ish I could recall half the incidents connected with the dear, dear
old Thackeray days, when I saw him so constantly and enjoyed him so
hugely; but, alas! many of them are gone, with much more that is lovely
and would have been of _good report_, could they be now
remembered;--they are dead as--(Holmes always puts your simile quite
right for you),--

"Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses,
On the old banks of the Nile."

But while I sit here quietly, and have no fear of any bad,
unsympathizing listeners who might, if some other subject were up,
frown upon my levity, let me walk through the dusky chambers of my
memory and report what I find there, just as the records turn up,
without regard to method.

I once made a pilgrimage with Thackeray (at my request, of course, the
visits were planned) to the various houses where his books had been
written; and I remember when we came to Young Street, Kensington, he
said, with mock gravity, "Down on your knees, you rogue, for here
'Vanity Fair' was penned! And I will go down with you, for I have a high
opinion of that little production myself." He was always perfectly
honest in his expressions about his own writings, and it was delightful
to hear him praise them when he could depend on his listeners. A friend
congratulated him once on that touch in "Vanity Fair" in which Becky
"_admires_" her husband when he is giving Steyne the punishment which
ruins _her_ for life. "Well," he said, "when I wrote the sentence, I
slapped my fist on the table and said, _'That_ is a touch of genius!'"

He told me he was nearly forty years old before he was recognized in
literature as belonging to a class of writers at all above the ordinary
magazinists of his day. "I turned off far better things then than I do
now," said he, "and I wanted money sadly, (my parents were rich but
respectable, and I had spent my guineas in my youth,) but how little I
got for my work! It makes me laugh," he continued, "at what The Times
pays me now, when I think of the old days, and how much better I wrote
for them then, and got a shilling where I now get ten."

One day he wanted a little service done for a friend, and I remember his
very quizzical expression, as he said, "Please say the favor asked will
greatly oblige a man of the name of Thackeray, whose only recommendation
is, that he has seen Napoleon and Goethe, and is the owner of Schiller's
sword."

I think he told me he and Tennyson were at