ish Humorists_. Why not use
his popularity in America as a means of acquiring a little fortune for
the sake of his wife and two girls. "I must and will go," he wrote to
his eldest daughter, "not because I like it, but because it is right I
should secure some money against my death for your mother and you two
girls. And I think, if I have luck, I may secure nearly a third of the
sum that I think I ought to leave behind me by a six months' tour in
the States."

Let us, in order to get a first-hand impression, read from letters
that he wrote from America:

"The passage is nothing, now it is over; I am rather ashamed of gloom
and disquietude about such a trifling journey. I have made scores of
new acquaintances and lighted on my feet as usual. I didn't expect to
like people as I do, but am agreeably disappointed and find many most
pleasant companions, natural and good; natural and well read and well
bred too, and I suppose am none the worse pleased because everybody
has read all my books and praises my lectures (I preach in a
Unitarian Church, and the parson comes to hear me. His name is Mr.
Bellows, it isn't a pretty name), and there are 2,000 people nearly
who come, and the lectures are so well liked that it is probable I
shall do them over again. So really there is a chance of making a
pretty little sum of money for old age, imbecility, and those young
ladies afterwards.... Broadway is miles upon miles long, a rush of
life such as I have never seen; not so full as the Strand, but so
rapid. The houses are always being torn down and built up again, the
railroad cars drive slap into the midst of the city. There are
barricades and scaffoldings banging everywhere. I have not been into a
house, except the fat country one, but something new is being done to
it, and the hammerings are clattering in the passage, or a wall or
steps are down, or the family is going to move. Nobody is quiet here,
nor am I. The rush and restlessness please me, and I like, for a
little, the dash of the stream. I am not received as a god, which I
like too. There is one paper which goes on every morning saying I am a
snob, and I don't say no. Six people were reading it at breakfast this
morning, and the man opposite me this morning popped it under the
table-cloth. But the other papers roar with approbation."

In this letter, of which we have read a fragment, Mr. Thackeray
inclosed a clipping from the New York _Evening Post_. This is what the
newspap