  So much has been said of Thackeray's letter-writing powers in the Introduction that not much need be added here on the general side. But a few words may be allowed on what we may call the conditioning circumstances which affected these powers, and made the result so peculiar. Except in Swift's case—a thing piquant in itself considering the injustice of the later writer to the earlier—hardly any body of letters exhibits these conditions so obviously and in so varied a fashion. In both there was the utmost intellectual satire combined with the utmost tenderness of feeling. Thackeray of course, partly from nature and partly from the influence of time, did not mask his tenderness and double-edge his severity with roughness and coarseness. But the combination was intrinsically not very different. There has also to be taken into account in Thackeray's case domestic sorrow—coming quickly and life-long after it began; means long restricted (partly by his own folly but not so more tolerable); recognition of genius almost as long deferred; and yet other "maladies of the soul." The result was a constant ferment, of which the letters are in a way the relieving valve or tap. That they are often apparently light-hearted has nothing surprising in it: for when a man habitually "eats his heart" it naturally becomes lighter—till there is nothing of it left. He is, however, not easy to "sample," there being, as has been said, no authorised collection to draw upon and other difficulties in the way. What follows may serve for fault 47. To Miss Lucy Baxter Washington, Saturday My dear little kind Lucy: I began to write you a letter in the railroad yesterday, but it bumped with more than ordinary violence, and I was forced to give up the endeavour. I did not know how ill Lucy was at that time, only remembered that I owed her a letter for that pretty one you wrote me at Philadelphia, when Sarah was sick and you acted as her Secretary. Is there going to be always Somebody sick at the brown house? If I were to come there now, I wonder should I be allowed to come and see you in your night-cap—I wonder even do you wear a night-cap? I should step up, take your little hand, which I daresay is lying outside the coverlet, give it a little shake; and then sit down and talk all sorts of stuff and nonsense to you for half an hour; but very kind and gentle, not so as to make you laugh too much or your little back ache any more. Did I not tell you to leave off that beecely jimnayshum? I am always giving fine advice to girls in brown houses, and they But even if Miss Lucy had not had her fall, I daresay there would have been no party. Here is a great snow-storm falling, though yesterday was as bland and bright as May (English May, I mean) and how could we have lionized Baltimore, and gone to Mount Vernon, and taken our diversion in the snow? There would have been nothing for it but to stay in this little closet of a room, where there is scarce room for 6 people, and where it is not near so comfortable as the brown house. Dear old b.h., shall I see it again soon? I shall not go farther than Charleston, and Savannah probably, and then I hope I shall get another look at you all again before I commence farther wanderings—O, stop! I didn't tell you why I was going to write you—well, I went on Thursday to dine with Governor and Mrs. Fish, a dinner in honor of me—and before I went I arrayed myself in a certain white garment of which the collar-button-holes had been altered, and I thought of the kind, friendly little hand that had done that deed for me; and when the Fisheses told me how they lived in the Second Avenue (I had forgotten all about 'em)—their house and the house opposite came back to my mind, and I liked them 50 times better for living near some friends of mine. She is a nice woman, Madam Fish, besides; and didn't I abuse you all to her? Good bye, dear little Lucy—I wish the paper wasn't full. But I have been sitting half an hour by the poor young lady's W. M. T. 48. The "Trumpet" Coffee-house, 'Mr Spectator— 'I am a gentleman but little acquainted with the town, though I have had a university education, and passed some years serving my country abroad, where my name is better known than in the coffee-houses and St. James's. 'Two years since my uncle died, leaving me a pretty estate in the county of Kent; and being at Tunbridge Wells last summer, after my mourning was over, and on the look-out, if truth must be told, for some young lady who would share with me the solitude of my great Kentish house, and be kind to my tenantry (for whom a woman can do a great deal more good than the best-intentioned man can), I was greatly fascinated by a young lady of London, who was the toast of all the company at the Wells. Everyone knows Saccharissa's beauty; and I think, Mr. Spectator, no one better than herself. 'My table-book informs me that I danced no less than seven-and-twenty sets with her at the assembly. I treated her to the fiddles twice. I was admitted on several days to her lodging, and received by her with a great deal of distinction, and, for a time, was entirely her slave. It was only when I found, from common talk of the company at the Wells, and from narrowly watching one, who I once 'Business calling me to London, I went to St. James's Church last Sunday, and there opposite me sat my beauty of the Wells. Her behaviour during the whole service was so pert, languishing and absurd; she flirted her fan, and ogled and eyed me in a manner so indecent, that I was obliged to shut my eyes, so as actually not to see her, and whenever I opened them beheld hers (and very bright they are) still staring at me. I fell in with her afterwards at Court, and at the playhouse; and here nothing would satisfy her but she must elbow through the crowd and speak to me, and invite me to the assembly, which she holds at her house, nor very far from Ch—r—ng Cr—ss. 'Having made her a promise to attend, of course I kept my promise; and found the young widow in the midst of a half-dozen of card-tables, and a crowd of wits and admirers. I made the best bow I could, and advanced towards her; and saw by a peculiar puzzled look in her face, though she tried to hide her perplexity, that she had forgotten even my name. 'Her talk, artful as it was, convinced me that I had guessed aright. She turned the conversation most ridiculously upon the spelling of names and words; and 'Then she came to the question, which I knew was awaiting me, and asked how I spelt my name? "Madam," says I, turning on my heel, "I spell it with the y." And so I left her, wondering at the light-heartedness of the town-people, who forget and make friends so easily, and resolved to look elsewhere for a partner for your constant reader. 'Cymon Wyldoats. 'You know my real name, Mr. Spectator, in which there is no such a letter as hupsilon. But if the lady, whom I have called Saccharissa, wonders that I appear no more at the tea-tables, she is hereby respectfully informed the reason y.' |
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