| Show DICKENS ON TIt THACKERAY ACKERAY 0 A graceful AND TOUCHING 8 TRIBUTE J the Thir following tribute tribu teto to the memory of william makepeace Tb ackeray thackeray by charles D ft opens the february number of the de i chilt ill magazine it has been desired by some of the personal i friend friends s of the great english writer who established this magazine magaz ined inet that its brief record of his bis having been stricken from among men should be written by the old oid comrade and brother brothen in arms who pens these linean and of whom he often wrote hims himself elfland and always with the warmest generosity 1 I saw him bini first nearly twenty eight years ago aab when he be propos proposed id to become the illustrator of my earliest earnest book I 1 saw him last shortly before Christ masat the Athen athenaeum mum club when he told me that he had been in bed three days that after these attacks be was troubled with cold which quite took the power of work out of him I 1 and that be had it in hla hia mind to try a new remedy which he laughingly described lie he wa was very svery cheerful and looked very bright li in ethe the ill iii night ht of 0 that day week be he died the long interval between these hese bese two periods is marke markel i in my remembrance of himi him by many occasions when aben be was ws supremely i humorous when he was irresistibly extravagant when be was softened and serious ahn he was charming with children but by node none do I 1 recall him more tenderly enderly than by two or three that start out of the crowd when he unexpectedly i presented himself in my room announcing bow low that some passage in a certain book had bad made him cry yesterday and add how that he be bad come to dinner because he help it 2 end ind apat talk some passage over ever no one can ever eier have seen him more 9 genial anial natural cordial fresh and honestly impulsive than I 1 have babe seen him at those times no one can be surer than 1 I of the thel t greatness and the goodness of the heart that then disclosed itself we had our differences of opinion 1 11 thought that he be too much feigned a want ot or I 1 earnestness and that be made a pretence presence pre tence le ot of undervaluing lug ing art which was t ot good fot tot the art that he held ia in trust but when he be fell upon ulon these topics it was never very veryl gravely and I 1 have a lively image of him ia in my mind twisting C both bis his hands in his hair and stamping about laughing to make an end of the discussion when gewere associated in remembrance f the late mr air douglas jerrold he delivered a public lecture in london london in the course of which he read his very best contribution to punch describing the grownup grown up cares of a poor family of or young children no one hearing him could have doubted his natural gentleness tl eness or his thoroughly unaffected manly sympathy with the weak and lowly he ire read most pathetically and with a simplicity simplic of tenderness that certainly moved one of his bis audience to tears 1 I his was presently after his standing for oxford from which place he had hia hla agent to me roe with a droll note to which he afterwards addea a 1 verbal postscript urging me to come down and make a speech and tell them who he vas wag for lie be doubted whether more tha than two of the electors had ever heard of him and he thought there might be aa as many as six or eight who had heard ot me 1 lie he introduced the lecture just V mentioned with a reference to bis his late ea electioneering electioneer ing failure which was full fall of good t sense good spirits and good humor I 1 lle lie ile he had a particular delight in boys and an excellent way with them I 1 remember hla hia once asking me with ith fantastic gravit gravity y when be he had been to eton where my edest odest boy then was wag whether I 1 felt as he did in regard of never seeing a boy without wanting instantly to give rive e him a sovereign I 1 thought of this when I 1 looked down into his grave after tie le was laid there for I 1 looked down into it ovir ovin ivr the tho shoulder of a boy to whom he had been I 1 klado kin d I 1 I 1 these are slight remembrances but it is to little familiar things suggestive of the voice look manner never never more to be encountered on ibis earth that the ther mind first turns turna in a bereavement and teater greater g things 1 that ire are known of way othis of his ivas ivar warm l affections his quiet endurance his tin tio unselfish selfish thong thoughtfulness h as for otters and his bis munificent hand may not be told if 1 in the reckless vivacity of his bis youth his pen bad ever gone astray or done am lashe had caused it to prefer its own petition for forgiveness long iong before 69 gire give lre lve ire writtie writ the aoh toh t hh beairs brulc the aimless ODIUM jest lest tim tiu guiding ha liach th caused pain tho the idle word back a alln ugin Inno pages paea should laue lake it upon myself at this time to discourse ot alu elia books of his hia refined knowledge of character of it subtle acquaintance with the buman human nature of his delightful ts an essayist of his quaint and touching M ads of hla hia mastery over the english laru lanu iaru ageo akao least ct of all in these pages enriched by hia hla brilliant qualities from the first of the bei set I 1 0 and beforehand accepted by the public through the strength of hig his great name but on the table before me there lies all that he had written of his bis latest and last story etory that it would be very sad to any one thatis ia is inexpressibly so to a writer in its evidences of bf matured derigi s never to be ac complis hed of intentions begun to be executed and destined never tobe to be completed of careful preparation for long roads of thought that he was never to traverse and for shining goals goats that he wag waa never to reach will be readily bell beli believed eyed eved the pain ain aln 1 however that I 1 have felt in berwing perusing it tas haa baa r not lot been deeper than the i conviction that be lit was wab ilis ills ilka in the healthiest vigor of 0 hi bib bis boia when he be wrought on this last labor in respect of earnest feeling farsee far see ing purpose character incident and a certain lovin iovin loving picture a blending the w whole b 0 I 1 e ibe the I 1 believe belleve it to be much the best of all his bis works that he fully meant itt it to obeso be so that he had bad become strongly etron gly attached to it and that he bestowed great pains upon it I 1 trace in almost every page it contains one picture which must have cost him extreme df dl stress and which is a masterpiece there are two children in it touched with a hand band as loving and tender as ever a father caressed his bis little child with there sherela is some young love as pure and innocent and pretty as the truth and it is very remarkable that by reason of the singular construction of the story more than one main incident usually belonging to the end of such a fiction is anticipated hi it the beginning and thus there is an approach to completeness in the fragment as to the toe satisfaction of the readers mind concerning the most interesting persons which could hardly have been better attained it the wr itera ittia break i ink ing ingoff off offhand hag had been foreseen I 1 the last line he be wrote and the last proof I 1 he be corrected are among these papers through I 1 which I 1 have BO so sorrowfully made my way the condition of the little pages of manuscript where death stopped his band shows that he had carried them about and often taken them out of his big pocket here and there for patient revision and thelast the last words he corrected in print were arid and my heart throbbed with an exquisite bliss I 1 god grant rant that on that christmas eve when be iain lain laid his bis head bead back on bis big pillow and threw up bib bis arms arma as be he had been wont to do when very weary some consciousness of duty done and christian h hope throughout life humbly cherished may ha have hase e caused his bis own heart so to throb when he passed away f to oh his bis Is redeemers resti he was found peacefully lying as above described composed undisturbed and to all appearance asleep on the of december decerb el r 1863 he was only in his fifty third year so young a man that the mother who blessed him in hla hia first sleep blessed dim nim bim him in his hla last a t twenty years before he had bad written atter alter being in a white squall it 1 and and when its force expensed the harmless har mlee mies storm was wig ended nord and as the sunrise splendid glen gien plen did dia came blushing blosh blush ine lne oer the ait sia 1 I thought as day was wi brea breaking tint clr little mile girls were waking and smiling and making A prayer at home for or me those little girls had bad grown to be women when the mournful day broke that saw their father lying dead in those twenty years of companionship wih with him they had learned much from him and one of them has a literary course before her worthy of her famous name on the bright wintry day the last jast but one of the old year be was laid in his bis grave at kensal green there to mingle the dust to which the mortal part of him had bad returned with that of a third bird child lost in her infancy years ago the beads of a great concourse of his fellow workers in the arts were bowed around the tomb |
