Chapter VI

But now we come to the man’s style; by which I mean, of course, his propriety and grace of writing. It is, as we have seen, a “flowing” style: it has that amplitude which Longinus commended and our Burke practised, as an attribute of the sublime. For defect, as a _narrative_ style, it tells in three or more pages what might as well be told in three sentences and often better. Without insisting that the writers of the ’nineties (of whom I spoke but now) ever managed to justify their painful search for the briefest, most telling phrase, I submit that it is unlikeliest to be found by a man writing against time, for monthly numbers. That (if you will) being granted, we have to ask ourselves _why_ Thackeray’s prose is so beautiful that it moves one so frequently to envy, and not seldom to a pure delight, transcending all envy. For certain the secret lies nowhere in his grammar, in which anyone can find flaws by the score. Half the time his sentences run as if (to borrow a simile of Mr. Max Beerbohm’s concerning Shakespeare’s _A Midsummer-Night’s Dream_) the man were kicking up a bedroom slipper and catching it again on his toe. The secret lies, if you will follow his sentences and surrender yourselves to their run and lull and lapse, in a curious haunting music, as of a stream; a music of which scarce any other writer of English prose has quite the natural, effortless, command. You have no need to search in his best pages, or to hunt for his purple patches. It has a knack of making music even while you are judging his matter to be poor stuff; music--and frequent music--in his most casual light-running sentences. I protest, Gentlemen, I am not one of your _pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt_ fellows: I grudge no man saying a thing of mine before me, even when I know it _must_ be valuable because the anticipator is Mr. George Saintsbury; and so far am I from wishing him to perish that one of my sustaining hopes of life is that of congratulating him on his hundredth birthday. (Do not be afraid: in any event, it shall not be from this desk.) But I protest also that in his _History of English Prose Rhythm_ he surprised a secret which was mine, and shy as love--the conviction that for mastery--unconscious, native mastery, it may be--of “that other rhythm of prose”--no English writer excels Thackeray, and a very few indeed approach him. So you guess that I have to deal at once with a sense of gratitude and a grudge that my secret can now stand expressed and confirmed by so high an authority: and my grudge I shall work off by quoting him.

“When I say,” he affirms, “that I hardly know any master of
English prose-rhythm greater, in his way, than Thackeray, and that
I certainly do not know any one with so various and pervasive a
command, I may seem to provoke the answer, ‘Oh! you are, if not
a maniac, at any rate a _maniaque_.’ Nevertheless, I say it; and
will maintain it. The most remarkable thing about Thackeray is
his mastery of that mixed style, ‘_shot_ with rhythm.’ Even in
his earliest and most grotesque extravaganzas you will rarely
find a discordant sentence--the very vulgarisms and misspellings
come like solecisms from a pair of pretty lips and are uttered
in a musical voice. As there never was a much hastier writer,
it is clear that the man thought in rhythm--that the words, as
they flowed from his pen, brought the harmony with them. Even his
blank verse and his couplets in prose, never, I think, in any
one instance unintentional, but deliberately used for burlesque
purposes, have a diabolical quality and, as the wine merchants say,
‘breed’ about them, which some very respectable ‘poets’ have never
achieved.”

He quotes a short beautiful passage from _Vanity Fair_--

She was wrapped in a white morning dress, her hair falling on her
shoulders and her large eyes fixed and without light. By way of
helping on the preparations for the departure [for Waterloo where
let me remind you he, her husband, was to fall and lie, with a
bullet through his heart], and showing that she too could be useful
at a moment so critical, this poor soul had taken up a sash of
George’s, from the drawers whereon it lay and followed him to and
fro, with the sash in her hand, looking on mutely as the packing
proceeded. She came out and stood leaning at the wall, holding this
sash against her bosom, from which the heavy net of crimson dropped
like a large stain of blood.

He proceeds:

Take another and shorter--not, I hope, impudently short “Becky was
always good to him, always amused, never angry.”

Anybody can do that? Perhaps; but please find something like it for
me before 1845, and out of Thackeray, if you will kindly do so.
_In_ him it is everywhere.

But, for the cadence of it--since all true prose demands prolonged cadences--let me try to read you a passage or two from the exquisite sixth and seventh chapters of _Esmond_. Harry Esmond is home from his campaigning, has been to service in the old cathedral, and meets his dear mistress outside as the service is done and over. Mark, I say, the cadences of that scene of reconciliation--

She gave him her hand, her little fair hand: there was only her
marriage ring on it. The quarrel was all over. The year of grief
and estrangement was passed. They never had been separated. His
mistress had never been out of his mind all that time. No, not
once. No, not in the prison; nor in the camp; nor on shore before
the enemy; nor at sea under the stars of solemn midnight; nor as
he watched the glorious rising of the dawn: not even at the table,
where he sat carousing with friends, or at the theatre yonder,
where he tried to fancy that other eyes were brighter than hers.
Brighter eyes there might be, and faces more beautiful, but none
so dear--no voice so sweet as that of his beloved mistress, who
had been sister, mother, goddess to him during his youth--goddess
now no more, for he knew of her weaknesses; and by thought, by
suffering, and that experience it brings, was older now than she;
but more fondly cherished as woman perhaps than ever she had been
adored as divinity. What is it? Where lies it? the secret which
makes one little hand the dearest of all? Who ever can unriddle
that mystery? Here she was, her son by his side, his dear boy. Here
she was, weeping and happy. She took his hand in both hers; he felt
her tears. It was a rapture of reconciliation.

They walked as though they had never been parted, slowly, with the
grey twilight closing round them.

“And now we are drawing near to home,” she continued, “I knew you
would come, Harry, if--if it was but to forgive me for having
spoken unjustly to you after that horrid--horrid misfortune. I was
half frantic with grief then when I saw you. And I know now--they
have told me. That wretch, whose name I can never mention, even has
said it: how you tried to avert the quarrel, and would have taken
it on yourself, my poor child: but it was God’s will that I should
be punished, and that my dear lord should fall.”

“He gave me his blessing on his death-bed,” Esmond said. “Thank God
for that legacy!”

“Amen, amen! dear Henry,” said the lady, pressing his arm. “I knew
it. Mr. Atterbury, of St. Bride’s, who was called to him, told me
so. And I thanked God, too, and in my prayers ever since remembered
it.”

“You had spared me many a bitter night, had you told me sooner,”
Mr. Esmond said.

“I know it, I know it,” she answered, in a tone of such sweet
humility, as made Esmond repent that he should ever have dared
to reproach her. “I know how wicked my heart has been; and I
have suffered too, my dear. I confessed to Mr. Atterbury--I must
not tell any more. He--I said I would not write to you or go to
you--and it was better even that, having parted, we should part.
But I knew you would come back--I own that. That is no one’s fault.
And to-day, Henry, in the anthem, when they sang it, ‘When the
Lord turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream,’
I thought yes, like them that dream--them that dream. And then it
went, ‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy; and he that goeth
forth and weepeth, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him;’ I looked up from the book and saw
you. I was not surprised when I saw you. I knew you would come, my
dear, and saw the gold sunshine round your head.”

She smiled an almost wild smile as she looked up at him. The moon
was up by this time, glittering keen in the frosty sky. He could
see for the first time now clearly, her sweet careworn face.

“Do you know what day it is?” she continued. “It is the 29th of
December--it is your birthday! But last year we did not drink
it--no, no. My lord was cold, and my Harry was likely to die: and
my brain was in a fever; and we had no wine. But now--now you are
come again, bringing your sheaves with you, my dear.” She burst
into a wild flood of weeping as she spoke: she laughed and sobbed
on the young man’s heart, crying out wildly, “bringing your sheaves
with you--your sheaves with you!”

So they fare to the lit house, and to the tragedy which is the tragedy of all womankind; of beauty fading while desire endures, the passion to be loved persists; most tragic of all when a mother meets in a daughter her careless conquering rival.

As they came up to the house at Walcote, the windows from within
were lighted up with friendly welcome; the supper-table was spread
in the oak parlour; it seemed as if forgiveness and love were
awaiting the returning prodigal. Two or three familiar faces of
domestics were on the look-out at the porch--the old housekeeper
was there, and young Lockwood from Castlewood, in my lord’s livery
of tawny and blue. His dear mistress pressed his arm as they
passed into the hall. Her eyes beamed out on him with affection
indescribable. “Welcome,” was all she said, as she looked up,
putting back her fair curls and black hood. A sweet rosy smile
blushed on her face; Harry thought he had never seen her look so
charming. Her face was lighted with a joy that was brighter than
beauty--she took a hand of her son, who was in the hall waiting his
mother--she did not quit Esmond’s arm.

“Welcome, Harry!” my young lord echoed after her. “Here we are all
come to say so. Here’s old Pincot: hasn’t she grown handsome?” and
Pincot, who was older, and no handsomer than usual, made a curtsey
to the Captain, as she called Esmond, and told my lord to “Have
done, now.”

“And here’s Jack Lockwood. He’ll make a famous grenadier, Jack;
and so shall I; we’ll both ’list under you, Cousin. As soon as
I am seventeen, I go to the army--every gentleman goes to the
army. Look! who comes here--ho, ho!” he burst into a laugh. “’Tis
Mistress Trix, with a new ribbon; I knew she would put one on as
soon as she heard a captain was coming to supper.”

This laughing colloquy took place in the hall of Walcote House,
in the midst of which is a staircase that leads from an open
gallery, where are the doors of the sleeping chambers: and from
one of these, a wax candle in her hand, and illuminating her, came
Mistress Beatrix--the light falling indeed upon the scarlet ribbon
which she wore, and upon the most brilliant white neck in the world.

Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond the common
height, and arrived at such a dazzling completeness of beauty,
that his eyes might well show surprise and delight at beholding
her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and melting, that
I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by an attraction
irresistible: and that night the great Duke was at the playhouse
after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she chanced to enter
at the opposite side of the theatre at the same moment) at her,
and not at him. She was a brown beauty: that is, her eyes, hair
and eyebrows and eye-lashes were dark: her hair curling with rich
undulations, and waving over her shoulders; but her complexion was
as dazzling white as snow in sunshine; except her cheeks, which
were a bright red, and her lips, which were of a still deeper
crimson. Her mouth and chin, they said, were too large and full,
and so they might be for a goddess in marble, but not for a
woman whose eyes were fire, whose look was love, whose voice was
the sweetest low song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health,
decision, activity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground
was firm but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow,
was always perfect grace--agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen--now
melting, now imperious, now sarcastic--there was no single movement
of hers but was beautiful. As he thinks of her, he who writes feels
young again, and remembers a paragon.

So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, and her
taper before her, tripping down the stair to greet Esmond.

“She hath put on her scarlet stockings and white shoes,” says
my lord, still laughing. “Oh, my fine mistress! is this the way
you set your cap at the Captain?” She approached, shining smiles
upon Esmond, who could look at nothing but her eyes. She advanced
holding forward her head, as if she would have him kiss her as he
used to do when she was a child.

“Stop,” she said, “I am grown too big! Welcome, Cousin Harry,”
and she made him an arch curtsey, sweeping down to the ground
almost, with the most gracious bend, looking up the while with the
brightest eyes and sweetest smile. Love seemed to radiate from her.
Harry eyed her with such a rapture as the first lover is described
as having by Milton.

“N’est-ce pas?” says my lady, in a low, sweet voice, still hanging
on his arm.

Esmond turned round with a start and a blush, as he met his
mistress’s clear eyes. He had forgotten her, rapt in admiration of
the _filia pulcrior_.

I have said some hard things, Gentlemen, upon Thackeray and have indicated some dislike of him here and there, or, at least, some impatience. But to the man who could at once so poignantly and so reticently bring those two scenes into contrast--with all its meaning--_all_ meaning--modulated to so perfect a balance of heart and intelligence wedded in human speech--well, to that man I conclude by bowing the head, acknowledging a real master: a great melancholy man with his genius running in streaks, often in thin streaks about him but always, when uttered, uttered in liquid lovely prose.

THE VICTORIAN BACKGROUND