'Ill off'
It is possible that Thackeray's bill to his livery stable keeper kept pace with his other expenses; but his experience in this respect was not fruitless. When he had occasion to mix with the world, and especially while studying society abroad, it embittered his judgment against the University to realise how little return, beyond that indefinite and somewhat bumptious quality known as 'tone,' he had really obtained in return for the expenses of a college career. The youth of the Continent, with whom he had the fortune to associate for some time, made him conscious, by their own accomplishments, of those parts of a gentleman's education which are ignored at our Universities, and which form, it must be confessed, the standard by which men are chiefly measured beyond the college walls. His early papers in 'Fraser,' and especially those supposed to be contributed by the respectable Fitz-Boodle, drawing upon the experiences he had gained while sojourning amidst the society of the minor German principalities, speak the truth on these short-comings in a manner both forcible and unflinching.
A few University Favourites
'Just a little playful'
Besides his fancy for etching plates of horses and men of ultra and parodied fashion, for designing plates of the modern rake's progress at the Universities, and punning cuts, we may assume that Thackeray shared with his ideal Pendennis most of those tastes indulged by lucky youths when life is opening, and reflection does not trouble them. Like his hero, he enjoyed a fine amateur perception for rare editions, and had a fancy for the glories of costly bindings: we are told that the tall copies, the gilding, marbling, and blind-tooling put on his book-shelves were marvellous to behold. The same just appreciation of true art which, later on, directed Thackeray's criticisms of the picture galleries, taught Pen to despise the tawdry and meretricious pictures of horses and opera dancers which often captivate the judgment of fledglings, and gifted him with a love for fine prints, for Rembrandt etchings, line-engravings after Strange, and Wilkie's before the letter; with which he hung his rooms, to the admiration of those who were capable of understanding his good taste. His mind did not despise the allurements of dress; and Pen was elaborately attired. It was a repeated axiom of Thackeray's, that it was good for a youth at one period to indulge in this vanity of fine apparel as a preliminary stage to more developed ambitions of standing well with the world.
'Sport in earnest'