be applied.

(1904.)




OLD FRIENDS WITH NEW FACES


Thackeray was frequent in praise of Fenimore Cooper, hailing
Leatherstocking as better than any of "Scott's lot"; and this laudation
appeared in the 'Roundabout Papers' long after the British novelist had
paid to the American romancer the sincere flattery of borrowing from the
last words of Natty Bumppo the suggestion, at least, of the last words
of Colonel Newcome. Cooper's backwoodsman, hearing an inaudible
roll-call had responded "Here!" a score of years before Thackeray's old
soldier had become again a child to answer "Adsum!" Not less than a
score of years later an old sailor in one of the stories of Sir Walter
Besant made his final exit from this world with a kindred phrase, "Come
on board, sir!" And then, once more, in one of Mr. Kipling's 'Plain
Tales from the Hills,' we find the last dying speech and confession of a
certain McIntosh who had been a scholar and a gentleman in days gone by,
and who had sunk into irredeemable degradation in India. When his hour
came, he rose in bed and said, as loudly as slowly, "Not guilty, my
Lord!" Then he fell back, and the stupor held him till he died.

There are criticasters not a few who would denounce Thackeray and Besant
and Mr. Kipling as arrant plagiarists; but critics of a more delicate
perception of the principles of art would rather praise these authors