After more amusing dialogue he throws his card on the table and says he shall call, adding,
"'If Pigeon makes my Lotty a good husband, I'll take him by the hand; if, however, I find him no gentleman—find that he shall use the girl of my heart with harshness, or even with the least unkindness—'
"'Well, sir!'—Pigeon thrusting his hands into his pockets swaggered to Tomata—'what will you do then, sir?'
"'Then, sir. I shall again think the happiness of the lady placed in my hands and thrash him—thrash him severely.'"
CHAPTER XVII.
Thackeray—His Acerbity—The Baronet—The Parson—Medical Ladies—Glorvina—"A Serious Paradise."
Thackeray resembled Lamb in the all-pervading character of his humour. He adorned with it almost everything he touched, but did not enter into it heart and soul, like a man of really joyous mirth-loving disposition. His pages teem with sly hits and insinuations, but he never developes a comic scene, and we can scarcely find a single really laughable episode in the whole course of his works. So little did he grasp or finish such pictures that we rarely select a passage from Thackeray for recitation. He thought more of plot and stratagem than of humour, and used the latter, not for its own sake, but mostly to give brilliance to his narrative, to make his figures prominent, and his remarks salient. He thus silvers unpalatable truths, and although he disowns being a moralist, we generally see some substratum of earnestness peeping through the eddies of his fancy. With him, humour is subservient. And he speaks from his inner self, when he exclaims, "Oh, brother wearers of motley! Are there not moments when one grows sick of grinning and tumbling, and the jingling of the cap and bells."
We may say that much of Thackeray's humour is more inclined to produce a grin than a smile—merely to cause a grimace, owing to the bitterness from which it springs. It must be remembered, however, that the greater part of modern wit consists of sarcastic criticism, though it is not generally severe.