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Handbook of Drying of
Vegetables and Vegetable
Products
Advances in Drying Science and Technology
Series Editor:
Arun S. Mujumdar
PUBLISHED TITLES
Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products
Min Zhang, Bhesh Bhandari, Zhongxiang Fang
Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Spray Dryers:
An Engineer’s Guide
Meng Wai Woo
Advances in Heat Pump-Assisted Drying Technology
Vasile Minea
Handbook of Drying of
Vegetables and Vegetable
Products
Edited by
Min Zhang
Bhesh Bhandari
Zhongxiang Fang
MATLAB® and Simulink® are trademarks of The MathWorks, Inc. and are used with permission.
TheMathWorks does not warrant the accuracy of the text or exercises in this book. This book’s use or
discussion of MATLAB® and Simulink® software or related products does not constitute endorsement or
sponsorship by The MathWorks of a particular pedagogical approach or particular use of the MATLAB®
and Simulink® software.
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v
vi Contents
Chapter 18 Computer Vision and Its Applications for Drying of Vegetables........ 455
Alex Martynenko
Index....................................................................................................................... 525
Preface
Drying of vegetables and vegetable products is very important in many develop-
ing countries, such as China, Brazil, India, and Thailand, as this can reduce the
waste of fresh produce since consumption is usually less than production in a given
period, increase product value and job opportunities, and provide varieties of veg-
etable products to the market. This is also important in developed countries as
consumers demand high-quality dried vegetables for both convenience and health
benefits.
According to the data provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, most of the vegetables in the world are produced by the
developing countries. China alone produces about half of the world’s vegetables.
Unfortunately, the vegetable processing technology, including drying technology,
is developing slowly. The aim of this handbook is to act as a handy tool for R&D
researchers in the field of vegetable drying, a textbook for undergraduate and post-
graduate students in universities, and a reference book for researchers in relevant
fields, including agricultural engineering and chemical engineering. Twenty chap-
ters are included in this book, and they are authored by experts from 12 different
countries, representing the current global technologies and industrial status in this
specific area.
The book comprises of four main sections: Drying Processes and Technologies,
Drying of Specific Vegetable Products, Changes in Properties during Vegetable
Drying, and Others (Modeling, Measurements, Packaging, and Safety of Dried
Vegetables and Vegetable Products).
The actual contents of this handbook include: Main current vegetable drying
technologies in hot air and freeze drying, and their combinations; Highly efficient
vegetable drying technologies in microwave drying, radio frequency drying, infra-
red radiation drying, ultrasound assisted drying and their combinations; Smart dry-
ing and foam-mat drying; Drying of specific vegetable products like herbs, spices,
vegetable snacks, edible flowers, and mushrooms; Properties or quality changes in
pigments and nutrients, texture and aroma changes during drying; Modeling of dryer
and microstructural and morphological changes during drying; Nondestructive
measurement by optical sensing technology and by computer vision image analy-
sis for vegetable drying; Novel package and microbiology safety of dried vegetable
products.
Many research papers have been and are being published on these topics, indicat-
ing continuing interests in vegetable drying research and development in the indus-
try. We hope this comprehensive handbook, which provides updated information on
various aspects of vegetable and vegetable products drying, will be helpful for the
readers and researchers engaged in product research and development in food indus-
tries and for academics in research institutions and universities.
ix
x Preface
We acknowledge and thank all of the contributing authors for their hard work. We
would like to thank Prof Arun S. Mujumdar for his strong support and Dr Weiqiao
Lv for his efficient assistance in communication with chapter authors during editing
this book.
Min Zhang
Bhesh Bhandari
Zhongxiang Fang
Editors
Min Zhangperformed two periods of postdoctoral research from 1992 to 1997. He
is currently the key professor and PhD supervisor in the School of Food Science
and Technology, Jiangnan University. He is the director of R&D, Center of Food
Resource and Utilization Technology in Jiangnan University. His research areas
focus on the mechanism, technology, and engineering of processing and storing
fresh foods.
Professor Zhang has been approved as a master’s supervisor and has supervised
105 master’s students (of whom 96 graduated) since 1998. Since 2000, he has been
approved as a PhD supervisor and has supervised 42 PhDs (of whom 31 graduated).
Professor Zhang began to supervise postdoctoral researchers in 2004 and has super-
vised 6 postdocs. In 2003 and 2005, he was listed in Who’s Who in Science and
Engineering. In 2004, he was listed in the first batch of the National Personnel
Training Project of the New Century Bai-Qian-Wan Project. In 2006, he was listed
as a National Expert and was entitled to special government allowances. In 2005,
he was invited as the scientific adviser in the food science by the International
Foundation for Science (IFS). From 2007, he has been listed as early or late listed as
the editorial member of three SCI journals (Journal of Food Engineering, IF2.576;
Drying Technology, IF1.77; International Agrophysics, IF 1.142) and several domes-
tic journals, such as Journal of Food Science and Biotechnology, Journal of Food
Safety and Food Quality, and Drying Technology and Equipment. In August 2013, he
was appointed as an honorary professor in the field of food science by the University
of Queensland, Australia.
In recent years, Professor Zhang has actively promoted the industrialization of
new quality control technology in fresh food processing and preservation and has
established a longtime collaboration mechanism of Industry-Academia-Research
(joint research institute) with more than 10 large- and medium-sized domestic and
foreign food or equipment companies like Haitong Food Group Co. Ltd., PepsiCo
Food Co., and Jiahao Food Co., which created obvious economic benefits for the
enterprise.
Professor Zhang has published 26 monographs or translated books in national
presses and 10 English book chapters, edited one international conference proceed-
ings (English edition), and coedited one English academic book. He has published
more than 240 SCI international journal papers as a corresponding author. About
116 applied invention patents from his group (with him as the main inventor) have
already been authorized by the Chinese National Intellectual Property Bureau. He
has also applied for 11 international patents, including patents from Germany, Japan,
France, South Korea, and Switzerland. He was recognized as the fifth of the top ten
outstanding patent inventors in Jiangsu Province (China) in 2012. The projects carried
out by Professor Zhang have been granted more than 10 awards by government and
professional associations, including an award from the national government (second
prize for the National Scientific and Technological Progress Award, 2012), an award
from the government of Jiangsu Province (first prize for the Province Scientific and
xi
xii Editors
Technological Progress Award, 2009), two awards from China General Chamber
of Commerce (first prize for the National Commerce Scientific and Technological
Progress Award, 2009, 2011), an award from China National Light Industry Council
(first prize for the National Light Industry Scientific and Technological Progress Award,
2007), and an award from China National Food Industry Association (first prize for
the National Food Industry Scientific and Technological Progress Award, 2011).
Bhesh Bhandari has been associated with the University of Queensland for more
than 22 years. His research is mainly focused on food materials science, includ-
ing microencapsulation of food ingredients and glass transition–related issues in
food processing and product systems. Various microencapsulation processes, such
as spray drying, molecular encapsulation, cocrystallization, precipitation, and gel
entrapment, have been investigated by his research team. Professor Bhandari’s cur-
rent research focus has been to relate the nanostructure of food systems to their bulk
properties. He has developed a continuous method to produce microgel particles that
can be used to encapsulate various functional ingredients and pharmaceutical drugs.
He has performed a number of pioneering studies on the stickiness issues of food
powders encountered during drying and handling. Recently, he developed a patented
technique to produce an ethylene powder that can be used for fruit ripening as well
as control of other physiological functions in plants. Professor Bhandarihas authored
more than 200 papers, including 30 book chapters. He has coedited Food Materials
Science and Engineering and Handbook of Food Powders, which have been pub-
lished recently. Professor Bhandari is an editor of The Journal of Food Engineering.
xiii
xiv Contributors
CONTENTS
1.1 I ntroduction.......................................................................................................3
1.2 Characteristics of Hot Airflow Drying..............................................................4
1.2.1 Heat and Mass Transfer.........................................................................4
1.2.2 Drying Quality Evaluation....................................................................6
1.2.3 Energy Consumption.............................................................................6
1.3 Vegetable AD Process.......................................................................................7
1.3.1 Drying Process and Main Equipment...................................................7
1.3.2 Box-Type Vegetable Dryer.....................................................................8
1.3.3 Multilayer AD Vegetable Dryer.............................................................9
1.3.4 Mesh Belt AD Dryer..............................................................................9
1.3.5 Fluidized Bed Dryer............................................................................ 10
1.4 AD-Related Combination Drying................................................................... 11
1.4.1 AD Combined with Microwave........................................................... 11
1.4.2 AD Combined with Heat Pump........................................................... 15
1.4.3 AD Combined with Infrared Drying................................................... 16
1.4.4 AD Combined with RF........................................................................ 17
1.5 Assessment of Drying Factors in an AD Process............................................ 17
1.5.1 Effect of Pretreatment.......................................................................... 17
1.5.2 Effect of Water State............................................................................ 19
1.5.3 Effect of Airflow..................................................................................20
1.5.4 Effect of Vegetable Varieties...............................................................20
1.6 Concluding Remarks.......................................................................................20
References................................................................................................................. 21
1.1 INTRODUCTION
Hot airflow drying (AD) is a traditional drying method in the vegetable dehydration
industry, and the products are always called AD vegetables (Zhang and Chen 2007).
3
4 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products
Because the moisture content of most fresh vegetables is more than 80%, they are
regarded as highly perishable commodities (Sagar and Kumar 2010). Through the
AD process, the vegetables are dried to enhance storage stability, minimize packag-
ing requirement, and reduce transport cost. Currently, the AD process is the main
drying method used in vegetable dehydration. In this process, the pretreated vegeta-
bles are subjected to hot airflow of 50°C–90°C (Demiray et al. 2013; Wu et al. 2015).
Heat can be transferred from hot air to the vegetables, and when the heat is absorbed
by the materials, two types of moisture diffusion occur. One process is external dif-
fusion, in which moisture moves from the material surface to the dry medium. The
other process is internal diffusion, in which the internal moisture moves to the mate-
rial surface. These two diffusion processes develop at the same time until the mois-
ture content decreases to the level where the materials can be stored safely (Cheng
et al. 2015; Srikiatden and Roberts 2006). Because the materials in the hot airflow
environment are exposed to oxygen and the temperature is always higher than 50°C,
some biochemical reactions happen, such as oxidation of phenolic compounds cata-
lyzed by oxidase, vitamin loss, etc. To improve the retention rate of nutrients, the
physiological activity of enzymes should be inhibited by blanching or hot steam
pretreatment. In practice, blanching or hot steam temperature, pretreating time, air-
flow speed, drying temperature, and drying time are critical factors that affect the
nutrient retention and drying quality of the vegetables.
With the development of the drying industry, novel drying technology and pro-
cesses have been developed recently. For example, microwave drying (MD), infrared
drying, vacuum freeze-drying, and some combined drying technologies have been
widely used in vegetable dehydration. However, as the main process in vegetable
dehydration, AD is a well-established technology owing to its easily available equip-
ment and facilities.
In addition, the AD process dries the surface of the materials first, which has an
advantage in drying products with high moisture and high sugar content, such as
tomatoes (Demiray et al. 2013) and pumpkins (Hashim et al. 2014). It is expected
that the traditional method of the AD process will still be widely used for vegetable
dehydration in the future. Therefore, the AD process and other combined drying
technologies need to be studied further.
Insulation layer
Heat medium
temperature
Central
Room
temperature
temperature
Dry layer
Heat medium
temperature
1 1
2 2
3 3
Room
temperature
Insulation layer
FIGURE 1.1 Model schematic drawing of AD process (left) and microwave drying process
(right). 1, Direction of temperature gradient; 2, direction of heat conduction; 3, direction of
moisture migration.
damage and adhesion could be avoided. The heat and water transfer diagram of AD
and MD are shown in Figure 1.1.
In the AD process, the water on the surface of materials is dried by hot airflow.
When the moisture content in the external part is lower than that in the internal
part, difference occurs in the moisture concentration. Because of this, water diffuses
from the region of high moisture content to the region of low moisture content. At
the same time, the temperature in the external part is higher than that in the internal
part, thus creating temperature difference. Because they occur in opposite direc-
tions, the two mechanisms are barrier factors to each other. When there is a moisture
difference, moisture will be transferred to the surface; when there is a temperature
difference, moisture will move in direction of the heat flow, in which condition the
materials’ drying speed becomes slow, or even stops, and always results in a hard
surface on the surface. This phenomenon is mainly caused by very high tempera-
ture and fast airflow speed. Sometimes, this phenomenon is required to protect the
shape of the vegetables, especially in the AD process combined with fluidized bed or
spouted bed drying for vegetables with high moisture and high sugar content. Their
surface layer can be dried first, and cannot be adhered together. This is the advantage
of AD, more so for the drying of tomatoes, pumpkins, etc.
6 Handbook of Drying of Vegetables and Vegetable Products
1.2.3 Energy Consumption
In the production of dehydrated vegetables, minimizing drying cost is one of the most
highly regarded criteria. However, conditions that produce high-quality products
using minimal costs are always difficult to achieve, and the optimum requirements
of heat and mass transfer do not necessarily match with those for optimum quality. In
terms of energy efficiency, reducing/increasing the temperature for the whole drying
process is not very effective. In general, the drying parameters frequently vary at dif-
ferent stages with the decreasing moisture content in the AD process. The hot airflow
can be recycled from the outlet air, and thus the energy efficiency can be improved.
However, if the moisture content in the recycled hot air is too high, the water in the
vegetables cannot be evaporated in time because of the saturated vapor pressure, and
thus the drying efficiency could be reduced.
In the AD process, the vegetable materials may be dried with the hot air flow-
ing on the surface, but in most cases the hot air flows through the entire material
layer. A common feature of these dryers is their high energy consumption. There
is worldwide concern over global warming, which is attributed to greenhouse gases
Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I 7
produced by the combustion of fossil fuels, and there is increasing pressure to reduce
energy consumption. As consumption of energy in the vegetable dehydration indus-
try is high, highly energy efficient processes and equipment should be developed.
1.3 VEGETABLE AD PROCESS
1.3.1 Drying Process and Main Equipment
Dehydration of vegetables is not only helpful for storage and transport but also has
many other benefits like prepared food or leisure food. Some dehydrated vegetables
need to be rehydrated before cooking—these belong to the class of prepared food
and include potatoes, cabbage, etc. Some dehydrated vegetables can be eaten as lei-
sure food, such as edamame and carrot sticks, and these need to be blanched for a
longer time before drying. In general, fresh vegetables can be processed to dehy-
drated products in the harvest season. With an efficient drying process, the dehy-
drated vegetables can maintain good color and nutrition at room temperature, which
is welcomed by consumers. The drying procedures in the AD process include five
steps as follows:
the materials are always placed in multilayers, and thus the hot air with
unsaturated water vapor can be recycled. Hot airflow temperature is gener-
ally controlled and maintained between 50°C and 90°C.
5. Packaging
Dehydrated vegetables should be of good quality with regard to color,
shape, rehydration ability, nutrition content, etc. and should also meet the
hygiene requirements. The dehydrated vegetables can be packed in plastic
bags and sealed.
3 4
7 6 5
1
FIGURE 1.4 Mesh belt AD equipment. 1, Feed hopper; 2, automatic feeding machine;
3, moisture outlet pipe; 4, moisture pumping fan; 5, discharge port; 6, air-regulating plate;
7, hot air blower.
hot air passes through the mesh belts from the bottom to the top. The drying process
and the dryer structure are shown in Figure 1.4.
In mesh belt AD equipment, the pretreated materials are automatically fed on the
top. With the drying process, the materials move to the lower conveyor belt. The
materials with high moisture content are dried in the upper layers, where the moisture
content of the hot air is also high; thus, more heat can be transmitted to the materi-
als and the drying efficiency can be improved. At the same time, materials with low
moisture content moving in the lower layers will be dried by low moisture content but
high temperature hot air, and this moisture concentration and temperature difference
also have a positive effect on the AD process. Air-regulating plates are installed at the
bottom of the drying chamber, where the hot air enters; thus, the uniformity of airflow
in different parts can be adjusted. Because the utilization efficiency of hot air is rela-
tively high, the used air can be exhausted directly. In general, mesh belt AD equip-
ment has not only achieved continuous drying but also has a high drying efficiency.
1. Because the airflow with high temperature and low moisture content can
contact with granular materials sufficiently, and most of the hot airflow can
be recycled, the drying rate and energy efficiency are high.
2. The equipment is relatively simple, requires low capital investment, and is
easy to maintain.
Main Current Vegetable Drying Technology I 11
1
5
3
8
7
2 4
FIGURE 1.5 Hot airflow fluidized bed dryer. 1, Raw materials; 2, filter; 3, fan; 4, heat
changer; 5, cyclone separator; 6, exhaust fan; 7, vibrator motor; 8, spring.
3. The drying process is easy to control, and the vegetable materials’ drying
uniformity is stable. It is applied in drying most of the granular vegetables,
such as potato dices, apple dices, carrot dices, etc.
(a) (b)
FIGURE 1.6 Dehydrated ginger slices by MD and AD processes. (a) MD with the micro-
wave power of 1.8 W/g. (b) AD with the hot airflow at 75°C.
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Where that Æaean isle forgets the main....
or the yellow sands of Prospero’s island where the elves curtsy, kiss
and dance, or Sindbad’s cave, or those others “measureless to man”
rushed through by Alph the sacred river to where we
IV
No: I am not talking fantastically at all. Let us be sober-serious,
corrugating our brows upon history: and at once see that these
Cambridge men of Thackeray’s generation—FitzGerald (to whom he
was “old Thack”), Tennyson, Brookfield, Monckton Milnes, Kinglake
—all with the exception of Arthur Hallam (whom I sadly suspect to
have been something of a prig) cultivated high fooling and carried it
to the nth power as a fine art. Life, in that Victorian era of peace
between wars, was no lull of lotus-eating for them—the England of
Carlyle, Newman, Ruskin admitted no lull of the young mind—but a
high-spirited hilarious game. As one of them, Milnes, wrote of “The
Men of Old”:
Lamb of course had it; and in his letters will carry it to a delirium in
excelsis. But this Cambridge group would seem to have shared and
practised it as a form, an exercise, in their free-masonry. Take for a
single instance James Spedding’s forehead. James Spedding,
afterwards learned editor of Bacon, and a butt in that profane set,
had a brow severe and high, of the sort (you know) that tells of moral
virtue with just a hint of premature baldness. It was very smooth; it
rose to a scalp all but conical. His admiring friends elected to call it
Alpine. Now hear FitzGerald upon it, in a letter:
V
I must dwell on another point, too. The Thackerays (or
Thackwras—which I suppose to be another form of Dockwras) had
for some generations prospered and multiplied as Anglo-Indians in
the service of the old East India Company. Their tombs are thick in
the old graveyard of Calcutta, and I would refer anyone who would
ponder their epitaphs, or is interested in the stock from which
Thackeray sprang, to a little book by the late Sir William Hunter
entitled The Thackerays in India and some Calcutta Graves (Henry
Frowde, London: 1897). Thackeray himself was born at Calcutta on
the 18th of July, 1811, and, according to the sad fate of Anglo-Indian
children, was shipped home to England at the age of five, just as
Clive Newcome is shipped home in the novel; and when he pictured
the sad figure of Colonel Newcome tottering back up the ghaut, or
river-stairs, Thackeray drew what his own boyish eyes had seen and
his small heart suffered. Turn to the “Roundabout Paper” On Letts’s
Diary and you will read concerning that parting:
ἀκαχήμενοι ἦτορ,
ἄσμενοι ἐκ θανάτοιο.
The separating sea was wide: but what a plucky little letter!
VI
I shall lay stress on it for a moment because, as it seems to me,
if we read between the childish lines, they not only evince the pluck
of the child, and not only breathe a waft of the infinite pathos of
English children, Indian born: but because I hold that no one who
would understand Thackeray can afford to forget that he was of
Anglo-Indian stock, bone and marrow.
Now I want, avoiding so much of offence as I may, to say a word
or two (and these only as a groping through private experience, to
illustrate Thackeray) about the retired Anglo-Indian as he has come
within the range of a long experience at an English town by the
seashore. On the whole I know of no human being more typically
pathetic. His retirement may be happier in some places such as
Cheltenham, where he has a Club in which he can meet old Indian
cronies or men from “the other side,” and tell stories and discuss the
only politics which interest them. But in any odd angle of this capital
yet most insular isle his isolation is horrible and fatal. Compared with
it, the sorrows of a British child “sent home” (as conveyed, and to the
very heart, in Mr. Kipling’s Wee Willie Winkie, for example) are
tragically insignificant. Youth is elastic and can recover. But this
grown man, through the “long, long Indian days,” has toiled and
supported himself upon a hope, to end in England with fishing or
shooting and a share of that happy hospitality which (God knows) he
has earned.
What happens? The domestic servant question (always with us),
cold rooms, dinner-parties at which stories about Allahabad are
listened to patiently by ladies who confuse it with Lahore, polite men
who suggest a game of “snooker pool” as a relief, hoping for not too
many anecdotes in the course of it. And for this your friend and his
admirable wife have been nursing, feeding themselves on promise
for, maybe, thirty years and more, all the time and day after day—
there lies the tragedy—dutifully giving all their best, for England, in
confidence of its reward.
It is not altogether our fault. It is certainly not our fault that the
partridges do not rise on the stubble or the salmon leap up and over
the dams in such numbers as the repatriated fondly remember. To
advise a lady accustomed to many Indian servants upon tact with a
couple or three of English ones—post-War too—is (as Sir Thomas
Browne might say) to bid her sleep in Epicurus his faith, and
reacclimatise her notion. But, to be short, they talk to us politics
which have no basis discoverable in this country.
Yet, withal, they are so noble! So simple in dignity! Far astray
from any path of progress as we may think him; insane as we may
deem his demand to rule, unreasonable his lament over the lost
England of his youth which for so long he has sentimentalised, or
domestic his interest in his nephews, the Anglo-Indian has that key
of salvation which is loyalty. He is for England: and for that single
cause I suppose no men or women that ever lived and suffered on
earth have suffered more than those who lie now under the huddled
gravestones of Calcutta.
VII
I am coming to this: that those who accuse Thackeray of being a
snob (even under his own definition) should in fairness lay their
account that he came of people who, commanding many servants,
supported the English tradition of rule and dominance in a foreign
land.
I believe this to explain him in greater measure than he has
generally been explained or understood. Into a class so limited, so
exiled, so professional in its aims and interests—so borné and
repugnant against ideas that would invade upon the tried order of
things and upset caste along with routine—so loyal to its own
tradition of service, so dependent for all reward upon official
recognition (which often means the personal caprice of some
Governor or Secretary of State or Head of Department), some
Snobbery—as we understand the word nowadays—will pretty
certainly creep; to make its presence felt, if not to pervade. But I am
not going to discuss with you the question, “Was Thackeray that
thing he spent so much pains, such excessive pains, in
denouncing?”—over which so many disputants have lost their
tempers. It is not worth our while, as the whole business, to my
thinking, was not worth Thackeray’s while. When we come to it—as
we must, because it bulks so largely in his work—we shall quickly
pass on.
To me it seems that Thackeray’s geniture and early upbringing—
all those first impressions indelible in any artist—affected him in
subtler ways far better worth our considering. Let me just indicate
two.
VIII
For the first.—It seems to me that Thackeray—a social
delineator or nothing—never quite understood the roots of English
life or of the classes he chose to depict; those roots which even in
Pall Mall or Piccadilly or the Houses of Parliament ramify
underground deep and out, fetching their vital sap from the
countryside. Walter Bagehot, after quoting from Venus and Adonis
Shakespeare’s famous lines on a driven hare, observes that “it is
absurd to say we know nothing about the man who wrote that: we
know he had been after a hare.” I cannot find evidence in his works
that this child, brought from Calcutta to Chiswick, transferred to the
Charterhouse (then by Smithfield), to Cambridge, Paris, Fleet Street,
Club-land, had ever been after a hare: and if you object that this
means nothing, I retort that it means a great deal: it means that he
never “got off the pavement.” It means that he is on sure ground
when he writes of Jos. Sedley, demi-nabob, but on no sure ground at
all when he gets down to Queen’s Crawley: that in depicting a class
—now perhaps vanishing—he never, for example, got near the spirit
that breathes in Archdeacon Grantly’s talk with his gamekeeper:
Absurd? Very well—but you will never understand the politics of the
last century—that era so absurdly viewed out of focus, just now, as
one of mere industrial expansion—unless you lay your account with
it better than Thackeray did. As you know, he once stood for
Parliament, as Liberal candidate for the City of Oxford: and it is
customary to rejoice over his defeat as releasing from party what
was meant for mankind. In fact he never had a true notion of politics
or of that very deep thing, political England. Compare his sense of it
—his novelist’s sense—with Disraeli’s. He and Disraeli, as it
happens, both chose to put the famous-infamous Marquis of Hertford
into a novel. But what a thing of cardboard, how entirely without
atmosphere of political or social import, is Lord Steyne in Vanity Fair
as against Lord Monmouth in Coningsby!
IX
The late Herman Merivale, in a very brilliant study, interrupted by
death and left to be completed by Sir Frank Marzials, finds the two
key-secrets (as he calls them) of Thackeray’s life to be these—
Disappointment and Religion. I propose ten days hence to examine
this, and to speak of both. But I may premise, here and at once, that
Thackeray was a brave man who took the knocks of life without
flinching (even that from young Venables’ fist, which broke his nose
but not their friendship), and that to me the melancholy which runs
through all his writing—the melancholy of Ecclesiastes, the eternal
Mataiotes Mataioteton—Vanity of Vanities, all is Vanity—was drawn
by origin from the weary shore of Ganges and brought in the child’s
blood to us, over the sea.
“Vanity of vanities,” saith the Preacher—Thackeray was before
all else a Preacher: and that is the end of it, whether in a set of
Cornhill verses or in his most musical, most solemn, prose—
I
I LEFT off, Gentlemen, upon a saying of Herman Merivale’s that the
two key-secrets of Thackeray’s life were Disappointment and
Religion, and I proposed, examining this to-day, to speak of both.
Well, for the first, I have already (I think) given full room in the
account to that domestic sorrow which drove him, great boon
favourite of the nursery, to flee from his grand new house in
Kensington Gardens—
III
Sainte-Beuve—I have read reasonably in his voluminous works,
but without as yet happening on the passage which, quoted by
Stevenson in his Apology for Idlers, really needs no verification by
reference, being just an opinion dropped, and whoever dropped it
and when, equally valuable to us—Sainte-Beuve, according to
Stevenson, as he grew older, came to regard all experience as a
single great book, in which to study for a few years before we go
hence: and it seemed all one to him whether you should read in
Chapter XX, which is the Differential Calculus, or in Chapter XXXIX,
which is hearing the band play in the gardens. Note well, if you
please, that I am not endorsing this as a word of advice for Tripos
purposes. I am but applying it to Thackeray, who never sat for his
degree, but left Cambridge to write Vanity Fair, Pendennis, Esmond,
sundry other great stories, with several score of memorable trifles—
ballads, burlesques, essays, lectures, Roundabout Papers, what-not.
If I may again quote from Sir Walter Raleigh, “there are two Days of
Judgment, of which a University examination in an Honours School
is considerably the less important.” The learning we truly take away
from a University is (as I conceive) the talent, whatever it be, we use
(God helping), and turn to account. Says Mr. Charles Whibley of
Thackeray’s two years here:
The friendships that he made ended only with his life, and he
must have been noble, indeed, who was the friend of Alfred
Tennyson and of Edward FitzGerald. Moreover, Cambridge
taught him the literary use of the university, as the Charterhouse
had taught him the literary use of a public school. In a few
chapters of Pendennis he sketched the life of an undergraduate,
which has eluded all his rivals save only Cuthbert Bede. He
sketched it, moreover, in the true spirit of boyish extravagance,
which he felt at Cambridge and preserved even in the larger
world of London; and if Trinity and the rustling gown of Mr.
Whewell had taught him nothing more than this, he would not
have contemplated them in vain.
IV
But, to return upon the first of the two “key-secrets”—
Disappointment and Religion—and to leave Religion aside for a
moment—I cannot find that, save in his domestic affliction,
Thackeray can rightly be called a disappointed man. There is of
course a sense—there is of course a degree—in which every one of
us, if he be worth anything, arrives at being a disappointed man. We
all have our knocks to bear, and some the most dreadful
irremediable wounds to bind up and hide. But whatever Thackeray
spent or owed at Cambridge (to pay in due time), he took away, with
his experience, a most gallant heart. He went to London, lost the rest
of his money in journalistic adventures, and fared out as a random
writer, without (as they say) a penny to put between himself and
heaven. What does he write later on in reminiscence to his mother,
but that these days of struggle were the jolliest of all his life?—
That is good gospel. “Fall in love early, throw your cap over the mill;
take an axe, spit on your hands; and, for some one, make the chips
fly.”
V
But (say the critics) he was disappointed, soured because—
conscious of his powers of “superior” education and certain gifts only
to be acquired through education, he felt that Dickens—whom
certain foolish people chose to talk of endlessly as his rival—was all
the time outstripping him in public favour. Now, as for this, I cannot
see how Thackeray, in any wildest dream, could have hoped to catch
up with Dickens and pass him in popularity. To begin with, he came
to fruition much later than Dickens: in comparison with the precocity
of Pickwick Thackeray was in fact thirty-seven before he hit the
target’s gold with Vanity Fair. His earlier serious efforts—Catherine,
Barry Lyndon, The Book of Snobs—are sour and green stuff, call
them what else you will. They deal with acrid characters and (what is
more) deal with them acridly. But even supposing them to be
masterpieces (which title to two of the three I should certainly deny)
where was the audience in comparison with that to which Dickens
appealed? Where, outside a few miles’ radius of Club-land, did men
and women exist in any numbers to whom Thackeray’s earlier work
could, by any possibility, appeal? The dear and maiden lady in
Cranford, Miss Jenkyns, as you remember, made allowances for
Pickwick in comparison with Dr. Johnson’s Rasselas. “Still perhaps
the author is young. Let him persevere, and who knows what he may
become, if he will take the Great Doctor for his model.” But what—
what on earth would she have made of Barry Lyndon? And what
would good Captain Brown himself have made of it? I can almost
better see the pair, on the sly, consenting to admire Tristram Shandy.
Now Dickens and Thackeray were both thin-skinned men in their
sensitiveness to public approbation. On at least one occasion each
made a fool of himself by magnifying a petty personal annoyance
into an affair of the world’s concern. As if anybody mattered to that
extent!—
But turn your admiration about and consider what a hand capable of
writing so might have achieved in the long time it had wasted, turning
over an immense buck-basket of foul linen. No, Gentlemen—take
the example of poor Hazlitt—contemporary misunderstandings,
heart-burnings, bickerings make poor material for great authors. I
cannot find that, although once, twice or thrice, led astray into these
pitfalls, Thackeray (and this is the touchstone) ever really envied
another man’s success.
“Get David Copperfield,” he writes in a familiar letter: “by jingo,
it’s beautiful; it beats the yellow chap (Pendennis) of this month