Masters of Literature Thackeray (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Masters of Literature Thackeray

He returned with a resolution to work his own way and was admitted to the Bar; in the intervals of that leisurely career he wrote articles and drew caricatures. It was as a draughtsman that he took himself most seriously. There is a legend that he actually waited upon Dickens with a proposal to illustrate his books, then already in the blaze of popularity. Dickens, pre sumably, declined; which was a good thing for Dickens's books, but also a good thing for Thackeray's. Although the interview was futile it affects the imagination as much as the meeting with Napoleon. Thackeray's first formidable appearance in letters was in Fraser's Maga zine; where he made his name - or rather made his pseudonym. Over the signature of Michael Angelo Titmarsh (with occasional holidays of a more vulgar sort under that of James Yellowplush) he began to pour out his experiences, which were already somewhat motley and even squalid. This must always be remem bered in the silly discussion about whether Thackeray was a cynic. The false impression was given, not because he made his heroes less than his villains, but because he certainly wrote about villains before he wrote about heroes. Madame d'ivry and Captain Blackball, Mrs.

Mackenzie and Mr. Moss, can be found in his earliest and crudest sketches. It is exactly Ethel Newcome and the Colonel who do not come in till afterwards. Something of this healing and humanizing may have been efl'ected by his marriage; though its ultimate issue was, as everyone knows, painful and terrible. Mrs. Thackeray was sent to an asylum; and Thackeray said a very fine thing: I would do it over again.

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