Crack Came to Us from Thackeray and to Me from Dr. Micael Clark of Loyola

Some poet has observed, that if any man would write down what has really happened to him in this mortal life, he would be sure to make a good book, though he never had met with a single adventure from his birth to his burial. How much more, then, must I, who HAVE had adventures, most singular, pathetic, and unparalleled, be able to compile an instructive and entertaining volume for the use of the public. . . .On the last day of the year 1837, even THAT game was up. It’s a thing that very seldom happened to a gentleman, to be kicked out of a spunging-house; but such was my case. Young Nabb (who succeeded his father) drove me ignominiously from his door, because I had charged a gentleman in the coffee-rooms seven-and-sixpence for a glass of ale and bread and cheese, the charge of the house being only six shillings. He had the meanness to deduct the eighteenpence from my wages, and because I blustered a bit, he took me by the shoulders and turned me out—me, a gentleman, and, what is more, a poor orphan!

How I did rage and swear at him when I got out into the street! There stood he, the hideous Jew monster, at the double door, writhing under the effect of my language. I had my revenge! Heads were thrust out of every bar of his windows, laughing at him. A crowd gathered round me, as I stood pounding him with my satire, and they evidently enjoyed his discomfiture. I think the mob would have pelted the ruffian to death (one or two of their missiles hit ME, I can tell you), when a policeman came up, and in reply to a gentleman, who was asking what was the disturbance, said, “Bless you, sir, it’s Lord Cornwallis.” “Move on, BOOTS,” said the fellow to me; for the fact is, my misfortunes and early life are pretty well known—and so the crowd dispersed.

“What could have made that policeman call you Lord Cornwallis and Boots?” said the gentleman, who seemed mightily amused, and had followed me. “Sir,” says I, “I am an unfortunate officer of the North Bungay Fencibles, and I’ll tell you willingly for a pint of beer.” He told me to follow him to his chambers in the Temple, which I did (a five-pair back), and there, sure enough, I had the beer; and told him this very story you’ve been reading. You see he is what is called a literary man—and sold my adventures for me to the booksellers; he’s a strange chap; and says they’re MORAL. The Fatal Boots by Wm. Makepeace Thackeray (emphasis my own)

 In both Britain and America, 'crack' could mean good or excellent – and to boast or even make a joke (wisecrack).

While ‘crack unit’ or ‘crack regiment’ is a little archaic nowadays, we still talk of something as not being all it’s ‘cracked up’ to be.

In the martial sense, the word ‘crack’ dates to around the 1830s. William Makepeace Thackeray’s short story The Fatal Boots (1839) contains possibly the first printed use of the term ‘crack shot’. The onomatopoeic connections between shooting and cracking noises are obvious. It might be – and this is just my theory – that it became popular in the 1830s to 1840s due to the newfangled percussion caps on firearms, which would have made more of a cracking noise than flintlock weapons. History Question by Ellie Cawthorne

In Loyola University graduate school, I had the great good fortune to learn from Dr. Micael Clark, PhD.  She was and remains one of the most exacting and serious scholars of 19th Century Literature and a wonderful mentor.

Dr. Clark had been a student of America's most distinguished Thackeray scholars, Gordon Ray of University of Illinois.  Professor Roy was chosen by the descendants of William Makepeace Thackeray to edit the great artist's letters and correspondence.  I own the set, I am proud to say.

One of Thackeray's great shorter works is the Fatal Boots, a sketch in fiction of young man's vain and snobbish lust for a pair of German boots.  Imagine a young gent addicted to Brooks Brothers clothing when he has a K-Mart budget.

Addicts have no budgets by the way.

Thackeray's themes of vanity and snobbery are lessons well learned and in our goatish and slob-centered cultured much needed.  Thackeray is recognized as the pioneering voice against snobbery ( meanly admiring mean things - are you the type of person who boasts " WE only read the New York Times, watch only PBS and eat only whole grains and organically grown foods"?    A snob is someone who takes great stock in persons, places, ideas and possessions to which most people can say, " Well so-effing what?"

e.g.

• I drink only craft beer
• I drive a Volvo
• No one gets between and my Calvins
• I dine only at Ken's on Western
• I have every Beatle 45
• I date only Roller Derby queens

Bob Stubbs ruins his entire life and career over the purchase and possession of pair of Hessian Boots. Bob steals the boots, on credit, giving the foreigner his name - Lord Cornwallis.  When the bookmaker tries to get paid.  Bob and his snob of a schoolmaster threaten the alien and Milord the hell out of him.  They refuse to pay the price of the fatal boots and the German craftsman prophesies

"Vell, my lort,” says he, “you have paid SOMETHING for dese boots, but not all. By Jubider, YOU SHALL NEVER HEAR DE END OF DEM.”   And Bob's life is carried into the gutter by this theft of a branding item.  

In this story Thackeray used the phrase 'crack shot' and it immediately became fashionable to crack on about everything that seemed cracker jack.

Things fall into place when think about what our elders and betters teach us.

Thank you Dr. Clark!  I had a cracking good education. 

Makepeace for Men of Gentle Will

My song, save this, is little worth;

I lay the weary pen aside,

And wish you health, and love, and mirth,

As fits the solemn Christmas-tide.

As fits the holy Christmas birth.

Be this, good friends, our carol still—

Be peace on earth, be peace on earth,

To men of gentle will.

            William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

Old Bill was the best of men. He died on December 23rd hours short of Christ's birth and the season for which he lived all year.  He was the single parent of two daughters and a very busy gent, but managed to maintain a kindness and genuine humanity every day of the year.

Gentleness is a tough commodity.  Sharp words, cross looks, snortin snouts seem our only responses to the current tempus et mundi.  The sleep of children, the warmth of the stove and the best blood coursing our hearts can reset our human thermostats. I'll give it a go.

A Snob Dealt With - It is all about me, afterall.

Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. Those who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there is among us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack him or sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at his success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a courtier and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the habit of frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs on account of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall Mall to come over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner.

That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck me as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is because we know and respect each other, that the world respects us so much; that we hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves so irreproachably when there.

Wm. M. Thackeray - The Book fo Snobs: CHAPTER XVI—ON LITERARY SNOBS


Snob - great word and useful. Snobbery, comes from a condition recognized, if not discovered in 18th Century Britain and cataloged by William Makepeace Thackery.

Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India where his father was member of the East India Company which had its own colonial army, distinct from the regular crown forces. Thackeray's Pa, like any good public servant in colonial service vigorously looting the natural and human resources of another civilization, died of diseases brought on by his luxurious position in civil service - drink, gluttony and God knows what else.

Pa Thackeray left his infant son and handsome young bride a pile of loot to take back to Old Blightey. The boy was a 1%-er and to that manner born, became a self-absorbed waster who ended his brilliant career Cambridge University due to blowing all the Crowns, pounds and guineas Pa ripped off in India.

The now destitute young Bill, an amiable young chap accustomed to fine food, good wine, snappy attire and company above his station realized that his sins and misdemeanors were not because of his childhood without a Dad to guide him onto Honor's path, nor an intrinsic evil, nor the blame of anyone but himself and his vanity which made him a SNOB.

A Snob, Thackeray diagnosed to be anyone who meanly admires mean things. Mean is the opposite of honorable, or virtuous living. One is mean if one envies, hates, or ignores his fellow man in general. More specifically it can be identified in the decisions and attitudes taken in life that Balkanize human society.

Thus, if someone were asked to meet another person and eventually introduce that person to one in his, or social circle and had explained that 'She is a lawyer, school board board member, an exquisitly beautiful, sweet-tempered and great hearted woman who appears regularly on FOX television as legal analyst, only be answered with 'I Hate Fox and never watch it; No; not interestested' - that person might be a snob.

If you were to ignore the very fine writing, wit and considered opinion of, say Don Rose, because that worthy holds very radical views on justice, law and politics, you might only be a snob, but a dope who misses out on the chance to engage a truly honest and clever person who challenges your assumptions.

If what you hold to be the really important - be-all-and end-all - anythings that can be answered with an honest and firm " Well, so what." (statement not a question) You are a snob.

Thus,
" I only watch Public Television!" So What.
" I do own a television!" So What.
" It is spelled Xoyndare, but prounced Corriander Uh,huh.
" I never watch NPR!" So, What.
" I won the Pulitzer!" So, What. So does Eugene Robinson.
" They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!" So What
" I shared a pearl onion with Edgar Buchanan!" So What.
" I never had an Abortion!" I am a male.
" I never cut my own grass!" So, What.
" Did I mention my Dinner with Andre . . .Dawson?" So What
" I am the War on Women!" So, What.
" I'm South Side Irish!" So What.
" I'm as God Made Me!" Me too and her and him and them over thar - So What.
" Groucho told me . . ." So What.
" I never wear under wear!" Please, do.
" This my Uterus!" This is Blade Saxon, Baby!
" I never watch the Simpsons!" So, What.
" I drink only imported beer! So What.
" I know Bill Kurtis -personally!" So, What.
" I'm an Atheist; Honest to God!" So, What.
" I only attend Tridentine Latin Mass!" So What.
" I'm Billy Dec!" So, What.
" Summer's Eve is about empowerment, changing the way women may think of the
the brand( of Douche), and removing longstanding stigmas…” SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!
" I never vote straight ticket!" So What.
" I live in Beverly!" So What.
" I went to Colgate" So What.
" I'm Sodium Free!" Pat Hickey, your servant.
" I brush with Colgate!" So What.
" I made it on my own!" So What.
" I have tertiaty cancer!" Sorry. God keep you and So What.
" I'm Vegan!!" So What.
" I married Mitt Romney!" Hi, Ann.
" I'm Chris Matthews!" So What!

Did I mention that I am the author of two books, hundreds of articles, book reviews an essays and a blog?

EVERYBODY, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, EFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFING What!

William Makepeace Thackeray ( 1811-1863) Christmas Poem "The Mahagony Tree"

On 23 December 1863, after returning from dining out and before dressing for bed, Thackeray suffered a stroke and was found dead on his bed in the morning. His death at the age of fifty-two was entirely unexpected, and shocked his family, friends, and reading public. An estimated 7000 people attended his funeral at Kensington Gardens. He was buried on 29 December at Kensal Green Cemetery, and a memorial bust sculpted by Marochetti can be found in Westminster Abbey.

I became more than interested in the writings and the man William Makepeace Thackeray in 1967, when Father James Sheridan, O.S.A. had us read Vanity Fair. In the 19th Century Thackeray and Dickens were the gods of literature. Charles Dickens is more widely read these days and Thackeray but too rarely.

Thackeray was born in India and came to England with his widowed mother while very young. His old man was an Administrator for the East India Company and had died there. Young Thackeray was educated at Charterhouse School in London and later had a brief career at Cambridge, where his booze parties and gambling debts erased his inheritance. Thackeray fell in love with an Irish girl from an impoverished military family and married. They had daughters in quick order and the tiny wife suffered severe post partum depressions and attempted suicide. Thackeray placed his pretty, tiny and delicate love in the care of French home for the insane and Isabella Shaw Thackeray outlived her very sane and tender-hearted husband.

Thackeray was the single-parent of two little girls and wrote, edited, sketched volumes of work that not only brought them wealth and comfort, but ensured the best care for Mrs. Thackeray. Thackeray was a good guy.

He understood human vanity and snobbery - in fact, Thackeray wrote the Book of Snobs. (click my post title for that Christmas Treat)His very Title -The Book of Snobs, by One of Themselves signals the very nature of the author.

Charles Dickens was the hot-property and beloved BOZ of London. He had a large family that began to bore him. Dickens had his wife committed to a London Insane Asylum and took up with his wife's cousin. Dickens would have made a great celebrity in our times and would no doubt have Danced With the Stars, become a regular on HBO's Bill Maher Celebrity Pimp Slaps and shared Ben and Jerry's with Michael Moore.

Dickens abused Thackeray's good nature. Like too many of our contemporary celebrities, Dickens spread gossip about his literary rival for no good reason or purpose - but like out dogs of today, did so because he could. I believe that is one reason why Dickens remains so popular- He is a great talent and an interminable asshole.

Thackeray worked, lectured, sponsored and influenced young writers like Anthony Trollope and Charlotte Bronte, who not only dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray, but also portrayed the older writer in that novel as Mr. Rochester.

Thackeray was a tolerant man, because he himself was tolerated and forgiven. His characters are flawed and sometimes even evil, but always human and never two-dimensional creatures like those found in Dickens. Thackeray like people and I believe that he really understood them.

Old Bill Thackeray died one hundred and forty-eight years ago today.

The Mahogany Tree

Christmas is here;
Winds whistle shrill,
Icy and chill,
Little care we:
Little we fear
Weather without,
Sheltered about
The Mahogany Tree.
Commoner greens,
Ivy and oaks,
Poets, in jokes,
Sing, do you see?
Good fellows' shins
Here, boys, are found,
Twisting around
The Mahogany Tree.

Once on the boughs
Birds of rare plume
Sang, in its bloom;
Night birds are we:
Here we carouse,
Singing like them,
Perched round the stem
Of the jolly old tree.

Here let us sport,
Boys, as we sit;
Laughter and wit
Flashing so free.

Sorrows, begone!
Life and its ills,
Duns and their bills,
Bid we to flee.

Life is but short --
When we are gone,
Let them sing on,
Round the old tree.

Evenings we knew,
Happy as this;
Faces we miss,
Pleasant to see.
Kind hearts and true,
Gentle and just,
Peace to your dust!
We sing round the tree.

Care, like a dun,
Lurks at the gate:
Let the dog wait;
Happy we'll be!
Drink every one;
Pile up the coals,
Fill the red bowls,
Round the old tree.

Drain we the cup. --
Friend, art afraid?
Spirits are laid
In the Red Sea.
Mantle it up;
Empty it yet;
Let us forget,
Round the old tree.

Come with the dawn,
Blue-devil sprite;
Leave us to-night,
Round the old tree.

William Makepeace Thackeray 1811-1863

American Exceptionalism: 'Even Eden, you know, ain't all built,'- Charles Dickens Took Wild Exception to America

Last night, while watching President Obama wax Exceptional on our involvement in Libya, my thoughts turned to Chares Dickens and his opinion of America and Americans -louts, villains, snobs, back-shooters, bullies,braggards, blackguards, humbugs, frauds, hypocrites, cut-throats, spitting-bi-peds, rubes, slavers, lynchers, and loud-mouths.

The President seemed to speak of American Exceptionalism with same enthusiasm and sincerity that a third grader squeaks out while being pummeled and slapped by the fifth grade Corinthian Tom astride his belly.

American exceptionalism? No, but a pretty good imitation of the opinions of American Intellectuals, News Commentators, Celebrities, Academics and Activists and Film Makers.

Charles Dickens visited America in the 1840's and could not get home to England quicker. William Makepeace Thackeray his chief literary rival loved America and portrayed American Exceptionalism - liberty loving, heroic, self-less, welcoming, thoughtful, inventive, hopeful, charitable and adventurous - in his novels The History of Henry Esmons and The Virginians.

Dickens eclipsed Thackeray when tubby tyrant Henry James (the Noam Chomsky of fin de ciecle 19th Century America) lorded that Thackeray presented 'loose-baggy monsters.' All obeyed.

Fat Henry wanted to be a European in the wurst way and subsequnet would-be American academics(Chomskey, Zinn, Ayers, et al.)obeyed the unreadable and humorless James. Americans needed to bash themselves and their institutions in order to be taken seriously by the very silly people who demand that rubric. Charles Dickens set out a wonderful and funny template for this very faux pose in his brilliant satirical American chapters of The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzelwit.

Martin Chuzzelwit is a wonderful study of self-ishness, cruelty and hypocrisy that begins with Old Martin Chuzzelwit a wealthy creep who so afraid that his relatives desire his money that he plots ways to root out their motives and who hires a beautiful young girl to care for him who will be well compensated while he lives, but be cast out penniless when he dies - that he believes will be his long-life insurance.

Young Martin wants the old guy's dough - what bright young man of us does not desire an inheritance? Young Martin gets disinherited and goes to America to seek his fortunes. In America, after a horrific Atlantic crossing and stepping onto Yankee soil Chuzzelwit and his companion Mark Tapley ( the only genuine good guy in the book) meet the press!

'Here's this morning's New York Sewer!' cried one. 'Here's this morning's New York Stabber! Here's the New York Family Spy! Here's the New York Private Listener! Here's the New York Peeper! Here's the New York Plunderer! Here's the New York Keyhole Reporter! Here's the New York Rowdy Journal! Here's all the New York papers! Here's full particulars of the patriotic locofoco movement yesterday, in which the whigs was so chawed up; and the last Alabama gouging case; and the interesting Arkansas dooel with Bowie knives; and all the Political, Commercial, and Fashionable News. Here they are! Here they are! Here's the papers, here's the papers!'

'Here's the Sewer!' cried another. 'Here's the New York Sewer! Here's some of the twelfth thousand of to-day's Sewer, with the best accounts of the markets, and all the shipping news, and four whole columns of country correspondence, and a full account of the Ball at Mrs White's last night, where all the beauty and fashion of New York was assembled; with the Sewer's own particulars of the private lives of all the ladies that was there! Here's the Sewer! Here's some of the twelfth thousand of the New York Sewer! Here's the Sewer's exposure of the Wall Street Gang, and the Sewer's exposure of the Washington Gang, and the Sewer's exclusive account of a flagrant act of dishonesty committed by the Secretary of State when he was eight years old; now communicated, at a great expense, by his own nurse. Here's the Sewer! Here's the New York Sewer, in its twelfth thousand, with a whole column of New Yorkers to be shown up, and all their names printed! Here's the Sewer's article upon the Judge that tried him, day afore yesterday, for libel, and the Sewer's tribute to the independent Jury that didn't convict him, and the Sewer's account of what they might have expected if they had! Here's the Sewer, here's the Sewer! Here's the wide-awake Sewer; always on the lookout; the leading Journal of the United States, now in its twelfth thousand, and still a-printing off:—Here's the New York Sewer!'

'It is in such enlightened means,' said a voice almost in Martin's ear, 'that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent.'

Martin turned involuntarily, and saw, standing close at his side, a sallow gentleman, with sunken cheeks, black hair, small twinkling eyes, and a singular expression hovering about that region of his face, which was not a frown, nor a leer, and yet might have been mistaken at the first glance for either. Indeed it would have been difficult, on a much closer acquaintance, to describe it in any more satisfactory terms than as a mixed expression of vulgar cunning and conceit. This gentleman wore a rather broad-brimmed hat for the greater wisdom of his appearance; and had his arms folded for the greater impressiveness of his attitude. He was somewhat shabbily dressed in a blue surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short loose trousers of the same colour, and a faded buff waistcoat, through which a discoloured shirt-frill struggled to force itself into notice, as asserting an equality of civil rights with the other portions of his dress, and maintaining a declaration of Independence on its own account. His feet, which were of unusually large proportions, were leisurely crossed before him as he half leaned against, half sat upon, the steamboat's bulwark; and his thick cane, shod with a mighty ferule at one end and armed with a great metal knob at the other, depended from a line-and-tassel on his wrist. Thus attired, and thus composed into an aspect of great profundity, the gentleman twitched up the right-hand corner of his mouth and his right eye simultaneously, and said, once more:

'It is in such enlightened means that the bubbling passions of my country find a vent.'

As he looked at Martin, and nobody else was by, Martin inclined his head, and said:

'You allude to—?'

'To the Palladium of rational Liberty at home, sir, and the dread of Foreign oppression abroad,' returned the gentleman, as he pointed with his cane to an uncommonly dirty newsboy with one eye. 'To the Envy of the world, sir, and the leaders of Human Civilization. Let me ask you sir,' he added, bringing the ferule of his stick heavily upon the deck with the air of a man who must not be equivocated with, 'how do you like my Country?'

'I am hardly prepared to answer that question yet,' said Martin 'seeing that I have not been ashore.'

'Well, I should expect you were not prepared, sir,' said the gentleman, 'to behold such signs of National Prosperity as those?'

He pointed to the vessels lying at the wharves; and then gave a vague flourish with his stick, as if he would include the air and water, generally, in this remark.

'Really,' said Martin, 'I don't know. Yes. I think I was.'

The gentleman glanced at him with a knowing look, and said he liked his policy. It was natural, he said, and it pleased him as a philosopher to observe the prejudices of human nature.

'You have brought, I see, sir,' he said, turning round towards Martin, and resting his chin on the top of his stick, 'the usual amount of misery and poverty and ignorance and crime, to be located in the bosom of the great Republic. Well, sir! let 'em come on in shiploads from the old country. When vessels are about to founder, the rats are said to leave 'em. There is considerable of truth, I find, in that remark.'

'The old ship will keep afloat a year or two longer yet, perhaps,' said Martin with a smile, partly occasioned by what the gentleman said, and partly by his manner of saying it, which was odd enough for he emphasised all the small words and syllables in his discourse, and left the others to take care of themselves; as if he thought the larger parts of speech could be trusted alone, but the little ones required to be constantly looked after.

'Hope is said by the poet, sir,' observed the gentleman, 'to be the nurse of young Desire.'

Martin signified that he had heard of the cardinal virtue in question serving occasionally in that domestic capacity.

'She will not rear her infant in the present instance, sir, you'll find,' observed the gentleman.

'Time will show,' said Martin.

It certainly does for the immigrants. Dickens offers a satirical litany of lectures. Our MSNBC snobs and simpering dope-smokers like Bill Maher offer less intelligent caricatures of Americans -'Tea-baggers and Twats.'

Martin and Mark are cheated by land-swindlers and contract malaria along the Ohio River. And, they meet Chollop - the Yankee blowhard. Oh, we Americans do love our pretensions to serious thought!

He had come to Eden on a speculation of this kind, but had abandoned it, and was about to leave. He always introduced himself to strangers as a worshipper of Freedom; was the consistent advocate of Lynch law, and slavery; and invariably recommended, both in print and speech, the 'tarring and feathering' of any unpopular person who differed from himself. He called this 'planting the standard of civilization in the wilder gardens of My country.'

There is little doubt that Chollop would have planted this standard in Eden at Mark's expense, in return for his plainness of speech (for the genuine Freedom is dumb, save when she vaunts herself), but for the utter desolation and decay prevailing in the settlement, and his own approaching departure from it. As it was, he contented himself with showing Mark one of the revolving-pistols, and asking him what he thought of that weapon.

'It ain't long since I shot a man down with that, sir, in the State of IllinOY,' observed Chollop.

'Did you, indeed!' said Mark, without the smallest agitation. 'Very free of you. And very independent!'

'I shot him down, sir,' pursued Chollop, 'for asserting in the Spartan Portico, a tri-weekly journal, that the ancient Athenians went a-head of the present Locofoco Ticket.'

'And what's that?' asked Mark.

'Europian not to know,' said Chollop, smoking placidly. 'Europian quite!'

After a short devotion to the interests of the magic circle, he resumed the conversation by observing:

'You won't half feel yourself at home in Eden, now?'

'No,' said Mark, 'I don't.'

'You miss the imposts of your country. You miss the house dues?' observed Chollop.

'And the houses—rather,' said Mark.

'No window dues here, sir,' observed Chollop.

'And no windows to put 'em on,' said Mark.

'No stakes, no dungeons, no blocks, no racks, no scaffolds, no thumbscrews, no pikes, no pillories,' said Chollop.

'Nothing but rewolwers and bowie-knives,' returned Mark. 'And what are they? Not worth mentioning!'

The man who had met them on the night of their arrival came crawling up at this juncture, and looked in at the door.

'Well, sir,' said Chollop. 'How do YOU git along?'

He had considerable difficulty in getting along at all, and said as much in reply.

'Mr Co. And me, sir,' observed Chollop, 'are disputating a piece. He ought to be slicked up pretty smart to disputate between the Old World and the New, I do expect?'

'Well!' returned the miserable shadow. 'So he had.'

'I was merely observing, sir,' said Mark, addressing this new visitor, 'that I looked upon the city in which we have the honour to live, as being swampy. What's your sentiments?'

'I opinionate it's moist perhaps, at certain times,' returned the man.

'But not as moist as England, sir?' cried Chollop, with a fierce expression in his face.

'Oh! Not as moist as England; let alone its Institutions,' said the man.

'I should hope there ain't a swamp in all Americay, as don't whip THAT small island into mush and molasses,' observed Chollop, decisively. 'You bought slick, straight, and right away, of Scadder, sir?' to Mark.

He answered in the affirmative. Mr Chollop winked at the other citizen.

'Scadder is a smart man, sir? He is a rising man? He is a man as will come up'ards, right side up, sir?' Mr Chollop winked again at the other citizen.

'He should have his right side very high up, if I had my way,' said Mark. 'As high up as the top of a good tall gallows, perhaps.'

Mr Chollop was so delighted at the smartness of his excellent countryman having been too much for the Britisher, and at the Britisher's resenting it, that he could contain himself no longer, and broke forth in a shout of delight. But the strangest exposition of this ruling passion was in the other—the pestilence-stricken, broken, miserable shadow of a man—who derived so much entertainment from the circumstance that he seemed to forget his own ruin in thinking of it, and laughed outright when he said 'that Scadder was a smart man, and had draw'd a lot of British capital that way, as sure as sun-up.'

After a full enjoyment of this joke, Mr Hannibal Chollop sat smoking and improving the circle, without making any attempts either to converse or to take leave; apparently labouring under the not uncommon delusion that for a free and enlightened citizen of the United States to convert another man's house into a spittoon for two or three hours together, was a delicate attention, full of interest and politeness, of which nobody could ever tire. At last he rose.

'I am a-going easy,' he observed.

Mark entreated him to take particular care of himself.

'Afore I go,' he said sternly, 'I have got a leetle word to say to you. You are darnation 'cute, you are.'

Mark thanked him for the compliment.

'But you are much too 'cute to last. I can't con-ceive of any spotted Painter in the bush, as ever was so riddled through and through as you will be, I bet.'

'What for?' asked Mark.

'We must be cracked up, sir,' retorted Chollop, in a tone of menace. 'You are not now in A despotic land. We are a model to the airth, and must be jist cracked-up, I tell you.'

'What! I speak too free, do I?' cried Mark.

'I have draw'd upon A man, and fired upon A man for less,' said Chollop, frowning. 'I have know'd strong men obleeged to make themselves uncommon skase for less. I have know'd men Lynched for less, and beaten into punkin'-sarse for less, by an enlightened people. We are the intellect and virtue of the airth, the cream of human natur', and the flower Of moral force. Our backs is easy ris. We must be cracked-up, or they rises, and we snarls. We shows our teeth, I tell you, fierce. You'd better crack us up, you had!'

After the delivery of this caution, Mr Chollop departed; with Ripper, Tickler, and the revolvers, all ready for action on the shortest notice.

We are exceptional.

Privately,Charles Dickens was married and had many children. He got bored with his wife. Old Boz diddled her cousin, brought in to help, don't you know. The author of Christmas Carol then declared his poor wife insane and had her committed. Easy divorce. Took up with the young cousin.

Publicly, having courted and sucked up to Thackeray the young Boz spread rumors and lies about Thackeray in the Yates Club. Thackeray, whose wife was actually insane, was single father of two little girls. Thackeray had his beloved Isabelle Shaw-Thackeray well cared for at great personal expense and never sued for divorce. In fact, Thackeray's wife long outlived the author of Vanity Fair and Barry Lyndon.

Dickens detested America and Americans

Thackeray respected and loved both.

I guess the thing to remember is just who is talking about American Exceptionalism.

Thackeray on Swift and Steele: My Morning's Oxymoron:Deeds Not Words in Writing

Facta Non Verba - Deeds Not Words is the motto of Leo High School. It is also a weltansschwang - a world view developing a human temperament and moral code.We can admire the talents and achievements of people without necessarily acting or aping their methods and motivations.

There are some genuinely nasty people breathing our air, folks, and many of them achieve the pinnacle of success and notoriety. Our age of group think censors opinion and inclinations of individuals who might deviate from the group. Most of group think stems from fear of embarrassment or worse. Why must Lady Gaga be accepted as a paragon of talent and taste? I'll let that one dangle.

This morning's task for your Blogger Boy is a return to the opinion of my favorite writer in the English language - not the greatest as that must be Shakespeare and not the most popular as that would be Dickens - William Makepeace Thackeray - author Vanity Fair and arguably the best historical novel of all time The History of Henry Esmond. Thackeray and Charles Dickens were contemporaries, acquaintances and rivals. Dickens is widely read and Thackeray merely admired today and that is unfortunate. Both Dickens and Thackeray travelled in and wrote about America before the Civil War: Dickens hated America and Americans ( called us 'spitting bipeds') and Thackeray loved this wild and youthful land and its people. In fact, Thackeray wrote a sequel to Henry Esmond set in Colonial/Revolutionary - The Virginians.

Thackeray lectured in America and was greeted with wild enthusiasm from Boston to Cincinnati. One of his lectures The 18th Century Humorists ( Addison, Pope, Swift, Steele, Goldsmith, and Congreve) is the source of my theme today - Facta Non Verba.

Thackeray could admire a great writer and still find him repulsive. For Thackeray a writer was no different than a baker, shoemaker, or banker. Each made money from the sales of his product. Thackeray was no better a man because of product - his books, essays, and poems. However, what a writer crafted should help his fellow man in some small way. Here is Thackeray's critical turn of mind.

Humor of the Human Heart - Thackeray's Template:

BESIDES contributing to our stock of happiness, to our harmless laughter and amusement, to our scorn for falsehood and pretension, to our righteous hatred of hypocrisy, to our education in the perception of truth, our love of honesty, our knowledge of life, and shrewd guidance through the world, have not our humorous writers, our gay and kind week-day preachers, done much in support of that holy cause which has assembled you in this place, and which you are all abetting,—the cause of love and charity, the cause of the poor, the weak, and the unhappy; the sweet mission of love and tenderness, and peace and good will toward men? That same theme which is urged upon you by the eloquence and example of good men to whom you are delighted listeners on Sabbath days is taught in his way and according to his power by the humorous writer, the commentator on every-day life and manners.
. . . I have said myself somewhere, I do not know with what correctness (for definitions never are complete), that humor is wit and love; I am sure, at any rate, that the best humor is that which contains most humanity, that which is flavored throughout with tenderness and kindness. This love does not demand constant utterance or actual expression, as a good father, in conversation with his children or wife, is not perpetually embracing them or making protestations of his love; as a lover in the society of his mistress is not, at least as far as I am led to believe, for ever squeezing her hand or sighing in her ear, “My soul’s darling, I adore you!” He shows his love by his conduct, by his fidelity, by his watchful desire to make the beloved person happy; it lightens from his eyes when she appears, tho he may not speak it; it fills his heart when she is present or absent; influences all his words and actions; suffuses his whole being; it sets the father cheerily to work through the long day, supports him through the tedious labor of the weary absence or journey, and sends him happy home again, yearning toward the wife and children.
This kind of love is not a spasm, but a life. It fondles and caresses at due seasons, no doubt; but the fond heart is always beating fondly and truly, tho the wife is not sitting hand-in-hand with him or the children hugging at his knee. And so with a loving humor: I think, it is a genial writer’s habit of being; it is the kind, gentle spirit’s way of looking out on the world—that sweet friendliness which fills his heart and his style. You recognize it, even tho there may not be a single point of wit, or a single pathetic touch in the page; tho you may not be called upon to salute his genius by a laugh or a tear. That collision of ideas, which provokes the one or the other, must be occasional. They must be like papa’s embraces, which I spoke of anon, who only delivers them now and again, and can not be expected to go on kissing the children all night. And so the writer’s jokes and sentiment, his ebullitions of feeling, his outbreaks of high spirits, must not be too frequent. One tires of a page of which every sentence sparkles with points, of a sentimentalist who is always pumping the tears from his eyes or your own. One suspects the genuineness of the tear, the naturalness of the humor; these ought to be true and manly in a man, as everything else in his life should be manly and true; and he loses his dignity by laughing or weeping out of place, or too often.

Jonathan Swift was recently raped by Hollywood with Jack Black's portrayal of Lemuel Gulliver. Dr. Swift, by Thackeray's measure was an absolutely miserable prique. The great Joseph Epstein, in a very recent edition of New Criterion, assessed Nobel Prize winner Chicagoan Saul Bellow in much the same way. Click my post title for Epstein's wonderful study of a literary giant and a human midget. But first read Thackeray on old Jack Swift!


Jonathan Swift *

If I do not love Swift, as, thank God, I do not, however immensely I may admire him, it is because I revolt from the man who placards himself as a professional hater of his own kind; because he chisels his savage indignation on his tombstone, as if to perpetuate his protest against being born of our race—the suffering, the weak, the erring, the wicked, if you will, but still the friendly, the loving children of God our Father; it is because, as I read through Swift’s dark volumes, I never find the aspect of nature seems to delight him, the smiles of children to please him, the sight of wedded love to soothe him. I do not remember in any line of his writing a passing allusion to a natural scene of beauty. When he speaks about the families of his comrades and brother clergymen, it is to assail them with gibes and scorn, and to laugh at them brutally for being fathers and for being poor. He does mention, in the Journal to Stella, a sick child, to be sure—a child of Lady Masham, that was ill of the smallpox—but then it is to confound the brat for being ill and the mother for attending to it when she should have been busy about a court intrigue, in which the Dean was deeply engaged. And he alludes to a suitor of Stella’s, and a match she might have made, and would have made, very likely, with an honorable and faithful and attached man, Tisdall, who loved her, and of whom Swift speaks, in a letter to his lady, in language so foul that you would not bear to hear it.

In treating of the good the humorists have done, of the love and kindness they have taught and left behind them, it is not of this one I dare speak. Heaven help the lonely misanthrope! be kind to that multitude of sins, with so little charity to cover them!

For Thackeray, a kind man should be emulated by his fellow creatures, while a louse could be admired. The kindest man of 18th Century British Literature, in Thackeray's estimation was Captain Dick Steele: playwright, wit, essayist, soldier and patriot.

Richard Steele **

Steele, as a literary benefactor to the world’s charity, must rank very high, indeed, not merely from his givings, which were abundant, but because his endowments are prodigiously increased in value since he bequeathed them, as the revenues of the lands, bequeathed to our Foundling Hospital at London, by honest Captain Coram, its founder, are immensely enhanced by the houses since built upon them. Steele was the founder of sentimental writing in English, and how the land has been since occupied, and what hundreds of us have laid out gardens and built up tenements on Steele’s ground! Before his time, readers or hearers were never called upon to cry except at a tragedy, and compassion was not expected to express itself otherwise than in blank verse, of for personages much lower in rank than a dethroned monarch, or a widowed or a jilted empress. He stepped off the high-heeled cothurnus, and came down into common life; he held out his great hearty arms, and embraced us all; he had a bow for all women; a kiss for all children; a shake of the hand for all men, high or low; he showed us Heaven’s sun shining every day on quiet homes; not gilded palace roofs only, or court processions, or heroic warriors fighting for princesses and pitched battles. He took away comedy from behind the fine lady’s alcove, or the screen where the libertine was watching her. He ended all that wretched business of wives jeering at their husbands, of rakes laughing wives, and husbands, too, to scorn. That miserable, rouged, tawdry, sparkling, hollow-hearted comedy of the Restoration fled before him, and, like the wicked spirit in the fairy-books, shrank, as Steele let the daylight in, and shrieked, and shuddered, and vanished. The stage of humorists has been common life ever since Steele’s and Addison’s time; the joys and griefs, the aversions and sympathies, the laughter and tears of nature.

The laughter and tears of nature is a precious blessing that is, it seems to me at times, a too easily dispensable set of commodities.

*Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish[1] satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet and cleric who became Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.

He is remembered for works such as Gulliver's Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, Drapier's Letters, The Battle of the Books, An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity, and A Tale of a Tub. Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language, and is less well known for his poetry. Swift originally published all of his works under pseudonyms—such as Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff, M.B. Drapier—or anonymously. He is also known for being a master of two styles of satire: the Horatian and Juvenalian styles.




**

Sir Richard Steele (bap. 12 March 1672 – 1 September 1729) was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator.

Steele was born in Dublin, Ireland in March 1672 to Richard Steele, an attorney, and Elinor Symes (née Sheyles); his sister Katherine was born the previous year. Steele was largely raised by his uncle and aunt, Henry Gascoigne and Lady Katherine Mildmay.[1] A member of the Protestant gentry, he was educated at Charterhouse School, where he first met Addison. After starting at Christ Church in Oxford, he went on to Merton College, Oxford, then with joined the Life Guards of the Household Cavalry in order to support King William's wars against France. He was commissioned in 1697, and rose up in the ranks to captain of the 34th Foot in 2 years.[2] He disliked British Army life, and left the army in 1705, perhaps due to the death of the 34th Foot’s commanding officer, and with him, his opportunities of promotion. It may then, be no coincidence that Steele's first published work, The Christian Hero (1701), attempted to point out the differences between perceived and actual masculinity.

In 1706 Steele was appointed to a position in the household of Prince George of Denmark, consort of Anne of Great Britain. He also gained the favour of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford.

In 1705, Steele married a widow, Margaret Stretch, who died in the following year. At her funeral he met his second wife, Mary Scurlock, whom he nicknamed "Prue" and married in 1707. In the course of their courtship and marriage, he wrote over 400 letters to her. They were a devoted couple, their correspondence still being regarded as one of the best illustrations of a happy marriage, but their relationship was stormy. Mary died in 1718, at a time when she was considering separation. Their daughter, Elizabeth (Steele's only surviving legitimate child), married John Trevor, 3rd Baron Trevor.

Steele became a Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1713, but was soon expelled for issuing a pamphlet in favour of the Hanoverian succession. When George I of Great Britain came to the throne in the following year, Steele was knighted and given responsibility for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. While at Drury Lane, Steele wrote and directed The Conscious Lovers, which was an immediate hit. However, he fell out with Addison and with the administration over the Peerage Bill (1719), and in 1724 he retired to his wife's homeland of Wales, where he spent the remainder of his life.[3]

A member of the Whig Kit-Kat Club, Steele remained in Carmarthen after Mary's death, and was buried there, at St Peter's Church. During restoration of the church in 2000, his skull was discovered in a lead casket, having previously been accidentally disinterred during the 1870s.

Friday Night Noise -Drifters: Only in America

"To endure is greater than to dare;
to tire out hostile fortune;
to be daunted by no difficulty;
to keep heart when all have lost it;
to go through intrigue spotless;
to forgo even ambition when the end is gained
-- who can say this is not greatness?"

William Makepeace Thackeray ( 1811-1863) Who Love America and Americans.

Best Version Extant!

Nora, I am Proud of You!

. . . 'tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude, or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them a being

William Makepeace Thackeray from The History of Henry Esmond

My Daughter Nora Kathleen Hickey graduated on Saturday May 10, 2008 with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Western Illinois University.

Nora is my first born and was barely 13 years old when she lost her mother. Having a hollowed out and pole-axed father to contend with would have been tough enough, but the fact that two-thousand years of Irish faux-Stoicism got tossed into my mixture made it worse; that and my litany of vices.

Nora, is now on the threshold. What? I have no idea.

To say that I love you, goes without saying - in fact, I say that very rarely, if at all.

To say that I am proud of you , easy.

To say that I will be there for you, I have been - it is not much, but it is your's.

Pain is often more emotional than physical. Pain was what brought you into the world; your mother's physical pain was overcome by the emotional and spiritual joy of beholding you for the first moment and taken by your mother with her into Eternity. Understand that - You and your brother and baby sister are the Joy that helped Mom leap to Jesus. Joy.

Joy is not bottled, cashed, or bargained for - it is earned through great labor and pain.

The secret of all living is in the doing and the doing is only made possible by Faith - in God, in yourself and in your family. God first; then in yourself; and then me and Conor and Clare and all the hundreds of Hickeys, Clearys,Donahues, Winters, Brennans, Walshes, Gunkels, Duvals and Olsons. They are with you always.

Now, get to work. The Pain is only just beginning and that comes well before the Joy.

Click my post title for a pretty good analysis of pain and life in the business world.