PREFACE

Summary

All readers of Thackeray know his delightful imaginary conversation-verses between “The Pen and the Album,” written before his travels in the United States, and the concluding lines:—

“Stranger! I never writ a flattery,

Nor sigu'd the page that register'd a lie.”

“The faithful old Gold Pen,” to which he assigns these two noble qualifications of unswerving truthfulness, and which he then adds had served him already for three long years in making his sketches, was part of his equipment of materials taken to the States. When it was not in his own grasp he allowed me to take it up for my sketching lucubrations, which were for the most part executed with its wondrously flexible and seemingly indestructible nib. He was so far pleased with my efforts that, not content with showing them to our American friends, who also nodded approvingly over their sometimes grotesque yet faithful renderings of every-day scenes as they struck a newcomer's fancy, he urged me to make a selection from them, and to forward them to London for publication in an illustrated periodical. Whether they ever reached their destination I forgot to ascertain on my return. This neglect on my part I now lament, as among the drawings was one of the Washington House of Representatives, with a portrayal of the different members sitting at their semi-circularlyplaced desks, fronting the Speaker's Chair, over which soared majestically the American eagle.