me for twenty months. I know the people utterly-I know the sound of their voices.

Fault has been found with him (and that by such high authority as Mr. Howells) for coming into his own pages so often with personal comment or a word to the reader. It is said that this disturbs the narrative, breaks the illusion, makes the novel less convincing as a work of art. Frankly, it does not strike me that way. On the contrary, it adds to the vraisemblance. These men and women are so real to him that he cannot help talking to us about them as we go along together. Is it not just so in actual life, when you go with a friend to watch the passing show? Do you think that what Thackeray says to you about Colonel Newcome, or Captain Costigan, or Helen Pendennis, or Laura, or Ethel, or George Warrington, makes them fade away?

Yes, I know the paragraphs at the beginning and end of Vanity Fair about the showman and the puppets and the box. But don't you see what the parable means? It is only what Shakespeare said long ago:

All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players.

Nor would Thackeray have let this metaphor pass without adding to it Pope's fine line:

Act well your part, there all the honor lies.

Of course there is another type of fiction in which running personal comment by the author would be out of place. It is illustrated in Dickens by A Tale of Two Cities, and in Thackeray by Henry Esmond. The latter seems to me the most perfect example of a historical novel in all literature. More than thatit is, so far as I know, the best portrayal of the character of a gentleman.

The book presents itself as a memoir of Henry Esmond, Esq., a colonel in the service of her Majesty, Queen Anne, written by himself. Here, then, we have

VOL. CXL.-No. 836.-23

an autobiographical novel, the most difficult and perilous of all modes of fiction. If the supposed author puts himself in and insufferable; if he puts himself in the foreground, he becomes egotistical the background, he becomes insignificant, a mere Chinese "property-man' in the drama. This dilemma Thackeray avoids by letting Esmond tell his own story in the third person-that is to say, with a certain detachment of view, such as a sensible person would feel in looking back on his own life.

Rarely is this historic method of narration broken. I recall one instance, in the last chapter, where Beatrix, after that tremendous scene in the house of Castlewood with the Prince, reveals her true nature and quits the room in a rage. The supposed author writes:

Her keen words gave no wound to Mr. Esmond; his heart was too hard. As he looked at her, he wondered that he could ever have loved her. . . . The Prince blushed and bowed low, as she gazed at him and quitted the chamber. I have never seen her from that day.

Thackeray made this slip on purpose. He wanted us to feel the reality of the man who is trying to tell his own story in the third person.

This, after all, is the real value of the book. It is not only a wonderful picture of the Age of Queen Anne, its ways and customs, its manner of speech and life, its principal personages-the red-faced queen, and peremptory Marlborough, and smooth Atterbury, and rakish Mohun, and urbane Addison, and soldier-scholar Richard Steele-appearing in the background of the political plot. It is also, and far more significantly, a story of the honor of a gentleman-namely, Henry Esmond-carried through a life of difficulty, and crowned with the love of a true woman, after a false one had failed him.

Some readers profess themselves disappointed with the dénouement of the love-storv. They find it unnatural and disconcerting that the hero should win

the mother and not the daughter as the guerdon of his devotion. Not I. Read the story more closely.

When it opens, in the house of Castlewood, Esmond is a grave, lonely boy of fourteen; Lady Castlewood, fair and golden-haired, is in the first bloom of gracious beauty, twenty years old; Beatrix is a dark little girl of four years. Naturally, Henry falls in love with the mother rather than with the daughter, grows up as her champion and knight, defends her against the rakishness of Lord Mohun, resolves for her sake to give up his claim to the title and the estate. Then comes the episode of his infatuation by the wonderful physical beauty of Beatrix, the vixen.

That

madness ends with the self-betrayal of her letter of assignation with the Prince, and her subsequent conduct. Esmond returns to his first love, his young love, his true love, Lady Castlewood. Of its fruition let us read his own estimate:

That happiness which hath subsequently crowned it, cannot be written in words; 'tis of its nature sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so full of thankfulness, save to Heaven and the One Ear alone-to one fond being, the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man was blessed with.

I have left myself scant space to speak of Thackeray's third phase in writing his work as a moralist. But perhaps this is well, for, as he himself said, and as I have always tried to practise, the preacher must be brief if he wishes to be heard. Five words that go home are worth more than a thousand that wander about the subject.

Thackeray's direct moralizings are to be found chiefly in his lectures on "The Four Georges," "The English Humor

ists," and in the "Roundabout Papers." He was like Lowell as a scholastic critic he was far from infallible, but as a vital interpreter he seldom missed the mark.

After all, the essential thing in life for us as real men is to have a knowledge of facts to correct our follies, an ideal to guide our efforts, and a gospel to sustain our hopes.

That was Thackeray's message as moralist. It is expressed in the last paragraph of his essay "Nil Nisi Bonum," written just after the death of Macaulay and Washington Irving:

If any young man of letters reads this little sermon-and to him, indeed, it is addressed -I would say to him, "Bear Scott's words in your mind, and 'be good, my dear."" Here are two literary men gone to their account, and, laus Deo, as far as we know, it is fair, and open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable, etc. Here are two examples of men most differently gifted-each pursuing his calling; each speaking his truth as God bade him; each honest in his life; just and irreproachable in his dealings; dear to his friends; honored by his country; beloved at his fireside. It has been the fortunate lot of both to give incalculable happiness and delight to the world, which thanks them in return with an immense kindliness, respect, affection. It may not be our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed with such merit, or rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these men are rewards paid to our service. We may not win the bâton or epaulettes; but God give us strength to guard the honor of the flag!

With this supplication, for myself and for others, I leave this essay on Thackeray, the greatest of English novelists, to the consideration of real men.

"Quite so." Loomis threw his cigar away with a kind of jerk and squared his shoulders. "I'll tell you, sir. Frankly, I've come here to take away a man. The man I've come to get, sir, is—' "Is Jim White?"

Loomis paused for the fraction of a second before replying.

"The man known as Jim White. That is to say, Hyatt Carnes."

"I see! I see!" The governor turned a crab on its back with his boot-toe.

"No," said Loomis.

"Ah? It's rather extraordinary just at first, I fancy."

"Very."

They were silent again. The straggling town was already dark, the black people asleep between their mud and iron walls, the dogs snatching a wink before the moon came; nothing was to be heard save the ripple of the tide or the rare cry of a sea-bird.

time ago."

"There was. Inspector Alward. He came out here in August. He did not return, as you are also aware. He was murdered here, whether by governmental collusion or not remains (I will continue to be quite frank with you, sir) an open question."

“It need not. I tell you the truth when I say that neither White nor I knew the fellow's name or errand. Had he been frank with me there would have

"About a week, I should say, sir." "Really? I wasn't aware we should look for a steamer so soon."

"The Paramaribo is to pick me up, I believe, direct for Halifax."

"Really?"

They had both stopped. Involuntarily they had drawn a little apart, and now they were facing each other, watching each other.

"Yes," Loomis went on, speaking slowly. "It's a bit out of the Paramaribo's way, but it's by government orders."

"The government of the Dominion of Canada?"

best, instead, to be frank with the blacks. A mulatto by the name of Kragie did him in. Kragie was tried for murder, convicted, sentenced, and hanged.”

The moon had topped the mountain. Loomis's lids drooped slightly as he watched the other's face, bare in the white inundation.

"You believe, then, in the law?"

"I do and I don't. I believe in the laws I make, simply because I know they are just laws."

He said it without bombast. Like Loomis, he was a self-made man, and, like Loomis, he did not presume upon the fact. "By the way," he added, "you've a warrant, of course?"

"I have, sir-a warrant thirteen years old. Would you care to-"

"No, no. I take your word, as I ask you to take mine. But one thing. Why, if Doctor Carnes was wanted-that isWell, what put you on the track at last of the man bere?"

"Just a scrap of letter, sir, smuggled through to Doctor Carnes's sister in Vancouver. 'Address me Jim White, St. Katherine, B. W. I.'-that's all. Inspector Alward came out, and, as you know

so.

"Yes, yes, quite so. Hmmm! Quite

The conversation had arrived at an impasse. Loomis lit a fresh cigar. They moved on again along the beach, away from the town, slowly. The peculiar, full-bodied beauty of night and the ocean tropics lay about them, but if they took note of it, it was only with their nerves. Perhaps for this very reason the drain on the Northerner's nervous fabric was deeper than he suspected; at any rate, he began to have a feeling he had never had before, a kind of a sense of impotence. He was a man to whom obstacles had always been essentially obstacles, nothing more. Of a sudden he halted and faced around.

"Your Excellency," he said, "I can't help feeling that you are determined to put things in my way."

"No." The other appeared to weigh his words. "I shall put nothing in your way.... Shall we be walking back now?"

As they fell in step, the governor clasped his hands behind him and meditated on the shadow-streaked sand. He was a shorter man than Loomis, his flesh was softer and less resilient, his skin sallower, his brown eyes more deeply sunken by prolonged, half-won fights with fever. One would say he was no match for Loomis.

"You asked me," he said, "if I believed in the law. Let me ask-you've read, in your Hugo, about the chap called Jean Valjean?"

Loomis shook himself slightly, almost with a suggestion of anger.

"I am neither judge nor jury, sir.”

"I see, I see." The other's tone grew even more abstracted. "I used to know Carnes in Canada. I knew his weaknesses and his strength. If it had been one of his weaknesses that led him to shoot Edward Blaine-Smith, I shouldn't have hesitated to give him up to the first constable in sight; you may take my word for that. As it was"Oh, come, sir. shot down in cold blood."

Blaine-Smith was

"Granted. But he had called Carnes's best friend a name- -had called him more particularly 'a thief and a bastard.' The 'thief' we'll pass over. Neither is it a life-and-death affair to call a man the other thing—unless, mark me, he happens to be one! And this friend of Carnes's happened to be one! Now you will understand-"

"I tell you, sir, I'm neither judge nor jury. I must protest."

The governor's shoulders grew heavier.

"I suppose a judge would say the world didn't need a man who would shoot another man on such provocation. I'll tell you something, Mr. Loomis. There was an island in the world that needed such a man. When Doctor Carnes came here there were perhaps two hundred people, and their lives weren't worth the bother of living. Doctor Carnes knew nothing of tropical diseases. Within two years he knew more about mountain fever (as we call it) than any other man in the Lesser Antilles. I repeat, sir, thirteen years ago this island was a pest spot. It was scarcely on the map. scarcely on the map. A mulatto taxcollector came over twice a year from St. Lucia; that was about all. Now there are upward of nine thousand souls, four parishes, a Government House, and -a governor."

The speaker bowed his head slightly at the last.

"Perhaps you will wonder, sir, how I, a comparatively poor man from another dominion, a nobody, a friend of the like