e gentleman is still the gentleman,
with all the pride of gentry;--but not the less is he the humble
bedesman, aware that he is living upon charity, not made to grovel by
any sense of shame, but knowing that, though his normal pride may be
left to him, an outward demeanour of humility is befitting.

And then he dies. "At the usual evening hour the chapel bell began to
toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time,--and,
just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his
face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said,
'Adsum,'--and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names
were called; and, lo, he whose heart was as that of a little child had
answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Maker!"

CHAPTER V.

ESMOND AND THE VIRGINIANS.

The novel with which we are now going to deal I regard as the greatest
work that Thackeray did. Though I do not hesitate to compare himself
with himself, I will make no comparison between him and others; I
therefore abstain from assigning to _Esmond_ any special niche among
prose fictions in the English language, but I rank it so high as to
justify me in placing him among the small number of the highest class of
English novelists. Much as I think of _Barry Lyndon_ and _Vanity Fair_,
I cannot quite say this of them; but, as a chain is not stronger than
its weakest link, so is a poet, or a dramatist, or a novelist to be
placed in no lower level than that which he has attained by his highest
sustained flight. The excellence which has been reached here Thackeray
achieved, without doubt, by giving a greater amount of forethought to
the work he had before him than had been his wont. When we were young we
used to be told, in our house at home, that "elbow-grease" was the one
essential necessary to getting a tough piece of work well done. If a
mahogany table was to be made to shine, it was elbow-grease that the
operation needed. Forethought is the elbow-grease which a novelist,--or
poet, or dramatist,--requires. It is not only his plot that has to be
turned and re-turned in his mind, not his plot chiefly, but he has to
make himself sure of his situations, of his characters, of his effects,
so that when the time comes for hitting the nail he may know where to
hit it on the head,--so that he may himself understand the passion, the
calmness, the virtues, the vices, the rewards and punishments which he
means to explain