ng the passage up to his accustomed level, to the originality of his
rhythm. Here is the piece:--

"Another Finis, another slice of life which _Tempus edax_ has
devoured! And I may have to write the word once or twice, perhaps,
and then an end of Ends. [Finite is ever and Infinite beginning.] Oh,
the troubles, the cares, the _ennui_, [the complications,] the
repetitions, the old conversations over and over again, and here and
there all the delightful passages, the dear, the brief, the forever-
remembered!

"[And then] A few chapters more, and then the last, and behold Finis
itself coming to an end, and the Infinite beginning."

"How like music this," writes Dr. John Brown--"like one trying the
same air in different ways, as it were, searching out and sounding all
its depths!" The words were almost the last that Thackeray wrote,
perhaps the very last. They reply, as it were, to other words which
he had written long before to Mrs. Brookfield.

"I don't pity anybody who leaves the world; not even a fair young girl
in her prime; I pity those remaining. On her journey, if it pleases
God to send her, depend on it there's no cause for grief, that's but
an earthly condition. Out of our stormy life, and brought nearer the
Divine light and warmth, there must be a serene climate. Can't you
fancy sailing into the calm?"

Ah! nowhere else shall we find the Golden Bride, "passionless bride,
divine Tranquillity."

As human nature persistently demands a moral, and, as, to say truth,
Thackeray was constantly meeting the demand, what is the lesson of his
life and his writings? So people may ask, and yet how futile is the
answer! Life has a different meaning, a different riddle, a different
reply for each of us. There is not one sphinx, but many sphinxes--as
many as there are women and men. We must all answer for ourselves.
Pascal has one answer, "Believe!" Moliere has another, "Observe!"
Thackeray's answer is, "Be good and enjoy!" but a melancholy enjoyment
was his. Dr. John Brown says:

"His persistent state, especially for the later half of his life, was
profoundly _morne_, there is no other word for it. This arose in part
from temperament, from a quick sense of the littleness and wretchedness
of mankind . . . This feeling, acting on a harsh and savage nature, ended
in the _saeva indignatio_ of Swift; acting on the kindly and sensitive
nature of Mr. Th