I could not help smiling, as I thought of the prodigious amount of literary labor he had performed, and at the same time remembered the simple comfort of his dwelling, next door.
"I am serious," he continued; "I never take up the pen without an effort; I work only from necessity. I never walk out without seeing some pretty, useless thing which I want to buy. Sometimes I pass the same shop-window every day for months, and resist the temptation, and think I'm safe; then comes the day of weakness, and I yield. My physician tells me I must live very simply, and not dine out so much; but I cannot break off the agreeable habit. I shall look at this picture and think of my dragons, though I don't expect ever to overcome them."
After his four lectures on the Georges had been delivered in New York, a storm of angry abuse was let loose upon him in Canada and the other British Provinces. The British-Americans, snubbed both by Government and society when they go to England, repay the slight, like true Christians, by a rampant loyalty unknown in the mother-country. Many of their newspapers accused Thackeray of pandering to the prejudices of the American public, affirming that he would not dare to repeat the same lectures in England, after his return. Of course, the papers containing the articles, duly marked to attract attention, were sent to him. He merely remarked, as he threw them contemptuously aside,—"These fellows will see that I shall not only repeat the lectures at home, but I shall make them more severe, just because the auditors will be Englishmen." He was true to his promise. The lecture on George IV. excited, not, indeed, the same amount of newspaper-abuse as he had received from Canada, but a very angry feeling in the English aristocracy, some members of which attempted to punish him by a social ostracism. When I visited him in London, in July, 1856, he related this to me, with great good-humor. "There, for instance," said he, "is Lord ——" (a prominent English statesman) "who has dropped me from his dinner-parties for three months past. Well, he will find that I can do without his society better than he can do without mine." A few days afterwards Lord —— resumed his invitations.
About the same time I witnessed an amusing interview, which explained to me the great personal respect in which Thackeray was held by the aristocratic class. He never hesitated to mention and comment upon the censure aimed against him in the presence of him who had uttered it. His fearless frankness must have seemed phenomenal. In the present instance, Lord ——, who had dabbled in literature, and held a position at Court, had expressed himself (I forget whether orally or in print) very energetically against Thackeray's picture of George IV. We had occasion to enter the shop of a fashionable tailor, and there found Lord ——. Thackeray immediately stepped up to him, bent his strong frame over the disconcerted champion of the Royal George, and said, in his full, clear, mellow voice,—"I know what you have said. Of course, you are quite right, and I am wrong. I only regret that I did not think of consulting you before my lecture was written." The person addressed evidently did not know whether to take this for irony or truth: he stammered out an incoherent reply, and seemed greatly relieved when the giant turned to leave the shop.
At other times, however, he was kind and considerate. Reaching London one day in June, 1857, I found him at home, grave and sad, having that moment returned from the funeral of Douglas Jerrold. He spoke of the periodical attacks by which his own life was threatened, and repeated what he had often said to me before,—"I shall go some day,—perhaps in a year or two. I am an old man already." He proposed visiting a lady whom we both knew, but whom he had not seen for some time. The lady reminded him of this fact, and expressed her dissatisfaction at some length. He heard her in silence, and then, taking hold of the crape on his left arm, said, in a grave, quiet voice,—"I must remove this,—I have just come from poor Jerrold's grave."
Although, from his experience of life, he was completely désillusionné, the well of natural tenderness was never dried in his heart. He rejoiced, with a fresh, boyish delight, in every evidence of an unspoiled nature in others,—in every utterance which denoted what may have seemed to him over-faith in the good. The more he was saddened by his knowledge of human weakness and folly, the more gratefully he welcomed strength, virtue, sincerity. His eyes never unlearned the habit of that quick moisture which honors the true word and the noble deed.
His mind was always occupied with some scheme of quiet benevolence. Both in America and in England, I have known him to plan ways by which he could give pecuniary assistance to some needy acquaintance or countryman without wounding his sensitive pride. He made many attempts to procure a good situation in New York for a well-known English author, who was at that time in straitened circumstances. The latter, probably, never knew of this effort to help him. In November, 1857, when the financial crisis in America was at its height, I happened to say to him, playfully, that I hoped my remittances would not be stopped. He instantly picked up a note-book, ran over the leaves, and said to me, "I find I have three hundred pounds at my banker's. Take the money now, if you are in want of it; or shall I keep it for you, in case you may need it?" Fortunately, I had no occasion to avail myself of his generous offer; but I shall never forget the impulsive, open-hearted kindness with which it was made.
I have had personal experience of Thackeray's sense of justice, as well as his generosity. And here let me say that he was that rarest of men, a cosmopolitan Englishman,—loving his own land with a sturdy, enduring love, yet blind neither to its faults nor to the virtues of other lands. In fact, for the very reason that he was unsparing in dealing with his countrymen, he considered himself justified in freely criticizing other nations. Yet he never joined in the popular depreciation of everything American: his principal reason for not writing a book, as every other English author does who visits us, was that it would be superficial, and might be unjust. I have seen him, in America, indignantly resent an ill-natured sneer at "John Bull,"—and, on the other hand, I have known him to take our part, at home. Shortly after Emerson's "English Traits" appeared, I was one of a dinner-party at his house, and the book was the principal topic of conversation. A member of Parliament took the opportunity of expressing his views to the only American present.
"What does Emerson know of England?" he asked. "He spends a few weeks here, and thinks he understands us. His work is false and prejudiced and shallow."
Thackeray happening to pass at the moment, the member arrested him with—