From the Easy Chair, Volume 1Curtis, George William
General
From the Easy Chair, Volume 1
Curtis, George William
American essays
Mr. Lester Wallack in his reminiscences speaks of Thackeray, whom he
knew in New York, and recalls with admiration his simple and hearty
ways. Wallack says that as he returned from acting at his father's
theatre, then at the corner of Broadway and Broome Street, to his
lodgings in Houston Street, he used to pass Thackeray's quarters, who
was living with the late William D. Robinson in Houston Street, and if
he saw a light in the window he went in, and the gentlemen finished
the night together. He says that Thackeray had a boy's enjoyment of
the stories that the late-comer told, and although the guest does not
say it, the reader easily imagines that had he been in Thackeray's
place he would have shared Thackeray's pleasure in the gayeties of his
guest. Thackeray had the tastes of the town, and Charles Marlowe and
My Awful Dad were sure to bring their own welcome.
Wallack also alludes to a dinner which Thackeray gave at the old
Delmonico's, at the corner of Broadway and Chambers Street, at the end
of his first visit to this country. He had been most warmly received,
and he had given universal delight by his lectures upon the English
Humorists. The charm of these lectures is evident in the reading, but
the pleasure of hearing them is quite indescribable. They were
delivered in Dr. Chapin's old church, upon the east side of Broadway
just below Prince Street, to an exceedingly intelligent and
sympathetic audience, who knew their enjoyment to be the highest kind
of literary pleasure. The thorough appreciation of the men whom he
described, the sweet and sinewy simplicity of his English, of which he
was a twin master with Hawthorne, the constant play of his kindly
humor, and manly pathos and sympathy, with his rich voice and massive,
magnetic presence, his melodious and refined inflection in speaking,
and his quiet, easy, colloquial manner, thrusting thumbs and
forefingers in his waistcoat-pockets--all these, pleasing to the mind
and sense, made him the pleasantest of lecturers, and still enchant
the memory of those
"happy evenings all too swiftly sped."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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