or later, read the touching little private notes by which
they were accompanied,--the heartrending appeals, in which he was told
that if this or the other little article could be accepted and paid for,
a starving family might be saved from starvation for a month. He tells
us how he felt on receiving such letters in one of his _Roundabout
Papers_, which he calls "_Thorns in the cushion_." "How am I to know,"
he says--"though to be sure I begin to know now,--as I take the letters
off the tray, which of those envelopes contains a real _bona fide_
letter, and which a thorn? One of the best invitations this year I
mistook for a thorn letter, and kept it without opening." Then he gives
the sample of a thorn letter. It is from a governess with a poem, and
with a prayer for insertion and payment. "We have known better days,
sir. I have a sick and widowed mother to maintain, and little brothers
and sisters who look to me." He could not stand this, and the money
would be sent, out of his own pocket, though the poem might
be--postponed, till happily it should be lost.

From such material a good editor could not be made. Nor, in truth, do I
think that he did much of the editorial work. I had once made an
arrangement, not with Thackeray, but with the proprietors, as to some
little story. The story was sent back to me by Thackeray--rejected.
_Virginibus puerisque!_ That was the gist of his objection. There was a
project in a gentleman's mind,--as told in my story,--to run away with a
married woman! Thackeray's letter was very kind, very regretful,--full
of apology for such treatment to such a contributor. But--_Virginibus
puerisque!_ I was quite sure that Thackeray had not taken the trouble to
read the story himself. Some moral deputy had read it, and disapproving,
no doubt properly, of the little project to which I have alluded, had
incited the editor to use his authority. That Thackeray had suffered
when he wrote it was easy to see, fearing that he was giving pain to one
he would fain have pleased. I wrote him a long letter in return, as full
of drollery as I knew how to make it. In four or five days there came a
reply in the same spirit,--boiling over with fun. He had kept my letter
by him, not daring to open it,--as he says that he did with that
eligible invitation. At last he had given it to one of his girls to
examine,--to see whether the thorn would be too sharp, whether I had
turned upon him with reproaches. A man so suscepti