The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-06-21

 competent hands. It deals with a time too far past to permit him to use the genius for depicting the manners, customs and life of the contemporaneous world which made his "Pendennis," "The New comes" and "Vanity Fair such monu- mental achievements in modern lltera- ture. At the same time the period in which "The Virginians" plays is too re- cent, as historical time is measured to lend his story the glamour and romance of a buried past that make Henry Es- mond" so glowing and picturesque. A man of lesser power probably would have succeeded only in making 'The Vir- ginians' one of the many hundreds or thousands of historical novels, in which the story gains almost all of its interest from the history. William Makepeace Thackeray has made history gain by his story.
 That is the difference between genius and-others.
 "HERE was only one subject in all
 the world regarding which Harry
 l Esmond of Virginia did not agree with his adored twin brother George. who, by fortune of having been born half an hour or so before the other, was heir to the great estate of his grandfather, Henry Esmond.
 That one subject was their young neighbor, Maj. George Washington.
 "He always seemed great to me- wrote Harry Warrington, long afterward Conly he did not spell 1t so well. Poor Harry never managed the pen as well as he did the gun and the bridle). "I never thought of him otherwise than as hero. If he fired a shot the bird was sure to come down. If he flung a net the largest flsh in the river was sure to be in it. To see him riding to hounds was as if to see him charging an army. His words were al- ways few, but they were always wise; they were not idle as our words are, they were grave, sober and strong and ready on occasion to do their duty. In spite or his antipathy to him, my brother re- spected and admired the general as much as I did-that is to say, more than any other mortal man.
 Whence sprang George Warringtons antipathy to that other George? Not from dissiniliarity of temperament, for if he was more quick of speech and pas sion he was not less grave or less thoughtful or less just than was MT Washington; and Harry spoke truly or his brothers admiration for the gentle man.
 Perhaps it all sprang from an incident in their boyhood days when MT. Wasn- ington. being called on for advice by the lads mother in a matter Of insuporolIl- aticn. had reluctantly but firmly counsel- ed a thrashing by their tutor. Although the thrashing was never administered oW- ing to the fact that Harry and George nearly gave one to the tutor instead, George never forgot the part played by MT. Washington, a part which seemed all the more aggravating as the one George was only few years older than the other.
 So the two proud Virginians, though they could not help being friends, maln- tained their friendship with a judicious reserve-quite different from the eagef' brave. headlong worship which eager, brave, headlong Harry gave with all his heart.
 As time went on George looked with growing displeasure on the intimacy with which MT. Washington was received at all times by the lady of the estate, their mother Mrs Warrington, who treated him with an evident and open respect that was only less than Harry's.
 Not many persons in the colony Of Vir- ginia-not even the Governor and certain ly not his lady-could boast of enjoying the deference of Mrs. Warrington, who foyb far If EsSmOnd was only a little less than royal.
 Indeed she called herself Mime. Esmond, choosing to ignore the Warringtons of Norfolk, of which family her husband, MT. Warrington, had been younger son. Though she signed herself Esmond War iipgton, the "Warringten" was generally abbreviated, and in the colony she was known, half in pleasantly and half Tn earnest, as Lady Esmond
 Quarrels, angry words, perhaps even scuffie or two marked her demands for precedence at the governors assemblies in James Town and similar functions. But her pretensions were successful, for all the world knew that her father. Col. Esmond, despite the simplicity with which he bore himself after his retirement to America, had been the rightful Lord to Castlewood in England and that he had resigned title and estates out of love for kinsman, whose mother he married and brought to the Virginia property Ev- erybody knew, too, although he never spoke of it, that he had torn up a patent of Marquis conferred on his father and himself by King James II, and thrown it at the feet of that monarchs selfish, ungrateful and ill-starred son, the Pre- tender
 As Colonel Esmond he lived in America, and died, after having passed his wid- owed latter years in peaceful, humorous submission to his imperious and loving daughter.
 Mime. Esmond never forgot the reiin- quished Marquisate or the estate of Cas- tlewood, after which Colonel Esmond had named his Virginia plantations As she surveyed the immense territories that were to fall to George, as heir to his fathers property, as well as his grand fathers, she wished moreAthan once that she could lay them all and the titles be- fore Harry; and from Georges infancy he had become accustomed to hearing her refer to the younger in tones of pity as poor boy who but for half an hours &C., cdent of birth might have been master of all.
 Honest George never thought of for