New-Year's present. As long as I live it will remain among my books,
specially treasured as having been owned and read by one of the noblest
and most sorely tried of men, a hero comparable with any of
Plutarch's,--


"The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."


THACKERAY

* * * * *

_What Emerson has said in his fine subtle way of Shakespeare may well be
applied to the author of "Vanity Fair."

"One can discern in his ample pictures what forms and humanities pleased
him; his delight in troops of friends, in large hospitality, in cheerful
giving._

* * * * *

_"He read the hearts of men and women, their probity, and their second
thought, and wiles; the wiles of innocence, and the transitions by which
virtues and vices slide into their contraries."_