if she had
been buried in her grave. The knowledge of her existence, which was a
ghastly death in life, the fact that it prevented him from giving his
three young girls a real home, as well as barred him under the English
law from marrying again--all these things to Thackeray were an
ever-present pain, like acid on an open wound. It was this sorrow,
from which he could never escape that gave such exquisite tenderness
to his pathos; and it was this sorrow, acting on one of the most
sensitive natures, that often sharpened his satire and made it
merciless when directed against the shams and hypocrisies of life.

[Illustration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY FROM A DRAWING BY
SAMUEL LAURENCE, ENGRAVED BY J.C. ARMYTAGE]

Thackeray's fame rests mainly on two great books--_Vanity Fair_ and
_Henry Esmond_. The first has been made very real to thousands of
readers by the brilliant acting of Mrs. Fiske in Becky Sharp. The
other is one of the finest historical novels in the language and the
greatest exploit in bringing over into our century the style, the mode
of thought, the very essence of a previous age. Thackeray was
saturated with the literature of the eighteenth century, and in
_Esmond_ he reproduced the time of Addison and Steele as perfectly as
he made an imitation of a number of the SPECTATOR. This literary _tour
de force_ was made the more noteworthy by the absolute lack of all
effort on the novelist's part. The style of Queen Anne's age seemed a
part of the man, not an assumed garment. While in the heroine of
_Vanity Fair_ Thackeray gave the world one of the coldest and most
selfish of women, he atoned for this by creating in _Esmond_ the
finest gentleman in all English literature, with the single exception
of his own Colonel Newcome.

Strict injunctions Thackeray left against any regulation biography,
and the result is that the world knows less of his life before fame
came to him than it does of any other celebrated author of his age.
The scanty facts show that he was born in Calcutta in 1811; that he
was left a fortune of $100,000 by his father, who died when he was
five years old; that, like most children of Anglo-Indians, he was sent
to school in England; that he was prepared for college at the old
Charter House School; that he was graduated from Trinity College,
Cambridge, and that while in college he showed much ability as a
writer of verse and prose, although he took no honors and gained no
prizes. After re