Page:The Complete Works of William Makepeace Thackeray Vol.20.pdf/16

vi the same drama. He has told the story himself in a pleasant speech which he made in 1858 at the Royal Academy dinner. Dickens had responded to the toast of literature, and Thackeray, whose name was joined in the toast, supplemented the thanks with this reminiscence:—

"Had it not been for the direct act of my friend who has just sat down, I should most likely never have been included in the toast which you have been pleased to drink; and I should have tried to be, not a writer, but a painter or designer of pictures. That was the object of my early ambition; and I can remember when Mr. Dickens was a very young man, and had commenced delighting the world with some charming humorous works, of which I cannot mention the name, but which were colored light green, and came out once a month, that this young man wanted an artist to illustrate his writings; and I recollect walking up to his chambers with two or three drawings in my hand, which, strange to say, he did not find suitable. But for that unfortunate blight which came over my artistical existence, it would have been my pride and my pleasure to have endeavored one day to find a place on these walls for one of my performances."

Both in public speeches and in printed criticism, as well as occasionally in private, Thackeray gave the meed of his praise to the genius of Dickens, but there are more unguarded expressions of his aversion from what he no doubt esteemed the artificial sentiment of his popular rival. More than once he shot his satire at him, and probably was restrained from more frequent and more pungent derision by the conviction that an unreasoning public would be quite sure to charge his displeasure to the account of envy. Be this as it may, it is quite clear that Dickens acted some-