Those who knew the physical torments to which Thackeray was periodically subject—spasms which not only racked his strong frame, but temporarily darkened his views of men and things—must wonder, that, with the obligation to write permanently hanging over him, he was not more frequently betrayed into impatient or petulant expressions. In his clear brain, he judged himself no less severely, and watched his own nature no less warily, than he regarded other men. His strong sense of justice was always alert and active. He sometimes tore away the protecting drapery from the world's pet heroes and heroines, but, on the other hand, he desired no one to set him beside them. He never betrayed the least sensitiveness in regard to his place in literature. The comparisons which critics sometimes instituted between himself and other prominent authors simply amused him. In 1856, he told me that he had written a play which the managers had ignominiously rejected. "I thought I could write for the stage," said he; "but it seems I can't. I have a mind to have the piece privately performed, here at home. I'll take the big footman's part." This plan, however, was given up, and the material of the play was afterwards used, I believe, in "Lovel, the Widower."
I have just read a notice of Thackeray, which asserts, as an evidence of his weakness in certain respects, that he imagined himself to be an artist, and persisted in supplying bad illustrations to his own works. This statement does injustice to his self-knowledge. He delighted in the use of the pencil, and often spoke to me of his illustrations being a pleasant relief to hand and brain, after the fatigue of writing. He had a very imperfect sense of color, and confessed that his forte lay in caricature. Some of his sketches were charmingly drawn upon the block, but he was often unfortunate in his engraver. The original MS. of "The Rose and the Ring," with the illustrations, is admirable. He was fond of making groups of costumes and figures of the last century, and I have heard English artists speak of his talent in this genre: but he never professed to be more than an amateur, or to exercise the art for any other reason than the pleasure it gave him.
He enjoyed the popularity of his lectures, because they were out of his natural line of work. Although he made several very clever after-dinner speeches, he always assured me that it was accidental,—that he had no talent whatever for thinking on his feet.
"Even when I am reading my lectures," he said, "I often think to myself, 'What a humbug you are, and I wonder the people don't find it out!'"
When in New-York, he confessed to me that he should like immensely to find some town where the people imagined that all Englishmen transposed their hs, and give one of his lectures in that style. He was very fond of relating an incident which occurred during his visit to St. Louis. He was dining one day in the hotel, when he overheard one Irish waiter say to another,—
"Do you know who that is?"
"No," was the answer.
"That," said the first, "is the celebrated Thacker!"
"What's he done?"
"D——d if I know!"