File:Review of reviews and world's work (1890) (14587050449).jpg

Identifier: reviewofreviewsw44newy (find matches)
Title: Review of reviews and world's work
Year: 1890 (1890s)
Authors:
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Publisher: New York Review of Reviews Corp
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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had little knowledge of lower and darker socialworlds and preferred to state his comedies andtragedies in terms of the upper classes. . . . Hisinterest was aroused by the humanity of what wasrespectable and not by a humanitarianismtoward what was abject or pathetic, like that ofDickens. . . . Thackeray was distinctly the criticand historian of his own time, his own town, hisown class. . . . His popularity was warm, but itwas ne\er wildfire like that of Dickens, the blue-covered instalments of whose works were hungeredand fought for by thousands as they appeared. Of the personal appearance of the novelistthere is gi\en an excellent idea in the follow-ing paragraph: Boehms famous statue of Thackeray, long-legged, standing at ease with hands in pockets, andcoat-tails dangling, with his massi\e head slightlyraised, the expression benign but curiously atten-tive, the small, steel-rimmed spectacles pressedupon the little nose, broken as a boy by his school- LEADING ARTICLES OF THE MONTH 227
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THACKERAYS LAST PHOTOGRAPH (From the original given by his daughter Anne (Lady Ritchie) to Bayard Taylor,after Thackerays death) mate Venables—that statue is Thackeray not onlyto the life, but to the soul. To the same magazine Miss Ethel Talbotcontributes a clever analysis of Thackerayswomen characters, from which, owing to lackof space, we (regretfully) can give only a fewextracts. Thackeray has twice drawn the perfect adven-turess: in Becky Sharp and in Blanche Amory;and has differentiated them beautifully. SinceBecky Sharp tends to the statuesque, the splcn-didly dignified, her foil, Amelia Sedley, must besmall, sweet, and stupid. As Blanche Amory ispetite, sly, full of small ways and wiles, so LauraPendennis is all stately purity. Thackeray never draws a lovable old age, save,perhaps, in the person of Colonel Newcome, whocan never be really old. He could not imagineBetsey Trotwood; nor does he paint a faithful servitor; old Pegotty, Mark Tapley, Sam Wellerare alike impossible to

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