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William Makepeace Thackeray.
On September 17, 1892, The Critic (21: 150) reprinted a letter from Anne Ritchie's "Chapters from Some Unwritten Memoirs, VIII," MacMillan's Magazine, 66 (Sept. 1892), 349-349, in which Thackeray praised Carlyle's work.
Thackeray was a great admirer of Carlyle. In a letter to his mother,
written in 1839, he says:—"I wish you could get Carlyle's
miscellaneous
criticisms. I have read a little in the book. A nobler one does not live in our
language, I am sure, and one that will have such an effect on our ways of
thought and prejudices. Criticism has been a party matter with us till now,
and literature is a poor political lacquey. Please
God we shall begin, ere long, to love art for art's sake. It is Carlyle who
has worked more than any other to give it its independence."
219
A month later (21 [Oct. 15, 1892], 212) "The Lounger" column reported that "In a letter to Dr. Henry Van Dyke some time in 1889 he [Thackeray] said:—'I think it wisest in a man to do his work in the world as quickly and as well as he can, without much heeding the praise and dispraise.'"
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