96 PROCEEDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



Thackeray held not the very modern idea that character is 

 found b}^ the scenery it keeps. He would have been free to la- 

 bel such an idea another humbug. Still, this great novelist did 

 miss the value and significance of life out-doors ; he had no eye 

 for the frame and setting which nature furnishes to man. He 

 did not care much for the virtue of the poor, and rather disbe- 

 lieved in it. He wasn't brought up in that atmosphere. Pov- 

 erty irritates him. He draws a freer breath when away from it. 

 And then, as Charlotte Bronte never could draw a satisfactory 

 man, Thackeray certainly did not succeed with his women. It 

 is one of the perplexities about him. " Why are all your women 

 either knaves or fools," suddenly demanded a lady in conversa- 

 tion with him, and we may well believe that his reply was on- 

 ly a rebuke to the inquisitor, "Because, madam, I know no oth- 

 ers." The fact remains, and it is better to think that it was due 

 to the surroundings and history of his own life, due to misfor- 

 tune and ignorance rather than to any other cause. He did not 

 create the 



"Perfect woman, nobly planned 

 To warn, to comfort and command." 



He did, it is true, conceive a real live woman in Becky Sharp, 

 one of the few great characters in fiction. Whatever her faults 

 as a possible woman, she is actual flesh and blood in that Van- 

 ity Fair which never ceases among men. But I wonder if you 

 feel with me at times that Becky Sharp is a little "overdone"? 

 Don't you think the author makes her out toouniformljMvicked, 

 too unbrokenly sly and selfish? I don't believe the real Becky 

 was without some moments of sanity, that she did care for some- 

 thing beside herself. I don't believe that an^^one could live with- 

 out that. But at an}'- rate Thackeray doesn't leave her alone 

 enough. He seems to be afraid we shall find something com- 

 mendable in the little orphan. He pours out his sarcasms upon 

 her. He is ever pointing the finger at her. On the last page 

 of the novel he points the finger from away, way off, as if she 

 was almost out of sight in the depths of degradation. He brings 

 her near to the attainment of her schemes time and time again, 

 only to see the careful card castle topple at a breath. He is al- 

 most vicious with her; her presence excites him as if he were a 



