Views and Reviews | Page 3

perhaps that immortal book should be described as a first improvisation
by a young man of genius not yet sure of either expression or ambition
and with only vague and momentary ideas about the duties and
necessities of art. But from Pickwick onwards to Edwin Drood the
effort after improvement is manifest. What are Dombey and Dorrit
themselves but the failures of a great and serious artist? In truth the
man's genius did but ripen with years and labour; he spent his life in
developing from a popular writer into an artist. He extemporised
Pickwick, it may be, but into Copperfield and Chuzzlewit and the Tale
of Two Cities and Our Mutual Friend he put his whole might, working
at them with a passion of determination not exceeded by Balzac
himself. He had enchanted the public without an effort; he was the

best-beloved of modern writers almost from the outset of his career.
But he had in him at least as much of the French artist as of the
middle-class Englishman; and if all his life he never ceased from
self-education but went unswervingly in pursuit of culture, it was out of
love for his art and because his conscience as an artist would not let
him do otherwise. We have been told so often to train ourselves by
studying the practice of workmen like Gautier and Hugo and imitating
the virtues of work like Hernani and Quatre-Vingt-Treize and
l'Education Sentimentale--we have heard so much of the aesthetic
impeccability of Young France and the section of Young England that
affects its qualities and reproduces its fashions--that it is hard to refrain
from asking if, when all is said, we should not do well to look for
models nearer home? if in place of such moulds of form as
Mademoiselle de Maupin we might not take to considering stuff like
Rizpah and Our Mutual Friend?

Ave atque Vale.
Yes, he had many and grave faults. But so had Sir Walter and the good
Dumas; so, to be candid, had Shakespeare himself--Shakespeare the
king of poets. To myself he is always the man of his unrivalled and
enchanting letters--is always an incarnation of generous and abounding
gaiety, a type of beneficent earnestness, a great expression of
intellectual vigour and emotional vivacity. I love to remember that I
came into the world contemporaneously with some of his bravest work,
and to reflect that even as he was the inspiration of my boyhood so is
he a delight of my middle age. I love to think that while English
literature endures he will be remembered as one that loved his
fellow-men, and did more to make them happy and amiable than any
other writer of his time.

THACKERAY
His Worshippers.

It is odd to note how opinions differ as to the greatness of Thackeray
and the value of his books. Some regard him as the greatest novelist of
his age and country and as one of the greatest of any country and any
age. These hold him to be not less sound a moralist than excellent as a
writer, not less magnificently creative than usefully and delightfully
cynical, not less powerful and complete a painter of manners than
infallible as a social philosopher and incomparable as a lecturer on the
human heart. They accept Amelia Sedley for a very woman; they
believe in Colonel Newcome--'by Don Quixote out of Little Nell'--as in
something venerable and heroic; they regard William Dobbin and
'Stunning' Warrington as finished and subtle portraitures; they think
Becky Sharp an improvement upon Mme. Marneffe and Wenham
better work than Rigby; they are in love with Laura Bell, and refuse to
see either cruelty or caricature in their poet's presentment of Alcide de
Mirobolant. Thackeray's fun, Thackeray's wisdom, Thackeray's
knowledge of men and women, Thackeray's morality, Thackeray's view
of life, 'his wit and humour, his pathos, and his umbrella,' are all
articles of belief with them. Of Dickens they will not hear; Balzac they
incline to despise; if they make any comparison between Thackeray
and Fielding, or Thackeray and Richardson, or Thackeray and Sir
Walter, or Thackeray and Disraeli, it is to the disadvantage of Disraeli
and Scott and Richardson and Fielding. All these were well enough in
their way and day; but they are not to be classed with Thackeray. It is
said, no doubt, that Thackeray could neither make stories nor tell them;
but he liked stories for all that, and by the hour could babble
charmingly of Ivanhoe and the Mousquetaires. It is possible that he was
afraid of passion, and had no manner of interest in crime. But then, how
hard he bore upon snobs, and how vigorously he lashed the smaller
vices and the meaner faults! It may be beyond dispute that he was
seldom good at