The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-09-18

cult to realize how such pithy humor
could be the result of experiences that
could have been nothing but trial to the
writer. Can 1t be that Thackeray really
had faculty of forgetting his surround
ipgs and becoming oblivious to all but
such incidents as interested him, and al
lowing only them to make any impression
on his mind? But thousand critics
would answer this question in thousand
different ways.
Mrs. Richie begins at the time when
her father went to Paris, leaving London
land his work and his home" Mrs
Thackeray had been very i'll. Expenses
were great, and Thackeray had to find
the means. There was anxiety and the
difficulty of earning an income to meet 1t
ALL" Thackeray is anxious about the
success of "Titmarsh.'' His royalty
amounts to 711d out of each half crown
and he calculates 100 copies, 93 Is 3D."
and on the 100, 900 copies, 93,125 0 o." OF
course he is joking. He writes all this to
Mrs. Proctor, and winds up with "One
hundred copies have already been sold,
so that you see my fortune is very
clear
In 1S41 Thackeray tells Mrs Proctor of
his new novel, Cecil" II am about a
wonderful romance, and 1 so long for the
day when the three volumes shall be COM
pleted." Mrs. Ritchie's comment is, IF
this romance was that well-known one
without hero, 1t did not finally come
out for years, during which how many
other ventures are there not to be count
cdr Hard at his work with such a bur-
den, an i'll wife and a young family,
Thackeray did not repine. He wrote of
his personal anxieties to Mrs. Proctor in
an amusing way:
Please. when you write. not to give me any
account whatever of any gayeties in which
hanDnAGS
to the share of you or anybody else. But If
anybody meets with an accident. is arrested.
ruined, has Wife run away WITH If c. falls
Ill and is marked with smallpox, be so kind
as to write me off word Immediately, and I
will pay the post cheerfully. Despair,
madam. is the word. Byronish. I hate man
kind. and wear my shirt collar turned down.
About that time Thackeray writes his
mother that he is bitten with my old
written that famous book you know of
and made a few hundred pounds make a
VOW to the great gods that will try
and Sketches, being of 1S4I. The Paris raifs
Sketch Book had been published the
year before "Titmarsh,5 though no
failure, had not been a money success
He he says that only lao copies were sold.
1t has. however, been hugely praised
by the press, and will serve to keep my
name up, though failure.
When in Ireland making UP material
for THE Irish Sketch Book Mrs. Richie
writes: My fathers spirits vary very
much. He was glad when the trip was
about ending; He sees the Giants
place was so awful and lonely l fed from
It,. Then he had "a lonely dinner at a
hotel. huge place. without a soul in 1t,
had just gone 1t was in The Irish
Sketch Book that the most delightful of
all Ihackeray's poems. Peg of Lima
"One can feel the shadow In the poem,
as we'll as the sunshine of 1t, and the
courage and sweetness of the temper
Irish Sketch Book" came out in 1S43.
AS long before as 1886 Thackeray had
the East in his mind. 1t was a mental
He tells his cousin, William Ritchie. of
his plans-how he will write a book. get
300 lguineas for it and exhibit his sketches
and i!,, sell MS drawings, and he winds. up
jug Of milk. Later on ThacAeray had an
idea of starting weekly paper, CON
1 tanning ne good not wesN in reviews good
should have decided air of white kid
gloves
In 1874 he was to have come home. but
had an offer Ito go passage free by the
Oriental Company to Lisbon, Cadiz, Glib
raltar, Tangier, Athens, Constantinople,
thought, the chance SO great that 1 have
accepted. The book, of course, is or
dered" During this jaunt Thackeray
the note book Mrs. Richie prints. Thack-
cray never was idle. On the trip he was
writing for Punch and working on Barry
Lyndon" On the 2Sth of September he
notes "a white squall in the morning.
and that was the source of his brisk
poem. On November there is this entry:
I'm these days did scarcely anything but
work and design the character for Mrs
Perkins ball." Now we may say look
ing over the early works of Thackeray as
they, were known some half century ago
in the United States, that 1t was Mrs.
Perkins Bali which was the first book
Of Thackeray's which attracted atten-
ton. The prints were immensely comic,
ing.
How charming is this little incident