NEWMAN ON THACKERAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 14

NEWMAN ON THACKERAY.

In the "Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman," by Wilfred Ward, there occurs the following interesting letter on the occasion of Thackeray's death :— .To Miss Holmes. The Oratory, Birmingham, Dec, 27, IBG3. My best Christmas greetings to you and to Mr. and M*s. Leigh. ■ But I do not write to say what you will believe 1 fed, though I do. not say it, but to express the piercing sorrow that I feel at Thackeray's .death. You know I never saw him, but you have interested me in him, and one saw in his books the workings of his mind— and he has died with such awful suddenness. A new work of hjs had been advertised, and I looked foni-ird with' pleasure to reading it, and now tho drama of his life is closed, and he himself is the greatest instanc? of tho text of which.he was so full: "Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas." I wonder whether he has known his own decay, for a decay I think there has been. I. thought his last novel betrayed lassitude nnd exhaustion of mind,'-and he has lain by apparently for a year. His last (fugt tive) pieces in the "Cprnhill" have been almost sermons—one should be very glad to know that ho had presentiments of what was to come. What a world this is! How wretched they are who take it, for their portion. Poor Thackeray! It seems but the other day sinco we became Catholics. Now all his renown has boen sinco that—he has made his name, has been made much of, has been feted, and has gone out, 'all since 1816 or 1847, all since I went to Propaganda and came back a Philippine