98 PROCKKDINGS MANCHESTER INSTITUTE 



think, as I said before, lie entirely misses the deep realities of 

 that life, its undercurrents, but so far as the external appear- 

 ance goes this was the half- world of the Victorian age. 



That it is, after all, only a half- world Thackeray gives us in 

 his novels is the severest criticism that can be passed upon the 

 wholesomeness of his influence. We are compelled to admit 

 that he fits better into the middle-age point of view. Hearty 

 and unsophisticated youth is not apt to admire him. His view 

 of the human lives about him is too monotonously depressing 

 and sad, and youth does not yet feel the charm of his virile intelli- 

 gence. I remember that it was years before I could get inter- 

 ested in Vanity Fair, though I made repeated trials, while Es- 

 mond was one of my first loves and ni}^ last. Vanit)^ Fair is not 

 a work to be put in any one's hand who is not read}^ for it. Ma- 

 ture life finds itself in large measure reflected there, but gener- 

 ous youth not at all. The greatest men in literature have and 

 must be men of faith, not in a narrow and theologic sense, but 

 in the sense of looking forward, of noble expectation. lyife can- 

 not be lived at its best without that, and to lose noble expecta- 

 tion — some love of liberty, or service, or ideal character — is the 

 greatest possible loss. The illusions of vigorous souls are noth- 

 ing to be ashamed of or scorned. As they " fade into the light 

 of common day ' ' they ought to strike deeper root in reason and 

 right. Thackeray has not the wholesomeness of a large faith. 

 But, having said this, there is a good deal on the other side. 

 I do not think he seriously harms any one who has not already 

 harmed himself. Many have hid their own weakness, cynicism 

 and -failure behind the name of one whose heart, I believe, was 

 sound. It is the first plunge into Thackeray that hurts, it is 

 the wholesorne hurt of knowing some things' as they are. 

 Truths and half-truths are apt to hurt and they may be good for a 

 man to know. It is good for a man to know the meanness of 

 cant, hypocrisy and pretence in all its myriad forms. And so a 

 robust nature rises from Thackeray not harmed but purified. 

 He has the wholesomeness of honest intelligence, the courage 

 to look at the meaner forms of evil in the world and not be over- 

 come by the world. So that after the first plunge you come to 



