"I never feel pity for a man dying, only for survivors if there be such passionately deploring him. You see the pleasures the undersigned proposes to himself here in future years,--a sight of the Alps, a holiday on the Rhine, a ride in the Park, a colloquy with pleasant friends of an evening. If it is death to part with these delights (and pleasures they are, and no mistake), sure the mind can conceive others afterward; and I know one small philosopher who is quite ready to give up these pleasures,--quite content (after a pang or two of separation from dear friends here) to put his hand into that of the summoning angel, and say, 'Lead on, O messenger of God our Father, to the next place whither the divine goodness calls us.' We must be blindfolded before we can pass, I know; but I have no fear about what is to come, any more than my children need fear that the love of _their_ father should fail them. I thought myself a dead man once, and protest the notion gave me no disquiet about myself,--at least the philosophy is more comfortable than that which is tinctured with brimstone." He hated those who make a stock in trade of their religion, and, like Dr. Johnson, would have advised them to clear their minds of cant; but no genuine evidence of religious feeling or experience was ever treated lightly by him, and he was greatly shocked at any real desecration of sacred things. He had a simple, childlike faith in God and in the Saviour, and a firm hope in the everlasting life. In person, Thackeray was a tall, ruddy, simple-looking Englishman, with rather a full face, florid, almost rubicund, and keen, kindly eyes, and, after forty, abundant gray hair. He had a conspicuous, almost a commanding figure, with a certain awkwardness in his gait. He had a misshaped nose, caused by an accident in boyhood, and a sarcastic twinkle oftentimes in his eyes, which changed the expression of his whole face.