ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE

(1838-)

HE feminine quality in Thackeray's genius, which saved his unerring comprehension of human nature from harshness, seems detached and given complete embodiment in the writings of his daughter, Anne Thackeray Ritchie. Not that these are lacking in strength, nor in evidences of keen perception; but they are steeped in the mellow atmosphere of an exquisite womanliness. They are feminine in the highest and completest sense of the word. They contain moreover a quality lacking to the works of the younger generation of writers, that of nobility, of

high breeding; the spirit indeed of one whose life from her childhood up has been spent among the true aristocracy of mind and of character, and whose sensitive soul responded wholly to gracious influences.

ANNE T. RITCHIE

Anne Isabella Thackeray (Ritchie), the daughter of William Makepeace Thackeray, was born in London in 1838. Her childhood was spent partly in Kensington,whose quaintness she has immortalized in her most characteristic novel,- partly on the continent with her grandparents. She grew up in London as her own heroine Dolly grew up, "like a little spring flower among the silent old bricks." Her girlhood was spent in association with her father and his circle of friends; which included indeed the cream of England's true gentry. Never did a little lady grow into womanhood in a more harmonious environment. In 1877 Miss Thackeray married her cousin, Richmond Thackeray Ritchie. In 1860 her first story, 'Little Scholars in the London Schools,' had appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, of which her father was editor. Unpretentious as it was, it revealed the author's dominant qualities: her appreciation of the beautiful and dramatic elements which may lie hidden in obscure lives, and in the experiences of commonplace people; her genial sympathy, the rare charity and truthfulness of her spirit. It revealed, moreover, the genuineness of her literary gift. Her simple and strong English belonged to no "school." It was that of one who had drunk deep at the undefiled wells of the great Masters of the tongue.

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In Old Kensington,' published in 1873, her gifts become fully manifest. It would be difficult to overrate the charm of this novel of gentlefolk, living out their simple lives in that quaint quarter of London where the author's own girlhood was passed, and whose oldfashioned beauties (many of them now vanished) she depicts with the clear memory of love. The odor as of lavender haunts each chapter of this book; whose fine, clean atmosphere removes it, as the East from the West, from the neurotic vulgarities which in the present day have debased the beautiful art of fiction. To read a novel like 'Old Kensington' is to come at once into good society. The book is remarkable, moreover, for its depiction of human nature, and of child nature; and for its exquisite bits of description, like some little warm Dutch landscapes:

"As days go by, Dolly's pictures warm and brighten from early spring into summer-time. By degrees they reach above the table, and over and beyond the garden roller. They are chiefly of the old garden, whose brick walls seem to inclose sunshine and gaudy flowers all the summer through; of the great Kensington parks, where in due season chestnuts are to be found shining among the leaves and dry grasses; of the pond where the ducks are flapping and diving; of the house which was little Rhoda's home. This was the great bare house in Old Street, with plenty of noise, dried herbs, content, children without end, and thick bread-and-butter. There was also cold stalled ox on Sundays at one.»

Scattered through the book are wise comments on the mysteries of life, worthy of Thackeray's daughter, who was too much of a woman and of an artist ever to change her broad morality into the moralizing spirit.

"To hate the Devil and all his works is one thing; but to-day, who is the Devil and which are his works is another."

"Dolly was true to herself; and in those days she used to think that all her life she would be always true, and always say all she felt. As life grows long, and people living on together through time and sorrow and experience realize more and more the complexities of their own hearts, and sympathize more and more with the failings and sorrows of others, they are apt to ask themselves with dismay, if it is a reality of life to be less and less uncompromising as complexities increase, less true to themselves as they are more true to others."

In 1873 and 1874 Miss Thackeray also published a number of short stories and sketches: Toilers and Spinsters,' 'Bluebeard's Keys,' etc. In 1875 appeared a novel, 'Miss Angel,' of which the heroine is Angelica Kaufmann. In the same year she edited 'The Orphan of Pimlico, and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings,' by her father. Her life of Madame de Sévigné, in the Foreign Classics for English Readers' series, appeared in 1881; and in the same year she published another novel, Miss Williamson's Divagations.' Later,

'Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs' was published. This book of personal reminiscences is delightful, for the glimpses it affords the reader of the Thackeray household, and of the rare guests who gathered there from time to time. One of the prettiest pictures is that of a child's party at Dickens's house: of the little Misses Thackeray in plaid sashes and bronze shoes, of Dickens's little daughters in white sashes and white shoes; of the supper table presided over by Mr. and Mrs. Dickens; of the innumerable small boys who swarmed on the staircase, and who gave three cheers for Thackeray when he appeared in the hall to take his little girls home. There is a humorous picture of Charlotte Bronté dining with Thackeray and his family: a number of his intimate friends were invited to meet her afterwards, and hopes of brilliant conversation ran high; but the little shy author took refuge with the family governess, an awful gloom like a London fog settled upon the company, and Thackeray in despair went off to his club.

In her 'Records of Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning,' Mrs. Ritchie has given to the world pictures of these great men drawn by the hand of a loving and understanding friend. Like her other books, it is instinct with the charm of her sympathy. Her true, pure, and sweet spirit has left a precious imprint upon the world of letters and of society. She is loved and will be long remembered, not as Thackeray's daughter alone, but for her own inherent qualities of true greatness.

MY WITCH'S-CALDRON

From Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs. Copyright 1894, by Harper & Brothers

I

REMEMBER a visit from another hero of those times.

We were walking across Kensington Square early one morning when we heard some one hurrying after us and calling, "Thackeray, Thackeray!" This was also one of Byron's friends,— a bright-eyed, active old man; with long wavy white hair and a picturesque cloak flung over one shoulder. I can see him still, as he crossed the corner of the square and followed us with a light, rapid step. My father, stopping short, turned back to meet him; greeting him kindly, and bringing him home with us to the old brown house at the corner where we were then living. There was a sort of eagerness and vividness of manner about the stranger which was very impressive. You could not help watching him and his cloak, which kept slipping from its place,

and which he caught at again and again. We wondered at his romantic foreign looks, and his gayety and bright eager way. Afterwards we were told that this was Leigh Hunt. We knew his name very well; for on the drawing-room table, in company with various Ruskins and Punches, lay a pretty shining book. called 'A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla,'- from which, in that dilettante childish fashion which is half play, half impatience and search for something else, we had contrived to extract our own allowance of honey. It was still an event to see a real author in those days, specially an author with a long cloak flung over his shoulder; though for the matter of that, it is still and always will be an event to see the faces and hear the voices of those whose thoughts have added something delightful to our lives. Not very long afterwards came a different visitor, still belonging to that same company of people. I had thrown open the dining-room door and come in, looking for something; and then I stopped short, for the room was not empty. A striking and somewhat alarming-looking person stood alone by the fireplace with folded arms,-a dark, impressive-looking man, not tall, but broad and brown and weather-beaten,-gazing with a sort of scowl at his own reflection in the glass. As I entered he turned slowly, and looked at me over his shoulder. This time it was Trelawny, Byron's biographer and companion, who had come to see my father. He frowned, walked deliberately and slowly from the room, and I saw him no more. . All these people now seem almost like figures out of a fairy tale. One could almost as well imagine Sindbad, or Prince Charming, or the Seven Champions of Christendom, dropping in for an hour's chat. But each generation, however matter-of-fact it may be, sets up fairy figures in turn to wonder at and delight in. I had not then read any of the books which have since appeared; though I had heard my elders talking, and I knew from hearsay something of the strange, pathetic, irrational histories of these bygone wanderers, searching the world for the Golden Fleece and the Enchanted Gardens. These were the only members of that special, impracticable, romantic crew of Argonauts I ever saw; though I have read and re-read their histories and diaries so that I seem to know them all, and can almost hear their voices.

One of the most notable persons who ever came into our old bow-windowed drawing-room in Young Street is a guest never to be forgotten by me,- a tiny, delicate little person, whose small

hand nevertheless grasped a mighty lever which set all the literary world of that day vibrating. I can still see the scene quite plainly!— the hot summer evening, the open windows, the carriage driving to the door as we all sat silent and expectant; my father, who rarely waited, waiting with us; our governess and my sister and I all in a row, and prepared for the great event. We saw the carriage stop, and out of it sprang the active, well-knit figure of young Mr. George Smith, who was bringing Miss Bronté to see our father. My father, who had been walking up and down the room, goes out into the hall to meet his guests; and then, after a moment's delay, the door opens wide and the two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious little lady, pale, with fair, straight hair, and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss. She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This, then, is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books-the wonderful books. To say that we little girls had been given 'Jane Eyre' to read, scarcely represents the facts of the case; to say that we had taken it without leave, read bits here and read bits there, been carried away by an undreamedof and hitherto unimagined whirlwind into things, times, places, all utterly absorbing and at the same time absolutely unintelligible to us, would more accurately describe our states of mind on that summer's evening as we look at Jane Eyre- the great Jane Eyre the tiny little lady. The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though she may be, Miss Bronté can barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern, especially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. Mr. George Smith has since told me how she afterwards remarked upon my father's wonderful forbearance and gentleness with our uncalledfor incursions into the conversation. She sat gazing at him with kindling eyes of interest, lighting up with a sort of illumination every now and then as she answered him. I can see her bending forward over the table, not eating, but listening to what he said as he carved the dish before him.

I think it must have been on this very occasion that my father invited some of his friends in the evening to meet Miss