I
I left off, Gentlemen, upon a saying of Herman Merivale’s that the two key-secrets of Thackeray’s life were Disappointment and Religion, and I proposed, examining this to-day, to speak of both.
Well, for the first, I have already (I think) given full room in the account to that domestic sorrow which drove him, great boon favourite of the nursery, to flee from his grand new house in Kensington Gardens—
Cedes coemptis saltibus et domo
Villaque—
to write his novels anywhere rather than at home. In the words of Barnes’ beautiful lament, which I here make free to divorce from its native dialect—
Since now beside my dinner-board
Your voice does never sound,
I’ll eat the bit I can afford
Afield upon the ground;
Below the darksome bough, my love,
Where you did never dine,
And I don’t grieve to miss you now
As I at home do pine.