THACKERAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12757, 29 September 1919, Page 9

THACKERAY.

Thackeray stands alone, and perhaps always will. lie is a satirist, hut his satire contains no artificial add; it is pure, wholesome juice of the ripe fruit. Nothing can bo more healthful and refreshing than this; hut many who think that the devil still wears horns and tail and lives in the woods (instead of right in the midst of us) do not like it. Others may have a secret misgiving that they are indirectly the subjects of his amiable censorship. In artistic skill he is not equal to Fielding, but surpasses him in his knowledge of human nature, in tenderness of feeling, in pathos, in refinement, and in wisdom. With such a writer it. matters little what sort of a plot forms the framework of his narrative, or whether ho has any plot. His place in literature is a high one, almost among the highest. It has been stated hy .-n English critic, and repeated with approval in America, that ‘‘the mannerisms of Dickens or the confidential attitude of Thackeray would no longer be permitted in fiction—so much have we improved.” Those are faults, no doubt, and to be avoided in future, if possible, hut oven greater defects would be condoned in writers who possessed the genius of Dickens or Thackeray. What is wanted in an orchard is not so much symmetrical trees as those which will bear good apples and pears.—Frank Preston Stearns.