Charlotte Brontë, who gained a great reputation by Jane Eyre, added to Thackeray's vogue by dedicating to him in rarely eloquent words the second edition of her novel, against which preachers fulminated because of what they called its immoral tendencies. Then in rapid succession Thackeray wrote Pendennis, Henry Esmond, The Newcomes, The Virginians, Lovel the Widower and The Adventures of Philip. All these are masterpieces of wit, satire and humor, cast in a perfect style that never offends the most fastidious taste, yet they are neglected to-day mainly because they do not furnish exciting incidents.
Thackeray, like Dickens in his readings, made a fortune by his lectures, first on "The English Humorists," and later on "The Four Georges," and, like Dickens, he received the heartiest welcome and the largest money returns from this country.
He died alone in his room on Christmas eve in the fine new home in London which he had recently made for himself and his three daughters.
Thackeray was a giant physically, with a mind that worked easily, but he was indolent and always wrote under pressure, with the printer's devil waiting for his "copy." He was a thorough man of the world, yet full of the freshness of fancy and the tenderness of heart of a little child. All children were a delight to him, and he never could refrain from giving them extravagant tips. The ever-present grief that could not be forgotten by fame or success made him very tender to all suffering, especially the suffering of the weak and the helpless. Yet, like many a sensitive man, he concealed this kindness of heart under an affectation of cynicism, which led many unsympathetic critics to style him hard and ferocious in his satire.
Like Dickens, Thackeray was one of the great reporters of his day, with an eye that took in unconsciously every detail of face, costume or scene and reproduced it with perfect accuracy. The reader of his novels is entertained by a series of pen pictures of men and women and scenes in high life and life below stairs that are photographic in their clearness and fidelity. Dickens always failed when he came to depict British aristocratic life; but Thackeray moved in drawing-rooms and brilliant assemblages with the ease of a man familiar from youth with good society, and hence free from all embarrassment, even in the presence of royalty.
Thackeray's early works are written in the same perfect, easy, colloquial style, rich in natural literary allusions and frequently rhythmic with poetic feeling, which marked his latest novel. He also had perfect command of slang and the cockney dialect of the Londoner. No greater master of dialogue or narrative ever wrote than he who pictured the gradual degradation of Becky Sharp or the many self-sacrifices of Henry Esmond for the woman that he loved.
Howells and other critics have censured Thackeray severely because of his tendency to preach, and also because he regarded his characters as puppets and himself as the showman who brought out their peculiarities. There is some ground for this criticism, if one regards the art of the novelist as centered wholly in realism; but such a hard and fast rule would condemn all old English novelists from Richardson to Thackeray.
It ought not to disturb any reader that Defoe turns aside and gives reflections on the acts of his characters, for these remarks are the fruit of his own knowledge of the world. In the same way Thackeray keeps up a running comment on his men and women, and these bits of philosophy make his novels a storehouse of apothegms, which may be read again and again with great profit and pleasure. The modern novel, with its comparative lack of thought and feeling, its insistence upon the absolute effacement of the author, is seldom worth reading a second time. Not so with Thackeray. Every reading reveals new beauties of thought or style. An entire book has been made up of brief extracts from Thackeray's novels, and it is an ideal little volume for a pocket companion on walks, as Thackeray fits into any mood and always gives one material for thought.
