The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-06-09
From a Letter by Henry Watterson, in the Louisville Courier-Journa

From a Letter by Henry Watterson, in
 the Louisville Courier-Journal
 very young man. He was for
 ~ painting pictures, not for writing books, and he retained his artistic pas sions and ambitions long after he had become a great and famous man of let ters. It was in Paris, I think, that he married his wife, and here that the tragic finale came to pass; the most heart-breaking chapter I know of in lit- erary history.
 His little girls lived here with their grandparents One of them relates how she was once taken up some flights of stairs by the Countess x to the apart ment of frail young man to whom the Countess was carrying a basket of fruit; and how the frail young man insisted, against the protest of the countess, upon sitting at the piano and playing; and of how they came out again, the eyes of the countess streaming with tears, and of her saying, as they drove away Never, never forget, my child, as long as you live, that you have heard Chopin play" It was in one of the lubberly houses of the Place Vendome that the poet of the keyboard died a few days later. Just around the corner. in the Rue du Mont Thabor, died Alfred de Muset. A brass plate marks the house. They were twin victims of the vampire, Georges Sand.
 The English in England are preparing to take fitting notice of the centenary of the birth of Thackeray. and, not to be outdone, the English in France are or ganizing to celebrate it here. It seems that there is Titmarsh club equally in London and in Paris. America should have some representative in both-Dr. J. J. Conway, who is a member of the Paris club, being but half an Americans; in point of fact, Irish by nativity-though it may be that among his colleagues are others to the manner born.
 I read in the London papers that ar- engagements already completed embrace for that city some proper and suggestive features The 2Sth of June dinner will be given at the Charterhouse, to which brethren in residence will be invited to lend their impressive presence. The Brothers, we are told, go out of commons at the end of June, for which reason the dinner was fixed for that month. Such a prelude is at once suggestive and touch- ing. Among those who will appear are to be the lord chief justice, to represent the governors of the Charterhouse: Sir Algernon West, MT. Anthony Hope Haw- kins, MT. w. J. Locke, MT. Walter Jer- l rold and others more or less distinguished in literature and journalism. Later in the | evening reception to meet the mem- bers of the Titmarsh club and Lady Ritchie (Thackeray's surviving daughter) will be given by the master of the Char | terhouse. Before the dinner service will be held in the chapel, at which the master will officiate, and the lessons will be read by MT. Cyril Maude, an old Car. thusian.
 Two days later the Thackeray exhibi- ton at the Charterhouse will be opened by none other than Lord Rosebery, who, we are informed, will make short speech He could afford to make a long one. No Englishman of letters was more ill-used in his life than was Thackeray, and the detractors are not all dead yet. The exhibition, which will remain open until the 18th of July will include man. uscripts, drawings and first editions of Thackeray's works, as well as complete set of portraits.
 The Benchers of the Middle Temple are also to give dinner in their hall on May 26 Thackeray having been called to the bar at the Middle Temple May 26, 1s46, a circumstance which cut no figure in his subsequent career, although he did have some hankering for politics and was happily defeated for parliament.
 All this seems admirably arranged. The noise and fustian. little tinged with self-seeking and vulgarity, attendant upon the Dickens observancess could have