But they can read him, and I beg of
them to try and appreciate the tenderer phase of his genius, as well as
the sarcastic one. He teaches many lessons to young men, and here is one
of them, which I quote _memoriter_ from "Barry Lyndon": "Do you not, as
a boy, remember waking of bright summer mornings and finding your mother
looking over you? had not the gaze of her tender eyes stolen into your
senses long before you woke, and cast over your slumbering spirit a
sweet spell of peace, and love, and fresh-springing joy?" My dear
friend, John Brown, of Edinburgh (whom may God long preserve to both
countries where he is so loved and honored), chronicles this touching
incident. "We cannot resist here recalling one Sunday evening in
December, when Thackeray was walking with two friends along the Dean
Road, to the west of Edinburgh,--one of the noblest outlets to any city.
It was a lovely evening; such a sunset as one never forgets; a rich dark
bar of cloud hovered over the sun, going down behind the Highland hills,
lying bathed in amethystine bloom; between this cloud and the hills
there was a narrow slip of the pure ether, of a tender cowslip color,
lucid, and as if it were the very body of heaven in its clearness; every
object standing out as if etched upon the sky.
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