The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-06-21
Recent Publications.

Mr.. Anthony Trollope's volume concerning
Thackeray (Harper's Series of Biographies of
English Men of Letters; Portland: Loring
Short Harmony is an attractive, and in some
points an unique specimen of bookmaking. 1t
is less biography than memoirs the facts
and events of Thackeray's life present few sa-
lent opportunities for set history. Such
records as might remain after his life, Mr..
Thackeray desired should be destroyed; and
his wish was faithfully regarded by his daugh-
ters Assuredly the great novelist had every
right to dispose of his possessions of literary
and personal fame, as he had to bestow what
ever property he had in monies or es-
tates; and though with some Justice it may be
said that the public, by virtue of its interest
and pride in such writer as was Mr.. Thacker-
ay, has claim to inheritance of knowledge of
the personal and social conditions under which
he worked-it is not less true that the works in
themselves may contain nearly all the evil
dences of an authors gifts and experience that
he has cared to afford; and beyond this, inter-
est should give place to respect of the reticence
that one looks for in the usual face-to-face ac-
quaintance with another, and should expect
not less in literary communication. Such
Trollope has arranged compactly in the first
chapter of his memoir; and having thus given
the outlines Of the life of his subject, he pro-
ceeds to develop carefully and minutely his
singularly appreciative knowledge of Mr..
Thackerays work and character. Mr.. An
thony Trollope is not an emotional writer, but
he possesses sturdy sense of justice, and
much kindliness, evel partisanship where he
thinks that it will be suitable. He roundly
denies that Thackeray was a cynic-a satirist
is the hardest term that he is willing to apply
to the author of Vanity Fair and the Book of
Snobs. Not little, indeed, of Mr.. Trollopes
effort is directed toward refuting, in !semi-
apology, the various charges made against the
animus of Mr.. Thackeray's pen. In writing
of the Snob papers, Mr.. Trollope does some
remarkably good and suggestive work He
comedies that Thackeray's mind was overready
to detect the faintest symptoms of snobbish-
ness, until every manifestation of human na-
ture became, in his eyes, charged with the
petty meanness of that social failing. 'In
fact Mr.. Trollope is led to reflect "the read
er is driven to tell himself that the meaning of
it all is that Adams family is from first to last
a family of snobs." ~ fancy" he resumes
later, 'that policeman considers that every
man in the street would be properly
run in if only all the truth about the man
had been known. The tinker thinks that
every pot is unsound. The cobbler doubts the
stability of every shoe. So at last it grew to be
the case with Thackeray." And so on, in
passage too long for quotation, but notably
| keen, reasonable and well-expressed. Mr.
| Trollope also considers that Thackeray, in his
attacks upon the forms of snobbishness
| to which certain professions are LA
| BILE, derided rather the professions and
| their personnel than their abstract pecu-
liarities of snobbism All that Mr.. Trollope
| says On this subject, and much that he leaves
| quite unsaid, will suggest to the reader that
| such morbid sensitiveness of Mr.. Thackeray's
| mind to every appearance of the trait he so
bitterly despised-betrayed little faint of the
same fault in ITSELF No man could so fiercely
and continuously assail human error, not
very tragic in its tendencies and usually even
amusing in its manifestations, unless he felt in
himself the potential beginnings of the same
fault. "Above the condor scars the eagle"
and it may be that is a higher flight of snob-
bishness that hunts down, through heights of
air the lesser bird of similar feather. 1t is not
inconsistent either, with the theory of possible
snobbishness sternly repressed, that Mr..
Thackeray was so reluctant to leave behind
him any material for biography. A life SO
| worthily lived as his, needed no especial re-
serves. Thackeray had sown seeds of laugh
ter in his day, and was unwilling to reap the
harvest But it is not likely that the world,
which takes very sincere interest in its great
men, would have laughed at any details of the
novelst's life. Such details would have COM
mented upon his work, might have softened
the impression which certainly exists as to his
cynicism, and would have drawn his readers
closer in common alliance of human feelings
Not less successful in their way, are Mr.. Troll
lopes critical remarks upon Thackeray's Noy-
els, Lectures, Poems and his manner of work
The memoir is remarkable for its brightness of
appreciation, clear and attractive style and the
evident acquaintance which the author had
with the subject of his work 1t gives a strik-
ing and consistent likeness of the great novel
ist, and increases the already considerable es-
TEEN for Mr. Trollope as practical and an
effective writer.
saVols l. and II. of Mr.. Gladstone's Gleanings
of Past Years (New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons; Portland: Loring, Short & Harmony con-