possession of that neat little literary paper, _The Museum_, which
perhaps you remember, and this eligible literary property my friend
Honeyman, with his wheedling tongue, induced me to purchase." Here is
the history of Thackeray's money, told by himself plainly enough, but
with no intention on his part of narrating an incident in his own life
to the public. But the drollery of the circumstances, his own mingled
folly and young ambition, struck him as being worth narration, and the
more forcibly as he remembered all the ins and outs of his own
reflections at the time,--how he had meant to enchant the world, and
make his fortune. There was literary capital in it of which he could
make use after so many years. Then he tells us of this ambition, and of
the folly of it; and at the same time puts forward the excuses to be
made for it. "I daresay I gave myself airs as editor of that confounded
_Museum_, and proposed to educate the public taste, to diffuse morality
and sound literature throughout the nation, and to pocket a liberal
salary in return for my services. I daresay I printed my own sonnets, my
own tragedy, my own verses.... I daresay I wrote satirical articles....
I daresay I made a gaby of myself to the world. Pray, my good friend,
hast thou never done likewise? If thou hast never been a fool, be sure
thou wilt never be a wise man." Thackeray was quite aware of his early
weaknesses, and in the maturity of life knew well that he had not been
precociously wise. He delighted so to tell his friends, and he delighted
also to tell the public, not meaning that any but an inner circle should
know that he was speaking of himself. But the story now is plain to all
who can read.[1]

It was thus that he lost his money; and then, not having prospered very
well with his drawing lessons in Paris or elsewhere, he was fain to take
up literature as a profession. It is a business which has its
allurements. It requires no capital, no special education, no training,