94 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



of all the Gonerils and Shylocks. Even Hamlet and Othello 

 and Lear by their capacity for thought and love and suffering 

 prove the nature of man writ large. 



But Thackeray belongs in his intellect to a different order. 

 He must be ranked with Franklin, though with a far finer im- 

 agination of course. He wrote like the apostle of common sense, 

 with shrewdness, wide and tenacious observation, not too much 

 credulity, with piercing insight, with courteous kindliness and 

 large toleration. Or better, he was like the writer of Ecclesi- 

 astes whose "Vanity of vanities all is vanity," he echoes at the 

 end of his book : 



"Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? 

 Which of us has our desire? Or having it, is satisfied? Come, 

 Children, let us shut up the box and the puppets, for our play 

 is played out." 



He is like the French writers of the i8th century whom per- 

 sonally he did not like, because of his clearness of vision, his 

 tendency to exhaust himself on the surface of life and his refusal 

 to touch what lies below. Thackeray's stories always run leis- 

 urely. They seem to say, "Why so hot, friends, the world will 

 wag on much the same no matter what happens to these men and 

 women of mine. This boy Pendennis whom you see making 

 such fervid blind love to the beautiful Fotheringay will soon 

 come out of his dream. His passion is real enough, poor fellow, 

 but see how blind it is. This little Amelia, what a pretty trust- 

 ing doll it is. She will devote the fidelity of years to a self-made 

 idol and Becky carries the while the letter which proves him 

 mean as mud, among her secret treasures. Dear Col. Newcome 

 will be caught in the trap of his own honest)^ and want of suspi- 

 cion ; we must not be over-hasty to conclude that -he will 

 have the good which he deserves. He is the. victim of a com- 

 bination which was beyond his power to change. We are pup- 

 pets." 



"And in tlie world, as in the school, 



I'd say how fate may change and shift; 

 The prize be sometimes with the fool, 



The i-ace not always to the swift; 

 The strong may yield, the good may fall, 



The great man );e a vulgar clown, 

 The knave be lifted over all, 



Tlic kind cast pitilessly down." 



Now on the outside of this world, fate is all powerful ; but in 



