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WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

[EDINBURGH REVIEW]

B

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

THE pure humourist is one of the rarest of literary characters. His nature is not content with detecting foibles, nor his pen with pointing them out for derision; his purpose is infinitely higher and nobler. The humourist must have emotions, nerves, sensibilities, and that marvellous sympathy with human nature which enables him to change places at will with other members of his species. Humour does not produce the sneer of Voltaire; it rather smiles through the tear of Montaigne. 'True humour,' it has been wisely said, 'springs not more from the head than from the heart; it is not contempt, its essence is love; it issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. It is a sort of inverse sublimity; exalting as it were into our affections what is below us, while sublimity draws down into our affections what is above us. It is, in fact, the bloom and perfume, the purest effluence of a deep, fine, and loving nature.' Without humour, society would exist in Ice

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