Thackeray was not a voluminous correspondent, but what exquisite letters he has left in the hands of many of his friends! "Should any letters arrive," he says in a little missive from Philadelphia, "addressed to the care of J.T.F. for the ridiculous author of this, that, and the other, F. is requested to send them to Mercantile Library, Baltimore. My ghostly enemy will be delighted (or will gnash his teeth with rage) to hear that the lectures in the capital of Pa. have been very well attended. No less than 750 people paid at the door on Friday night, and though last night there was a storm of snow so furious that no reasonable mortal could face it, 500 (at least) amiable maniacs were in the lecture-room, and wept over the fate of the last king of these colonies."
Almost every day, while he was lecturing in America, he would send off little notes exquisitely written in point of penmanship, and sometimes embellished with characteristic pen-drawings. Having attended an extemporaneous supper festival at "Porter's," he was never tired of "going again." Here is a scrap of paper holding these few words, written in 1852.
"Nine o'clock, P.M. Tremont.
"Arrangements have just been concluded for a meeting somewhere to-night, which we much desire you should attend. Are you equal to two nights running of good time?"
Then follows a pen portrait of a friend of his with a cloven foot and a devil's tail just visible under his cloak Sometimes, to puzzle his correspondent, he would write in so small a hand that the note could not be read without the aid of a magnifying-glass. Calligraphy was to him one of the fine arts, and he once told Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, that if all trades failed, he would earn sixpences by writing the Lord's Prayer and the Creed (not the Athanasian) in the size of that coin. He greatly delighted in rhyming and lisping notes and billets. Here is one of them, dated from Baltimore without signature:—
"Dear F——th! The thanguinary fateth (I don't know what their anger meanth) brought me your letter of the eighth, yethterday, only the fifteenth! What blunder cauthed by chill delay (thee Doctor Johnthon'th noble verthe) Thuth kept my longing thoul away, from all that motht I love on earth? Thankth for the happy contenth!—thothe Dithpatched to J.G.K. and Thonth, and that thmall letter you inclothe from Parith, from my dearetht oneth! I pray each month may tho increathe my thmall account with J.G. King, that all the thipth which croth the theath, good tidingth of my girlth may bring!—that every blething fortune yieldth, I altho pray, may come to path on Mithter and Mrth. J.T. F——th, and all good friendth in Bothton, Math.!"
While he was staying at the Clarendon Hotel, in New York, every morning's mail brought a few lines, sometimes only one line, sometimes only two words, from him, reporting progress. One day he tells me: "Immense hawdience last night." Another day he says: "Our shares look very much up this morning." On the 29th of November, 1852, he writes: "I find I have a much bigger voice than I knew of, and am not afraid of anybody." At another time he writes: "I make no doubt you have seen that admirable paper, the New York Herald, and are aware of the excellent reception my lectures are having in this city. It was a lucky Friday when first I set foot in this country. I have nearly saved the fifty dollars you lent me in Boston." In a letter from Savannah, dated the 19th of March, 1853, in answer to one I had written to him, telling him that a charming epistle, which accompanied the gift of a silver mug he had sent to me some time before, had been stolen from me, he says:—
"My dear fellow, I remember I asked you in that letter to accept a silver mug in token of our pleasant days together, and to drink a health sometimes in it to a sincere friend.... Smith and Elder write me word they have sent by a Cunard to Boston a packet of paper, stamped etc. in London. I want it to be taken from the Custom-House, dooties paid etc., and dispatched to Miss ——, New York. Hold your tongue, and don't laugh, you rogue. Why shouldn't she have her paper, and I my pleasure, without your wicked, wicked sneers and imperence? I'm only a cipher in the young lady's estimation, and why shouldn't I sigh for her if I like. I hope I shall see you all at Boston before very long. I always consider Boston as my native place, you know."
I wish I could recall half the incidents connected with the dear, dear old Thackeray days, when I saw him so constantly and enjoyed him so hugely; but, alas! many of them are gone, with much more that is lovely and would have been of good report, could they be now remembered;—they are dead as—(Holmes always puts your simile quite right for you),—
"Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile."