Home Life of Great Authors

by Hattie Tyng Griswold

Some of his fun was a little embarrassing to his friends, as when Mr. Fields had taken him to the meeting of a scientific club at the house of a distinguished Boston gentlemen, and Thackeray, being bored by the proceedings, stole into a little anteroom, where he thought no one could see him but his friend, and proceeded to give vent to his feelings in pantomime.

"He threw an imaginary person (myself, of course) upon the floor, and proceeded to stab him several times with a paper-folder which he caught up for that purpose. After disposing of his victim in this way, he was not satisfied, for the dull lecture still went on in the other room, and he fired an imaginary revolver several times at an imaginary head; still the droning speaker proceeded; and now began the greatest pantomimic scene of all, namely, murder by poison, after the manner in which the player King is disposed of in 'Hamlet.' Thackeray had found a small phial on the mantel-shelf and out of it he proceeded to pour the imaginary 'juice of cursed hebenon' into the imaginary porches of somebody's ears. The whole thing was inimitably done, and I hoped nobody saw it but myself; but years afterwards a ponderous fat-witted young man put the question squarely to me: 'What was the matter with Mr. Thackeray that night the club met at M——'s house?'"

Thackeray's playfulness was indeed a marked peculiarity, and innumerable stories are told of his dancing pirouettes, singing impromptu songs, and rhyming a whole company to their infinite amusement. Each one of his personal friends, in talking of him, says, "But if you could only have heard him" at such a time; but of course no one can repeat such unpremeditated jests, and the flavor is gone from them when any one tries to do so. He was the life of the clubs he frequented, and spent much time in them and at theatres, of which he was passionately fond. His duties as a man of fashion took much of his time, and his friends were always wondering when he wrote his books. Much of the jollity and boyish hilarity of his life in society was a rebound from the strain of these books. He was wont to live much, as did Dickens, in the creations of his fancy, and sometimes his emotional nature became overwrought in his work. Mr. Underwood tells us:—

"One day while the great novel of 'The Newcomes' was in course of publication, Lowell, who was then in London, met Thackeray on the street. The novelist was serious in manner, and his looks and voice told of weariness and affliction. He saw the kindly inquiry in the poet's eyes, and said, 'Come into Evans's and I'll tell you all about it. I have killed the Colonel!' So they walked in and took a table in a remote corner; and then Thackeray, drawing the fresh manuscript from his breast-pocket, read through that exquisitely touching chapter which records the death of Colonel Newcome. When he came to the final Adsum, the tears which had been swelling his lids for some time trickled down his face, and the last word was almost an inarticulate sob."

Thackeray's sensibility was really extreme, and he could not read anything pathetic without actual discomfort,—never could get through "The Bride of Lammermoor," for instance,—and would not listen to any sad tales of suffering in real life if he could escape them. If he did hear of any one in want or distress, he relieved his feelings by instantly appropriating to their use all the money he found himself in possession of at the time. When he was editor of the "Cornhill Magazine," this soft-heartedness was a great drawback to him. He was always paying for contributions he could not use, if they were sent, as so many are, with some pitiful tale accompanying; and was always wasting his valuable time by writing to poor creatures about their dreary verses, which there was no hope of his being able to improve. When quite young, he loaned—or rather gave, though he called it a loan—three hundred pounds to poor old Maginn, when he was beaten in the battle of life and lay in the Fleet Prison. But he denied this act with the utmost vehemence when accused of it, and berated the old fellow in a laborious manner for having been beaten when he should have fought on. Indeed, he was very much ashamed of his soft-heartedness always, and would oftentimes bluster and appear very fierce when appealed to for assistance.

Anthony Trollope tells a story about going to him one day and telling him of the straits to which a mutual friend was reduced.

"'Do you mean to say that I am to find two thousand pounds?' he said angrily, with some expletives. I explained that I had not even suggested the doing of anything,—only that we might discuss the matter. Then there came over his face a peculiar smile, and a wink in his eye, and he whispered his suggestion, as if ashamed of his meanness. 'I'll go half,' he said, 'if anybody will do the rest.' And he did go half at a day or two's notice. I could tell various stories of the same kind."

These things were not easy for him to do; for he was never a rich man, and he had constant calls upon his charity. He kept a small floating fund always in circulation among his poorer acquaintances; and when one returned it to him he passed it to another, never considering it as his own but for the use of the unfortunate. He liked to disguise his charities as jokes,—as filling a pill-box with gold pieces and sending it to a needy friend, with the inscription, "To be taken one at a time, as needed;" and various devices of this kind. He was as generous of his praise as of his money, and always had a good word for his literary friends. His fine tribute to Macaulay will be remembered, and his praise of Washington Irving, of Charlotte Bronté, and many others. While he had an exaggerated contempt for the foibles of the world at large, he had an almost equally exaggerated sympathy for the joys and sorrows of individuals; and much of the scorn which he gives to humanity collectively may be taken as a sort of vent to his feelings when he is ashamed of having been too foolishly weak in dealing with some of these fellow-mortals in real life.

He never encouraged his companions in being cynical, but always encouraged them in admiration. "I am glad he worships anybody," he said, when some friends were satirizing an absent companion for his devotion to a great man. Neither would he encourage any unkind talk about the absent, or laugh at any good hit which was aimed at a friend. "You fiend!" he said to a friend who was laughing over a sharp attack on an acquaintance, and he refused to read or hear a word of it. Indeed, for steadfast loyalty to his friends, his equal has seldom been seen. He made common cause with them in everything, and nothing so enraged him as treachery or deceit among friends.