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This bookcover image was restored and the printing added by the transcriber, and it isplaced in the public domain.
THE MAHOGANY TREE
This characteristic picture of the author of "TheMahogany Tree" is reproduced from a drawingmade by the distinguished illustrator, Mr. EdmundDulac, for the cover of the menu of a dinner of theTitmarsh Club of London. It is reprinted hereby Mr. Dulac's very kind permission.
THE MAHOGANY TREE
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY
NEW YORK
PRIVATELY PRINTED
CHRISTMAS 1910
The Mahogany Tree
"Some years since" said Thackeray in a publicspeech, "when I was younger, and used tofrequent jolly assemblies, I wrote a Bacchanaliansong to be chanted after dinner;" and a contemporaryrecord has preserved a note of "the radiantgratification of his face whilst Horace Mayhewsang The Mahogany Tree, perhaps the finest andmost soul-stirring of Thackeray's social songs."
In seeking a Souvenir of this Christmas seasonthe ballad of "The Mahogany Tree" lends itselfmost felicitously to the present purpose which is to
"—wish you health, and love and mirth,
As fits the solemn Christmas-tide."
Putting aside for an hour the affairs of a work-a-dayworld, let us take our places around theconvivial board, on the time-stained surface ofwhich we may find in fancy the initials of so manyboon companions of other days cut deep.
It is pleasant to sport "round the stem of thejolly old tree" in congenial company, and to renewour youth at the bidding of this gracious Toastmaster,the centennial of whose birth we shallcelebrate presently; the anniversary of whose deathwas yester-e'en.
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