John Leechs Pictures of Life and Character | Page 9

the glass, informs
that "she has used the whole bottle of Balm of California, but her hair
comes off yet." You can see the bear's-grease not only on Tongs's head
but on his hands, which he is clapping clammily together. Remark him
who is telling his client "there is cholera in the hair;" and that lucky

rogue whom the young lady bids to cut off "a long thick piece"--for
somebody, doubtless. All these men are different, and delightfully
natural and absurd. Why should hair- dressing be an absurd profession?
The amateur will remark what an excellent part hands play in Mr.
Leech's pieces: his admirable actors use them with perfect naturalness.
Look at Betty, putting the urn down; at cook, laying her hands on the
kitchen table, whilst her policeman grumbles at the cold meat. They are
cook's and housemaid's hands without mistake, and not without a
certain beauty too. The bald old lady, who is tying her bonnet at
Tongs's, has hands which you see are trembling. Watch the fingers of
the two old harridans who are talking scandal: for what long years past
they have pointed out holes in their neighbors' dresses and mud on their
flounces. "Here's a go! I've lost my diamond ring." As the dustman
utters this pathetic cry, and looks at his hand, you burst out laughing.
These are among the little points of humor. One could indicate
hundreds of such as one turns over the pleasant pages.
There is a little snob or gent, whom we all of us know, who wears little
tufts on his little chin, outrageous pins and pantaloons, smokes cigars
on tobacconists' counters, sucks his cane in the streets, struts about with
Mrs. Snob and the baby (Mrs. S. an immense woman, whom Snob
nevertheless bullies), who is a favorite abomination of Leech, and
pursued by that savage humorist into a thousand of his haunts. There he
is, choosing waistcoats at the tailor's--such waistcoats! Yonder he is
giving a shilling to the sweeper who calls him "Capting;" now he is
offering a paletot to a huge giant who is going out in the rain. They
don't know their own pictures, very likely; if they did, they would have
a meeting, and thirty or forty of them would be deputed to thrash Mr.
Leech. One feels a pity for the poor little bucks. In a minute or two,
when we close this discourse and walk the streets, we shall see a dozen
such.
Ere we shut the desk up, just one word to point out to the unwary
specially to note the backgrounds of landscapes in Leech's drawings--
homely drawings of moor and wood, and seashore and London street--
the scenes of his little dramas. They are as excellently true to nature as
the actors themselves; our respect for the genius and humor which
invented both increases as we look and look again at the designs. May
we have more of them; more pleasant Christmas volumes, over which

we and our children can laugh together. Can we have too much of truth,
and fun, and beauty, and kindness?

End of Project Gutenberg's John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character
by William Makepeace Thackeray

John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character

from http://mc.clintock.com/gutenberg/