Thackeray | Page 4

of him that it was all taken away
from him at cards, but such was not the truth. Some went in an Indian
bank in which he invested it. A portion was lost at cards. But with some
of it,--the larger part as I think,--he endeavoured, in concert with his
stepfather, to float a newspaper, which failed. There seem to have been
two newspapers in which he was so concerned, The National Standard
and The Constitutional. On the latter he was engaged with his
stepfather, and in carrying that on he lost the last of his money. The
National Standard had been running for some weeks when Thackeray
joined it, and lost his money in it. It ran only for little more than twelve
months, and then, the money having gone, the periodical came to an
end. I know no road to fortune more tempting to a young man, or one
that with more certainty leads to ruin. Thackeray, who in a way more or
less correct, often refers in his writings, if not to the incidents, at any
rate to the remembrances of his own life, tells us much of the story of
this newspaper in Lovel the Widower. "They are welcome," says the
bachelor, "to make merry at my charges in respect of a certain bargain
which I made on coming to London, and in which, had I been Moses
Primrose purchasing green spectacles, I could scarcely have been more
taken in. My Jenkinson was an old college acquaintance, whom I was
idiot enough to imagine a respectable man. The fellow had a very
smooth tongue and sleek sanctified exterior. He was rather a popular
preacher, and used to cry a good deal in the pulpit. He and a queer wine
merchant and bill discounter, Sherrick by name, had somehow got
possession of that neat little literary paper, The Museum, which perhaps
you remember, and this eligible literary property my friend Honeyman,
with his wheedling tongue, induced me to purchase." Here is the
history of Thackeray's money, told by himself plainly enough, but with
no intention on his part of narrating an incident in his own life to the
public. But the drollery of the circumstances, his own mingled folly
and young ambition, struck him as being worth narration, and the more
forcibly as he remembered all the ins and outs of his own reflections at

the time,--how he had meant to enchant the world, and make his
fortune. There was literary capital in it of which he could make use
after so many years. Then he tells us of this ambition, and of the folly
of it; and at the same time puts forward the excuses to be made for it. "I
daresay I gave myself airs as editor of that confounded Museum, and
proposed to educate the public taste, to diffuse morality and sound
literature throughout the nation, and to pocket a liberal salary in return
for my services. I daresay I printed my own sonnets, my own tragedy,
my own verses.... I daresay I wrote satirical articles.... I daresay I made
a gaby of myself to the world. Pray, my good friend, hast thou never
done likewise? If thou hast never been a fool, be sure thou wilt never be
a wise man." Thackeray was quite aware of his early weaknesses, and
in the maturity of life knew well that he had not been precociously wise.
He delighted so to tell his friends, and he delighted also to tell the
public, not meaning that any but an inner circle should know that he
was speaking of himself. But the story now is plain to all who can
read.[1]
It was thus that he lost his money; and then, not having prospered very
well with his drawing lessons in Paris or elsewhere, he was fain to take
up literature as a profession. It is a business which has its allurements.
It requires no capital, no special education, no training, and may be
taken up at any time without a moment's delay. If a man can command
a table, a chair, pen, paper, and ink, he can commence his trade as
literary man. It is thus that aspirants generally do commence it. A man
may or may not have another employment to back him, or means of his
own; or,--as was the case with Thackeray, when, after his first
misadventure, he had to look about him for the means of living,--he
may have nothing but his intellect and his friends. But the idea comes
to the man that as he has the pen and ink, and time on his hand, why
should he not write and make money?
It is an idea that comes to very many men and women, old as well as
young,--to many thousands who