OF ARTS AND SCIENCKS. 99 



see that Thackeray is by no means a hopeless soul. He is so 

 anxious to be truthful to the appearance that he almost falls off 

 on the other side. But not quite. For as you come to know 

 the people of his stories better you find they never mock at any 

 real goodness, that to their creator the luster of even common- 

 place kindness and generous charity shines the fairer for the 

 weakness, folly and frailty by which it is surrounded. Beside 

 his intellectual clearness there is in Thackeray a great tender- 

 ness of heart towards all who are in trouble and failure, all who 

 are betrayed either by themselves or others. 



" ' It is not difficult to be a country gentleman's wife,' Re- 

 becca thought. ' ' I think I could be a good woman if I had five 

 thousand a year. I could dawdle about in the nursery, and 

 count the apricots on the wall. I could water plants in a green- 

 house, and pick off dead leaves from the geraniums. I could 

 ask old women about their rheumatism, and order half a crown's 

 worth of soup for the poor. I shouldn't miss it much out of 

 five thousand a j'-ear. I could even drive out ten miles to dine 

 at a neighbor's, and dress in the fashions of the year before last. 

 I could go to sleep and keep awake in the great family pew ; 

 or go to sleep behind the curtains, with my veil down, if I only 

 had practice. I could pay everybody if I had but the money. 

 That is what the conjurors here pride themselves upon doing. 

 They look down with pit}^ upon us miserable sinners who have 

 none. The}^ think themselves generous if they give our chil- 

 dren a five pound note, and us contemptible if we are without 

 one.' And who knows but Rebecca was right in her specula- 

 tions — and that it was only a question of money and fortune 

 which made the difference between her and an honest woman ? 

 If you take temptations into account, who is to say'thatheis 

 better than his neighbor ? A comfortable career of prosperity, 

 if it does not make people honest, at least keeps them so. An 

 alderman coming from a turtle feast will not step out of his 

 carriage to steal a leg of mutton ; but put him to starve, and see 

 if he will not purloin a loaf. Becky consoled herself by balanc- 

 ing the chances and equalizing the distribution of good and evil 

 in the world." 



I do not rise from " The Newcomes " or from "Vanity Fair" 

 with any bitterness, but with a larger consideration and even 

 love towards man. It is as though the writer of a new Kcclesias- 

 tes said, "I promise you no perfect creatures among human 



