Part 3

Pall Mall is the street of gentlemen, as Fleet Street was the street of the ragged literary mendicants, whose wretched lot has been drawn in vivid colours by Macauley. The people one meets in it are daintily booted, gloved and hatted; a lady is not often seen among them. It is, as Thackeray himself said, “the social exchange of London:” the main artery of Clubland, where civilized man has set up for himself all the adjuncts of luxurious celibacy, and congregates to discuss, undisturbed by the impertinencies of feminine lack-logic, the news, the politics and the scandal of the hour. It is old and historic, haunted by the shadows of many odd and famous persons, who reshape themselves unbidden in the memory of those who know its annals. The reminiscences bring out a motley tenancy from the houses—Culloden, Cumberland and Gainsborough side by side, pretty Eleanor Gwynn and Queen Caroline, Sarah Marlborough and genial Walter Scott, George Selwyn and Dick Steele, Sheridan and William Pitt, Walpole and Joseph Addison, and Fox and the Prince Regent! The greensward at the south end of the Athenæum Club was a part of the site of Carlton House, the residence of the royal scapegrace, and we see Thackeray, as he has described himself, a frilled and petticoated urchin in his nurse’s care, peeping through the colonnade at the guards, as they pace before the palace, and salute the royal chariots coming in and out. Before he reached manhood the palace had disappeared, and many of the old buildings in Pall Mall had been pulled down to make room for the magnificent club houses, which now give the street its distinctive character. Not one of the new faces that appeared with the alterations was more familiar to the men of his time than his, and among all the princes, dandies, politicians, and scholars who filed through the street and nodded to one another from their club windows, there was not one to whom the reading part of this generation reverts with greater fondness than to Thackeray.

Those who appreciate his books—a constantly increasing number—find it difficult to understand how the author can be so misinterpreted as to be accused of any narrowness of view or harshness of judgment. To them every line is testimony of a fatherly tenderness which grieves at the necessity of its own rebuke, and though he is incapable of an apathetic acquiescence in human weakness, and does not view mankind with the lazy good nature of a neutral temper, the pervading spirit of his criticism springs from a deep-welled charitableness.

One of the few stories told of him which would dispute his invariable kindliness is of two friends who were walking in the West End when they saw Thackeray approaching them from the opposite direction. One of them had met him before, and the other had not. The former made a demonstrative salutation, which the author barely acknowledged as he loftily passed along. “You wouldn’t believe that he sat up with us drinking punch and singing _Dr. Martin Luther_ until three o’clock this morning,” said the person, who felt aggrieved at his chilling reception, to his friend. Now supposing that the story is authentic—that two friends did meet him under those circumstances, and that one of them had been a sharer of his conviviality in the small hours, a further claim on his recognition was not necessarily justified, and he did not violate any rule of good breeding in discouraging it. But there are some who feel emboldened by the smallest politeness of a great man to consider themselves intimate with him, and who once having seen him come down from his pedestal to smoke a cutty pipe in a miscellaneous company ever afterwards look upon him as a comrade.

The loveableness of his character is well remembered at the Athenæum Club, and the old servants, especially, speak of his kindness to them. The club house is at the corner of Waterloo Place and Pall Mall—a drab-coloured, sedate, classic building, with a wide frieze under the cornice—in a line with the Guards, the Oxford and Cambridge, the Reform, the Traveller’s, and many other clubs. Opposite to it is the United Service Club, midway is the memorial column to the Duke of York, and only a few yards away are Carlton Terrace and the steps leading into St. James’s Park. Marlborough House, the home of the Prince of Wales, and unpalatial St. James’s Palace, are close by.

Thackeray’s name appears on the roll of the Athenæum as that of a barrister; but he was elected in 1851 as “author of _Vanity Fair_, _Pendennis_, and other well-known works of fiction.”

He was elected under Rule II., which is worth quoting, as it is designed to preserve the character of the Club. “It being essential to the maintenance of the Athenæum, in conformity with the principles upon which it was originally founded, that the annual introduction of a certain number of persons of distinguished eminence in Science, Literature or the Arts, or for Public Services, should be secured, a limited number of persons of such qualifications shall be elected by the Committee. The number so elected shall not exceed Nine each year . . . The Club intrust this privilege to the Committee, in the entire confidence that they will only elect persons who have attained to distinguished eminence in Science, Literature, or the Arts, or for Public Services.”

He used the club both for work and pleasure, and there are two corners of the building to which his name has become attached, on account of his association with them. The dining-room is on the first floor, at the left-hand side of the spacious entrance; and he usually sat at a table in the nearest corner, where the sun shines plenteously through the high windows, and makes rainbows on the white cloth in striking the glasses. Theodore Hook had used the same table, and uncorked his wit with his wine at it; but it was in a kindlier strain than the author of _Jack Brag_ was capable of that Thackeray enlivened the friends who gathered around him.

From the Club window he probably saw many of his own characters going along Pall Mall: little Barnes Newcome; Fred Bayham, with his big whiskers; cumbrous Rawdon Crawley; the sinister Marquis of Steyne; stylish little Foker; neat Major Pendennis; homely William Dobbin, and the dashing Dr. Brand Firmin, as he drove up or down the Haymarket to or from Old Parr street. Most of them belonged to the fashionable or semi-fashionable world, and the men were sure to be members of some of the clubs in this neighbourhood. No doubt he also saw Arthur Pendennis, Clive Newcome, and Philip Firmin; but it is likely that they appeared with the greatest distinctness when the blinds were drawn and the reflection of his own face was visible in the darkened windows.

He was a _bon vivant_: fond of a nice little dinner, a connoisseur of wines, the devotee of a good cigar, a willing receiver of many little pleasures which an ascetic judgment would pronounce wasteful and slothful. He was inclined to be indolent and luxurious. Had he not lost his fortune, and been urged by necessity to write, it is to be feared that his splendid gifts would never have been exercised, and that his genius would have borne no more fruit than an unworked store of unformulated and unanalysed mental impressions, known only to himself. But his liking for choice little dinners was not wholly accountable to his relish of the food or to the satisfaction of thus gratifying the senses. No reproach of excess or grossness of any kind attaches to his character. Though perhaps he was self-indulgent, he was not a voluptuary. His pleasure was as innocent as that of Colonel Newcome when he visited the smoky depths of Bohemia with young Clive, and the dinner was but the means of sociability and hospitality, the preparation for a more intellectual treat, a key to the fetters which keep some hearts and minds in this oddly-constituted and misgiving world from the openness and confidence of brotherhood.

It was not a cold or formal honour that was conferred upon those who sat with him. When they were taken into his confidence, no friend could be more jovial or unrestrained than he was. The simplicity of the man was one of his greatest charms. He could not endure affectations and mannerisms. He talked without effort, without hesitation, and without any of the elaborateness which comes of egotistic cogitation, and the desire to present oneself in the most favourable light. He was one of the most “natural” of men, if the word is taken as meaning the absence of self-disguise; and at these little dinners and in the smoke-room, figuratively speaking, he usually had his slippers on, and his feet stretched out on the hearth-rug. {72}

The modern smoking-room of the Club is under the garden, upon which the dining room of Carlton House once stood; but in Thackeray’s time a very small apartment near the top of the building, served for those addicted to the dreamy weed, and he was among them. He was not a great smoker, though he usually had a cigar at hand; he coquetted with it, puffed at it awhile and watched the blue wreaths vanishing towards the ceiling, and then put it down, or let it go out. He did not apply himself to it with the constancy and caressing intentness of complete enjoyment, but was fitful, as if the pleasure he derived was dubious.

Much of the pleasure of his life was dubious. We have here seen but one side of his character, the geniality which was unextinguished by an inherent sadness of temperament: the comfortableness of his hours of relaxation. But he was not a happy man, even when he had achieved success, and his powers had been fully recognized. Self-confidence is an ingredient of genius which was lacking in him. He was always in doubt about his work, he trusted his judgment when he discovered defects in it, but never felt sure of its merits. More distressing than all else was his procrastination: the heart-breaking and peace-destroying spectre of postponed work was too often before him, and he was often crippled by his hesitation and despair.

The south-west corner of the South library, on the second floor of the Club, is filled with books of English history, and some of his work was done there. Therefrom, no doubt, some of the material of the lectures on the Georges was drawn; he could look out of the window on the very site of Carlton House, now a square of grass and flowers; and probably on these shelves he found some help in completing _Esmond_ and developing _The Virginians_. He often left the library looking fatigued and troubled, and he was sometimes heard complaining of the perplexity he found in disposing of this character or that, and asserting that he knew that what he was writing would fail.

He divided his time between the Athenæum Club, the Reform, and the Garrick. Contiguous to the first two is the neighborhood of St. James’s, which principally consists of clubs, bachelors’ chambers, and fashionable shops, and is associated with many of Thackeray’s characters. At No. 88 St. James’s street, in a building now demolished, he himself once occupied chambers, and there began and finished _Barry Lyndon_. Major Pendennis had chambers in Bury street, a narrow lane coming from Piccadilly parallel with St. James’s street; and it was in them that the famous scene took place between the shrewd old soldier and Mr. Morgan, in which that rebellious flunky was brought whining to his knees by the strategic courage of his master. We have searched the neighbourhood for the “Wheel of Fortune” public-house, which Mr. Morgan frequented to discuss with other gentlemen’s gentlemen, gentlemen’s affairs. It is not to be found; and Bury street has scarcely a house in it that looks old enough to have been the Major’s. But St. James’s Church is here—a gloomy old building of smoky brick with lighter trimmings of stone; and the reader may remember how, one day, Esmond and Dick Steele were walking along Jermyn street after dinner at the Guards’, when they espied a fair, tall man in a snuff-coloured suit, with a plain sword, very sober, and almost shabby in appearance, who was poring over a folio volume at a book-shop close by the church; and how Dick, shining in scarlet and gold lace, rushed up to the student and took him in his arms and hugged him; and how the object of these demonstrations proved to be Addison, who invited Steele and Esmond to his chambers in the Haymarket, where he read verses of the _Campaign_ to them, and regaled them with pipes and Burgundy. I never walk through Jermyn street, or past the old church, without seeing these three figures, and they are no more like shadows than any in the nineteenth century throng which fills the street.

Willis’s Rooms, formerly Almack’s, are in King street, which is parallel to Jermyn street, and it was in them, that Thackeray gave his lectures.

VIII.

Thackeray constantly mixes up real with fictitious names in his descriptions. Some disguise was often necessary, and sometimes even compulsory. He could not be as explicit or as literal as Dickens, because most of his characters represented a very different class. The latter could draw in detail the house he selected as most appropriate for the occupation of Sairey Gamp, because the actual tenants were not likely to find him out, or, if they ever read his description, to quarrel with it. But many of the clients whom Thackeray had to provide with dwellings were great people, and could only be placed in great neighbourhoods, where the houses are large, conspicuous, and easily distinguished. He either had to omit any descriptive detail, or to mask the actual place he had in mind by locating it in some street or square with a fanciful name. Any student of his works will have no difficulty, however, in finding Gaunt House, Gaunt Square, and Great Gaunt street, if he makes a personal search for them in Mayfair, though they are not indicated in any map or directory.

Mayfair (let me say for the benefit of my readers who are so unfortunate as not to knew London) is one of the three most fashionable neighbourhoods of the great metropolis, and of the three it is the most aristocratic and most ancient. It is, as nearly as possible, a square, about half a mile wide and three-quarters of a mile long, bounded at one end by Oxford street, with its shops and plebeian traffic, at the other end by the most delightful of London streets, Piccadilly; at one side by Bond street, and at the other by Park Lane, the houses in which overlook the beautiful expanse of Hyde Park. The names of some of its streets have become synonymous with patrician pomp and the affluence of inheritance. It is the highest heaven of social aspiration, the most exalted object of worldly veneration. This is the house of the Duke of Hawksbury; this of the Earl of Tue-brook; that of Viscount Wallasey, and that of Lord Arthur Bebbington. It is preëminently the region of the “quality.” But let not the reader suppose that it is a region of exterior splendor, of spacious architecture, of brilliant appearance.

Belgravia is far grander to look at, and seems to possess greater riches, and to use them more lavishly. Even Tyburnia, the neighborhood to the north of Hyde Park, is more suggestive of social eminence. Mayfair displays none of the signs of the rude enjoyment and proud assertiveness which spring from recent prosperity. It is old-fashioned, un-changing, and dull. It is little different from what it was at the beginning of the century, except that it is nearer decay, and that febrile irruptions of modern Queen Anne architecture occasionally vary the sombreness of its original style. The physiognomy of its houses expresses a sort of torpor, as if familiarity with honours were as wearisome as continuous association with misfortune. They have an air of funereal resignation. Many of the streets are short and narrow: many of the houses are dingy. The ornaments are of a sepulchral kind, such as urns over the door-ways, and funeral wreaths about the porticoes. The blazoned heraldry of the hatchments has been nearly extinguished by the smoke. At some doors there are two incongruous obelisks, joined to the iron railing which screens the basement, and the portico is extended to the curb. But ornaments even as unsatisfactory as these are not common, and most of the houses, with high fronts of blackened brick and oblong windows, are unadorned, except by a few boxes of flowers on the sills. The lackeys, with crimson knee-breeches, white stockings, laced coats, buckled shoes, and powdered hair, blaze in this gloom with a pyrotechnic splendour. Occasionally, the uniform rows of smoky brick and pointed stucco houses are overshadowed by a larger mansion, shut within its own walls, and some of the streets enter spacious squares, where there are sooty trees and grass and chirping sparrows.

It is possible that Thackeray had no exact place in mind when he wrote of Gaunt House and Gaunt Square, but it is not likely. The creatures of his imagination were flesh and blood to him, too vital to be left without habitations. “All the world knows,” he says in _Vanity Fair_, “that Gaunt House stands in Gaunt Square, out of which Great Gaunt street leads . . . Gaunt House occupies nearly a side of the square. The remaining three sides consist of mansions which have passed away into dowagerism. . . . It has a dreary look, nor is Lord Steyne’s palace less dreary. All to be seen of it is a vast wall in front, with rustic columns at the great gate.” Berkeley Square almost exactly corresponds with this description. Here are the gloomy mansions, looking out on grass and trees which seem to belong to a cemetery, and here, immediately recognizable, is the palace, filling nearly a side of the square, and shut within high walls to hide what they inclose from the prying eyes of the passers, though the upper stories can be seen from the opposite side of the way. Here is the very gate, with heavy knockers, though the rustic columns of Thackeray’s text have been replaced by new ones of a different shape. We do not find in the middle of the square the statue of Lord Gaunt, “in a three-tailed wig, and otherwise habited like a Roman emperor,” but we can identify almost every other detail of the picture. Now, as this palace has long been occupied by a noble family, it would not be just for us to mention the name of the house, lest some undeserved reproach should thereby fall on the tenants; for, while Thackeray described the locality with such faithful elaboration it is not to be inferred that he drew the character of Lord Steyne from an actual person living in the neighbourhood; nothing indeed, could be less probable.

He also speaks of the square as Shiverley Square, and briefly mentions it in describing Becky’s drive to the house of Sir Pitt Crawley: “Having passed through Shiverley Square into Great Gaunt street, the carriage at length stopped at a tall, gloomy house, between two other tall, gloomy houses, each with a hatchment over the middle drawing-room window, as is the custom in Great Gaunt street, in which gloomy locality death seems to reign perpetual.”

Great Gaunt street is undoubtedly Hill street, which he mentions specifically in another place as the home of Lady Gaunt’s mother. Sometimes it was necessary for him to invent a name, and when he did so he was peculiarly apt. Gaunt Square seems a more fitting and descriptive name than Berkeley Square, but he frequently varied the real with the fictitious name with playful caprice.

It was in another of these queer old streets in Mayfair that that wicked old fairy godmother, the Countess of Kew, lived, and there (in Queen street) Ethel Newcome visited her, and was instructed in the rigourous social code which unites fortune with fortune, or fortune with rank, and which is by no means limited to Mayfair or Belgravia, but finds expositors and adherents under the bluer skies of America. Ethel herself lived with her mother in Park Lane, the western boundary of Mayfair, and assuredly the most attractive part of the region. Park Lane has all of Hyde Park before its windows,—all the variegated and plentifully stocked flower-beds of the Ring Road, the wide sweep of grassy playground, and the knots of patriarchal trees which give the Park one of its greatest charms. Unlike most of the region behind it is cheerful; or, if not exactly cheerful, it has not the mopish signs of withdrawal from all natural human interests which are seen in many of the houses in Gaunt Square and the tributary streets. Some of the houses are small, with oriel windows, and little balconies filled with flower-pots; some of them are palatial in size and decoration; but all of them are fashionable, and elderly bachelors are known to give incredibly large prices for the smallest possible quarters under the roof of the meanest of them. The exteriors are not of the sooty brick which characterizes Hill street, but of plaster, which is annually repainted in drab or cream colour at the beginning of each season. What with the flowers of the Park and the gardens which lie before some of the houses, Park Lane seems a fitting abode for those who are fortunate both in birth and in wealth; it is as patrician as any other part of Mayfair, and it relieves itself of the gloom which seems to be considered an inevitable accessory of respectability elsewhere.

In one of these houses—which one it is not easy to say, as Thackeray has given us no clue—Lady Ann Newcome lived, and at it Mrs. Hobson Newcome looked from afar with an envy which betrayed itself in her constant reiterations of her contentment with her own circumstances. Mrs. Hobson lived in Bryanston Square, a dingily verdant quadrangle north of Oxford street, near which Clive had a studio; and J. J. Ridley, Fred Bayham, Miss Cann, and the Rev. Charles Honeyman, lodged together in Walpole street, Mayfair. The Rev. Charles Honeyman’s chapel was close by, and before the story of _Vanity Fair_ reached its end there was a charitable lady in the congregation who wrote hymns and called herself Lady Crawley, and from whom William Dobbin and Amelia Sedley, now united, shrunk as they passed her at the fancy fair, recognizing in that altered person the dreadful Becky.