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DE FINIBUS.

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[INTRODUCTION.-The following paper, De Finibus (Concerning Conclu zions), is one of a series which, under the title of "Roundabout Papers," was published in the Cornhill Magazine. It has reference to the finishing of the novel called The Adventures of Philip, the last complete work of Thackeray. To extract from novels is an unsatisfactory task, and hence this paper is selected as having the advantage of completeness. Though it does not show the author at his best, it is characterized by much of his rare charm of style.] 1. When Swift was in love with Stella, and despatching her a letter from London thrice a month by the Irish packet, you may remember how he would begin letter No. XXIII., we will the very day when XXII. had been sent away, stealing out of the coffee-house or the assembly so as to be able to prattle with his s dear; "never letting go her kind hand, as it were," as some commentator or other has said in speaking of the Dean and his amour. When Mr. Johnson, walking to Dodsley's, and touching the posts in Pall Mall as he walked, forgot to pat the head of one of them, he went back and imposed his hands on it, impelled 10 I know not by what superstition. I have this, I hope not dangerous, mania, too. As soon as a piece of work is out of hand, and before going to sleep, I like to begin another: it may be to write only half a dozen lines; but there is something towards Number the Next. The printer's boy has not yet reached Green 15 Arbor Court with the copy. Those people who were alive half an hour since-Pendennis, Olive Newcome, and (what do you call him? what was the name of the last hero? I remember now!) Philip Firmin—have hardly drunk their glass of wine, and the mammas have only this minute got the children's cloaks 20

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-I. Swift. Who was Swift? (See Characterization of him in this book.)

1-8. When ... amour. What kind of sentence grammatically? Rhetorically? 8. Mr. Johnson. Who was Dr. Samuel Johnson? (See Characterization in

this book.)

10, II. impelled... superstition.

words.

16. copy. Meaning of the word?

Give the grammatical analysis of these

17-19. Pendennis, Olive Newcome... Philip Firmin. State in which of the novels of Thackeray these characters appear.-In what consists the drollery of the mode in which the name "Philip Firmin " is introduced?

on, and have been bowed out of my premises, and here I come back to the study again: tamen usque recurro. How lonely it looks, now all these people are gone! My dear, good friends, some folks are utterly tired of you, and say, "What a poverty of friends the man has ! He is always asking us to meet those 25 Pendennises, Newcomes, and so forth. Why does he not introduce us to some new characters? Why is he not thrilling like Twostars, learned and profound like Threestars, exquisitely humorous and human like Fourstars? Why, finally, is he not somebody else?" My good people, it is not only impossible to 30 please you all, but it is absurd to try. The dish which one man devours, another dislikes. Is the dinner of to-day not to your taste? Let us hope to-morrow's entertainment will be more agreeable. . . . I resume my original subject. What an odd, pleasant, humorous, melancholy feeling it is to sit in the study, 35 alone and quiet, now all these people are gone who have been boarding and lodging with me for twenty months! They have interrupted my rest; they have plagued me at all sorts of minutes; they have thrust themselves upon me when I was ill or wished to be idle, and I have growled out a " Be hanged to you! 40 can't you leave me alone now?" Once or twice they have prevented my going out to dinner. Many and many a time they have prevented my coming home, because I knew they were there waiting in the study, and a plague take them! and I have left home and family, and gone to dine at the Club, and told no-45 body where I went. They have bored me, those people. They have plagued me at all sorts of uncomfortable hours. They have made such a disturbance in my mind and house that sometimes I have hardly known what was going on in my family, and scarcely have heard what my neighbor said to me. They so

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-22. tamen usque recurro, "yet do I always return." (For the full quotation, of which this is an adaptation, see Webster's Diction ary, under Latin Quotations-Naturam expellas, etc.)

22, 23. How lonely... gone! What kind of sentence grammatically? 24, 25. What a poverty of friends. Substitute a synonymous expression. 31, 32. The dish... dislikes. What is the figure of speech? What common proverb expresses the same sentiment?

37. boarding and lodging with me. Explain. 46. They... people. Point out the pleonasm.

are gone at last, and you would expect me to be at ease? Far from it. I should almost be glad if Woolcomb would walk in and talk to me or Twysden reappear, take his place in that chair opposite me, and begin one of his tremendous stories.

2. Madmen, you know, see visions, hold conversations with, even 55 draw the likeness of, people invisible to you and me. Is this making of people out of fancy madness, and are novel-writers at all entitled to strait-waistcoats? I often forget people's names in life, and in my own stories contritely own that I make dreadful blunders regarding them; but I declare, my dear sir, with re- 60 spect to the personages introduced into your humble servant's fables, I know the people utterly-I know the sound of their voices. A gentleman came in to see me the other day, who was so like the picture of Philip Firmin in Mr. Walker's charming drawings in the Cornhill Magazine that he was quite a curiosity 65 to me. The same eyes, beard, shoulders, just as you have seen them from month to month. Well, he is not like the Philip Firmin in my mind. Asleep, asleep in the grave, lies the bold, the generous, the reckless, the tender-hearted creature whom I have made to pass through those adventures which have just 70 been brought to an end. It is years since I heard the laughter ringing, or saw the bright blue eyes. When I knew him, both were young. I become young as I think of him. And this morning he was alive again in this room, ready to laugh, to fight, to weep. As I write, do you know, it is the gray of even- 75 ing; the house is quiet; everybody is out; the room is getting a little dark; and I look rather wistfully up from the paper with perhaps ever so little fancy that HE MAY COME IN.-No? No movement. No gray shade, growing more palpable, out of which at last look the well-known eyes. No; the printer came and & took him away with the last page of the proofs. And with the printer's boy did the whole cortège of ghosts flit away, invisible?

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-55. Madmen, you know, etc. Analyze this sentence. 58. strait-waistcoats. Explain.

62. I know the people utterly. How is this general statement rendered em phatic by a specific instance of his knowledge?

68. Asleep, etc. Point out the example of epizeuxis. (See Def. 85.)—How does the order of the words add to the vivacity of the sentence.-Arrange the sentence in the prose order

Ha! stay! what is this? Angels and ministers of grace! The door opens, and a dark form-enters, bearing a black-a black suit of clothes. It is John. He says it is time to dress for 85 dinner.

3. Every man who has had his German tutor, and has been coached through the famous Faust of Goethe (thou wert my instructor, good old Weissenborn, and these eyes beheld the great master himself in dear little Weimar town!), has read those 90 charming verses which are prefixed to the drama, in which the poet reverts to the time when his work was first composed, and recalls the friends, now departed, who once listened to his song. The dear shadows rise up around him, he says; he lives in the past again. It is to-day which appears vague and visionary. 95 We humbler writers cannot create Fausts, or raise up monumental works that shall endure for all ages; but our books are diaries, in which our own feelings must of necessity be set down. As we look to the page written last month, or ten years ago, we remember the day and its events—the child ill, mayhap, in the 100 adjoining room, and the doubts and fears which racked the brain as it still pursued its work; the dear old friend who read the commencement of the tale, and whose gentle hand shall be laid in ours no more. I own, for my part, that, in reading pages which this hand penned formerly, I often lose sight of the text 105 under my eyes. It is not the words I see, but that past day; that by gone page of life's history; that tragedy, comedy it may be, which our little home company was enacting; that merry

LITERARY ANALYSIS. -83-86. Ha!... dinner.

What kind of sentence

grammatically is the first? The second? The third?-From what poet is the exclamation "Angels and ministers of grace!" a partial quotation?—In what manner is the melodramatic effect of the passage worked up?-Point out the anticlimax.

88. coached. Explain the term.-Who was Goethe?

94. The dear shadows. Explain.

95. It is, etc. What figure of speech is exemplified in this sentence?

96, 97. raise up... ages. Express in other language.

97, 98. our books are diaries.

What is the figure of speech?

106-110. It is... buried. Point out an example of antithesis. Of epizeuxis. -Point out the pathetic element.

making which we shared; that funeral which we followed; that bitter, bitter grief which we buried.

110

4. And such being the state of my mind, I pray gentle readers to deal kindly with their humble servant's manifold short-comings, blunders, and slips of memory. As sure as I read a page of my own composition, I find a fault or two-half a dozen. Jones is called Brown. Brown, who is dead, is brought to life. 115 Aghast, and months after the number was printed, I saw that I had called Philip Firmin, Clive Newcome. Now Clive Newcome is the hero of another story by the reader's most obedient writer. The two men are as different, in my mind's eye, as—as Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli, let us say. But there is that 120 blunder at page 990, line 76, volume lxxxiv. of the Cornhill Magazine, and it is past mending; and I wish in my life I had made no worse blunders or errors than that which is hereby acknowledged.

5. Another Finis written; another milestone passed on this 125 journey from birth to the next world! Sure it is a subject for solemn cogitation. Shall we continue this story-telling business, and be voluble* to the end of our age? Will it not be presently time, O prattler, to hold your tongue, and let younger people speak? I have a friend, a painter, who, like other persons who 130 shall be nameless, is growing old. He has never painted with such laborious finish as his works now show. This master is still the most humble and diligent of scholars. Of Art, his mistress, he is always an eager, reverent pupil. In his calling, in yours, in mine, industry and humility will help and comfort us. 135 A word with you. In a pretty large experience, I have not found the men who write books superior in wit or learning to those who don't write at all. In regard of mere information,

LITERARY ANALYSIS.-117. had called... Newcome. This was an instance of what has been called heterophemy.

123. blunders or errors. Is there any distinction between these synonyms? 125. written... passed. What is the effect of the omission of the auxiliary verb?

126. Sure. Used by enallage for what word?

127. solemn cogitation. Substitute synonyms.

131-134. He... pupil. Observe that the same thought is here thrice stated, but with skilful variation of language.

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