place among intellectual novelists; but I doubt not, if the comparison were made, and pure intellectuality, not astuteness of psychological analysis-if broad, clear thinking, and not abstruse and hair-splitting distinctions of character, motives, and internal questionings-were the test, Thackeray would stand the peer, if not the superior, of George Eliot, even in her vantage plane of intellectuality.

It is no wonder, then, that with the strong leverage of his

intellect, and with his own tender, sympathizing heart as a fulcrum, Thackeray has wrought so powerfully on the human heart. There is no doubt in my mind that he understood and portrayed the human heart as no other writer in our literature, who used prose as the vehicle of his thought, has done. Let one but recall a list of characters from any of his novels, and consider for a moment not the personality nor intellectuality but the feelings and sentiments, the hearts. Is there one in any group that is altogether heartless? Is there one whose character and feelings you do not know as you know the characters and hearts of your most intimate friends? Is it not indeed a marvelous gift to be able thus to lay bare the hearts and consciences of men and women? Thackeray may even be compared with Shakespeare in this respect, allowing always for the superior genius of Shakespeare, and for the advantage of poetry over prose in the expression of the feelings. He enters into the very spirit and being of his characters; he sees the world through their eyes, thinks with their brains, feels with their hearts. He has that power of feeling as another feels, without throwing his own personality into the balance. This very excellence of his genius has led superficial readers to look upon Thackeray as a cynic, and some have even been led to consider him a scoundrel in heart, if not in deed, upon the puerile hypothesis that a man must be a scoundrel himself to know so much about a scoundrel's thoughts and feelings. One might as well call Shakespeare a villain of deepest dye because he evolved an Iago from his inner consciousness.

If there is an explanation of this power in Thackeray's case, it is evidently to be found in one word-sympathy. This was the key with which he unlocked other hearts. All through his biography we find instances of his intense sympathy for others, both in their sorrows and their joys. He was a lover of mankind, but he felt that he was bound to tell the truth. The kest-known selection in this connection, and the best self-vindication and vindication of purpose to

be found in all his works, is at the end of Chapter VIII. of "Vanity Fair: "

But my kind reader will please to remember that this history has “Vanity Fair" for a title, and that Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falsenesses and pretenses. And, while the moralist who is holding forth on the cover (an accurate portrait of your humble servant) professes to wear neither gown nor bands, but only the very same long-eared livery in which his congregation is arrayed, yet, look you, one is bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, whether one mounts a cap and bells or a shovel hat; and a deal of disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an undertaking. . . And, as we bring our characters forward, I will ask leave, as a man and a brother, not only to introduce them, but occasionally to step down from the plat form and talk about them: if they are good and kindly, to love them and shake them by the hand; if they are silly, to laugh at them confidentially in the reader's sleeve; if they are wicked and heartless, to abuse them in the strongest terms which politeness admits of. Otherwise you might fancy that it was I who was sneering at the practice of devotion, which Miss Sharp finds so ridiculous; that it was I who laughed good-humoredly at the reeling old Silenus of a baronet; whereas the laughter comes from one who has no reverence except for prosperity, and no eye for anything beyond success.

With such an explanation before one, given, as it is, with all the charm of a frank personal confidence, the wonder is that any reader could call Thackeray a cynic.

But if Thackeray was no cynic, he was a satirist. He was not a bitter hater of mankind, as the first term would imply, but a natural censor of what he saw to be the faults and frailties of his brothers. Who can doubt that Thackeray loved mankind? Who can doubt that he pitied humanity, of which he himself was a part, and yearned to help his fallen brother just as he would have desired another to help him? You may not agree with his method of helping, of correcting, of uplifting his fellows; but you surely cannot impute to him the charge that he bore malice and bitterness in that big, loving heart of his toward his brothers in the flesh. That he made mistakes no one will deny. We can even see that he blamed others for faults with which he was himself chargeable; but he looked upon himself as a teacher—yea, even as a preacher, for he called himself always a “week

day preacher," whose duty it was to uncover the foibles of his day, to chase into their retreats flimsy sham and pretense and vaunting vulgarity and meanness in all its forms.

You will recall the passage quoted above, showing Thackeray's love for truth. He did not care to tell a story which, even if possible, was in the least improbable. We do not read his books for the romance that is in them; we read them for the truth, the life that is there. Did you ever doubt that any character in any book of Thackeray's would have done or talked differently in real life? When you have once formed the correct idea of the character as the artist wished you to see it, have you ever doubted that such a character exists in duplicate a hundred times over, even within the scope of your own acquaintance? And, again, I would ask, have you ever noticed any character repeated? Can you find one hero type and trace the features under twenty different names, as you can of Byron's puppets? If not, then we are to pronounce Thackeray great in that he has told the truth, great in the reality of his creations, great in the portrayal of human nature. There is always something startling, bizarre, abnormal in Dickens' characters. It is a trick to impress the personality upon us. In Thackeray we find no set phrase like "Little Joe, al'aw's a movin' on;" no Smike, with his clammy hand; no one-eyed Squeers, no horrible Barnaby Rudge, no "Barkis is willin'." When we stop to think of all this seriously, it is not true to life; it is abnormal; it is purely literary trickery, and we are almost ashamed of being so deceived in these untruthful portrayals. It is altogether different with Thackeray's characters. Somehow we become almost unconsciously intimate with them. They are impressed upon us gradually, and we feel that they are real human beings, talking and acting before us on the printed page as we hear and see men and women talking and acting before us in everyday life.

Thackeray lived with these people of his fancy; they were his constant companions; he talked with them in the privacy of his inner consciousness; he studied their lives

and characters, not as if he were their creator, but merely as their biographer. He asserted that when once he had brought his men and women to life, they led him, and he but followed, transferring their history to the paper as they revealed it to him. On one occasion, when he was writing "The Newcomes," some friend asked him if he had had a good night's rest. He answered: "How could I, with Col. Newcome making a fool of himself, as he has done?" "But why did you let him?" let him?" "O, it was in him. He must." Another instance of his intense sympathy for his characters was when he was bringing this story to an end, and his daughter Annie was writing at his dictation. At the very last he took the pen in his own hand, and sent the girl away. Then he told, with a long dash, all the agony that was in his own soul when that good friend of his and ours answered "Adsum" to the last great roll call. Again, we remember that he confessed to blubbering over the death of Helen Pendennis. If his characters moved him in this way, no wonder they affect us so powerfully!

Thackeray's idea of humor was that it should always be charitable. He defined humor as "wit and love," and added: "I am sure, at any rate, that the best humor is that which contains most humanity, that which is flavored throughout with tenderness and kindness." He did not think it was necessary for a writer to be always declaring this love, any more than a father should be always caressing his wife and children to show his affection. This certainly shows Thackeray's own idea of his fun-making. He laughed at the world because he saw the humorous side of life, not because he hated mankind on account of its weakness and its erring. He is no Dean Swift, with bitter cynicism; he is no Pope, with a biting satire which lacks the softening influence of charity; he is no Congreve, with lack of feeling and charity toward the ordinary mortals which figure in his humorous productions; but he is a warm-hearted Englishman, who loved his fellows and laughed in their faces with all good humor and kindness. L. W. PAYNE, JR.