I

CHAPTER VI

NO. 36 ONSLOW SQUARE

WISH I could have seen inside, for here it was that

Thackeray lived from 1853 to 1861. "The den in

which he wrote," says Mr. Crowe, "was very cheerful; its windows commanded a view of the old avenue of elm trees. The walls were decked with wonderful watercolour scenes by his favourite, Mr. Bennet, and quite in a central place was the beautiful mezzotint of Sir Joshua's 'Little Girl in the Snow,' a playful terrier and robin redbreast as her companions. As a change he would at times prefer the Sunflower room and dictate while lounging on an ottoman - too often battling with pain in later days. The little bronze statuette of George IV on the mantelpiece had the look of an ironical genius loci, when the work of hammering into the lectures of the Four Georges was on the anvil."

I could only look up at the windows, as many another pilgrim has done. But my imagination, at least, was not barred an entrance by their protective panes. On the other side of them the great man had written the closing chapters of "The Newcomes," all of "The Virginians," part of "Philip," "The Roundabout Papers," and "Four Georges."

His private secretary, Mr. James Hodder, has told us how the work was done: behind these very sashes.

"Duty called me to his bedchamber every morning, and as a general rule I found him up and ready to begin work, though he was sometimes in doubt and difficulty as to whether he should commence sitting, or standing, or walking, or lying down. Often he would light a cigar, and, after pacing the room for a few minutes, would put the unsmoked remnant on the mantelpiece and resume his work with increased cheerfulness, as if he gathered fresh inspiration from the gentle odours of the sublime tobacco."

It is not very agreeable - this standing outside looking up at the windows of somebody you have loved, watching for a shadow on a curtain, or the round of a head framed in a pane of glass.

The street is a narrow one-perhaps the width of two taxis, and when Evins brought his own opposite No. 36, I was much too near for any satisfactory composition. There was, however, a wonderful old Square opposite, filled with trees, grass, perambulators, nursemaids, lovely English children the loveliest the world over, and the rosiest and best-behaved- - besides no end of gravelled walks spattered with shadows, for the weather had cleared and the sun had come out and was shining away for all it was worth. And there was an iron fence - a tall, ugly, forbidding fence, armed with bayonets interspersed with grim-looking gates, that shut to with a sudden snap as if lying in wait for your finger, and could only be opened by keys belonging to the owners of the rows of houses flanking its four sides. A drawing made from the sidewalk facing the iron fence would