entertainments for his own name, gloriously placed amongst those of illustrious guests. A family letter arrives. Naturally he puts it aside, and reads it carelessly after all the rest. He utters an exclamation of horror; his nephew wants to marry an actress. He has places booked in the coach (charging the sum which he disbursed for the seats to the account of the widow and the young scapegrace of whom he was guardian), and hastens to save the young fool. If there were a low marriage, what would become of his invitations? The manifest conclusion is: Let us not be selfish, or vain, or fond of good living, like the Major.

Chapter the second: Pendennis, father of the young man, was in his time an apothecary, but of good family, and grieving to be reduced to this trade. He comes into money; passes for a physician, marries the relative of a lord, tries to creep into high families. He boasts all his life of having been invited by Sir Pepin Ribstone to an entertainment. He buys an estate, tries to sink the apothecary, and shows off in the new glory of a landed proprietor. Each of these details is a concealed or evident sarcasm, which says to the reader: 'My good friend, remain the honest John Tomkins that you are; and for the love of your son and yourself, avoid taking the airs of a great nobleman.'

Old Pendennis dies. His son, the noble heir of the domain, 'Prince of Pendennis and Grand Duke of Fairoaks,' begins to reign over his mother, his cousin, and the servants. He sends wretched verses to the county papers, begins an epic poem, a tragedy in which sixteen persons die, a scathing history of the Jesuits, and defends church and king like a loyal Tory. He sighs after the ideal, wishes for an unknown maiden, and falls in love with an actress, a woman of thirty-two, who learns her parts mechanically, as ignorant and stupid as can be. Young folks, my dear friends, you are all affected, pretentious, dupes of yourselves and of others. Wait to judge the world until you have seen it, and do not think you are masters when you are scholars.

Like

The instruction continues as long as the life of Arthur. Lesage in Gil Blas, and Balzac in Le Père Goriot, the author of Pendennis depicts a young man having some talent, endowed with good feelings, even generous, desiring to make a name, and falling in with the maxims of the world; but Lesage only wished to amuse us, and Balzac only wished to stir our passions: Thackeray, from beginning to end, works to correct us.

This intention becomes still more evident if we examine in detail one of his dialogues and one of his pictures. You will not find there the impartial energy, bent on copying nature, but the attentive thoughtfulness, bent on transforming into satire objects, words, and events. All the words of the character are chosen and weighed, so as to be odious or ridiculous. He accuses himself, is studious to display his vice, and under his voice we hear the voice of the writer who judges, unmasks, and punishes him. Miss Crawley, a rich old woman, falls 2 A

VOL. II.

ill.1 Mrs. Bute, her relative, hastens to save her, and to save the inheritance. Her aim is to have excluded from the will a nephew, Captain Rawdon, an old favourite, presumptive heir of the old lady. This Rawdon is a stupid guardsman, a frequenter of hotels, a too clever gambler, a duellist, and a roué. Fancy the capital opportunity for Mrs. Bute, the respectable mother of a family, the worthy spouse of a clergyman, accustomed to write her husband's sermons! From sheer virtue she hates Captain Rawdon, and will not suffer that such a good sum of money should fall into such bad hands. Moreover, are we not responsible for our families? and is it not for us to publish the faults of our relatives? It is our strict duty, and Mrs. Bute acquits herself of hers conscientiously. She provides edifying stories of her nephew, and therewith she edifies the aunt. He has ruined so and so; he has wronged such a woman. He has duped this tradesman; he has killed this husband. And above all, unworthy man, he has mocked his aunt! Will that generous lady continue to cherish such a viper? Will she suffer her numberless sacrifices to be repaid by this ingratitude and this ridicule? You can imagine the ecclesiastical eloquence of Mrs. Bute. Seated at the foot of the bed, she keeps the patient in sight, plies her with draughts, enlivens her with terrible sermons, and mounts guard at the door against the probable invasion of the heir. The siege was well conducted, the legacy attacked so obstinately must yield; the virtuous fingers of the matron grasped beforehand and by anticipation the substantial heap of shining sovereigns. And yet a carping spectator might have found some faults in her management. She managed rather too well. She forgot that a woman persecuted with sermons, handled like a bale of goods, regulated like a clock, might take a dislike to so harassing an authority. What is worse, she forgot that a timid old woman, confined in the house, overwhelmed with preachings, poisoned with pills, might die before having changed her will, and leave all, alas, to her scoundrelly nephew. Instructive and notable example! Mrs. Bute, the honour of her sex, the consoler of the sick, the counsellor of her family, having ruined her health to look after her beloved sister-in-law, and to preserve the inheritance, was just on the point, by her exemplary devotion, of putting the patient in her coffin, and the inheritance in the hands of her nephew.

Apothecary Clump arrives; he trembles for his dear client; she is worth to him two hundred a year; he is resolved to save this precious life, in spite of Mrs. Bute. Mrs. Bute interrupts him, and says:

'I am sure, my dear Mr. Clump, no efforts of mine have been wanting to restore our dear invalid, whom the ingratitude of her nephew has laid on the bed of sickness. I never shrink from personal discomfort; I never refuse to sacrifice

1 Vanity Fair. [Unless the large octavo edition is mentioned, the translator has always used the collected edition of Thackeray's works in small octavo, 18551868, 14 vols.]

myself.

I would lay down my life for my duty, or for any member of my husband's family.'' The disinterested apothecary returns to the charge heroically. Immediately she replies in the finest strain; her eloquence flows from her lips as from an over-full pitcher. She cries aloud:

'Never, as long as nature supports me, will I desert the post of duty. As the mother of a family and the wife of an English clergyman, I humbly trust that my principles are good. When my poor James was in the smallpox, did I allow any hireling to nurse him? No!'

The patient Clump scatters about sugared compliments, and pressing his point amidst interruptions, protestations, offers of sacrifice, railings against the nephew, at last hits the mark. He delicately insinuates that the patient should have change, fresh air, gaiety.' The sight of her horrible nephew casually in the Park, where I am told the wretch drives with the brazen partner of his crimes,' Mrs. Bute said (letting the cat of selfishness out of the bag of secrecy), 'would cause her such a shock, that we should have to bring her back to bed again. She must not go out, Mr. Clump. She shall not go out as long as I remain to watch over her. And as for my health, what matters it? I give it cheerfully, sir. I sacrifice it at the altar of my duty.' It is clear that the author attacks Mrs. Bute and all legacy-hunters. He gives her ridiculous airs, pompous phrases, a transparent, gross, and blustering hypocrisy. The reader feels hatred and disgust for her the more she speaks. He would unmask her; he is pleased to see her assailed, driven in a corner, taken in by the polished manoeuvres of her adversary, and rejoices with the author, who tears from her and emphasises the shameful confession of her folly and her greed.

Having arrived so far, satirical reflection quits the literary form. In order the better to develop itself, it exhibits itself alone. Thackeray comes in his proper character to attack vice. No author is more fertile in dissertations; he constantly enters his story to reprimand or instruct us; he adds theoretical to active morality. We might glean from his novels one or two volumes of essays in the manner of La Bruyère or of Addison. There are essays on love, on vanity, on hypocrisy, on meanness, on all the virtues, all the vices; and turning over a few pages, we shall find one on the comedies of legacies, and of too attentive relatives:

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at the banker's! How tenderly we look at her faults, if she is a relative (and may every reader have a score of such), what a kind, good-natured old creature we find her! How the junior partner of Hobbs and Dobbs leads her smiling to the carriage with the lozenge upon it, and the fat wheezy coachman! How, when she comes to pay us a visit, we generally find an opportunity to let our friends know her station in the world! We say (and with perfect truth) I wish I had Miss Mac Whirter's signature to a cheque for five thousand pounds. She wouldn't miss it, says your wife. She is my aunt, say you, in an easy careless way, when your friend asks if Miss

1 Vanity Fair, ch. xix.

Mac Whirter is any relative? Your wife is perpetually sending her little testimonies of affection; your little girls work endless worsted baskets, cushions, and foot-stools for her. What a good fire there is in her room when she comes to pay you a visit, although your wife laces her stays without one! The house during her stay assumes a festive, neat, warm, jovial, snug appearance not visible at other seasons. You yourself, dear sir, forget to go to sleep after dinner, and find yourself all of a sudden (though you invariably lose) very fond of a rubber. What good dinners you have-game every day, Malmsey-Madeira, and no end of fish from London! Even the servants in the kitchen share in the general prosperity; and, somehow, during the stay of Miss Mac Whirter's fat coachman, the beer is grown much stronger, and the consumption of tea and sugar in the nursery (where her maid takes her meals) is not regarded in the least. Is it so, or is it not so! I appeal to the middle classes. Ah, gracious powers! I wish you would send me an old aunt-a maiden aunt-an aunt with a lozenge on her carriage, and a front of light coffee-coloured hair-how my children should work workbags for her, and my Julia and I would make her comfortable! Sweet-sweet vision! Foolish-foolish dream!"

There is no disguising it. The reader most resolved not to be warned, is warned. When we have an aunt with a good sum to leave, we shall value our attentions and our tenderness at their true worth. The author has taken the place of our conscience, and the novel, transformed by reflection, becomes a school of manners.

III.

The lash is laid on very heavily in this school; it is the English taste. About tastes and whips there is no disputing; but without disputing we may understand, and the surest means of understanding the English taste is to compare it with the French taste.

I see in France, in a drawing-room of men of wit, or in an artist's studio, a score of lively people: they must be amused, that is their character. You may speak to them of human wickedness, but on condition of diverting them. If you get angry, they will be shocked; if you teach a lesson, they will yawn. Laugh, it is the rule here-not cruelly, or from manifest enmity, but in good humour and in lightness of spirit. This nimble wit must act; for it the discovery of a clean piece of folly is a fortunate hap. As a light flame, it glides and flickers in sudden outbreaks on the mere surface of things. Satisfy it by imitation, and to please gay people be gay. Be polite, that is the second commandment, very like the other. You speak to sociable, delicate, vain men, whom you must take care not to offend, and flatter. You would wound them by trying to carry conviction by force, by dint of solid arguments, by a display of eloquence and indignation. Do them the honour of supposing that they understand you at the first word, that a hinted smile is to them as good as a syllogism established, that a fine allusion caught on the wing reaches them better than the

1 Vanity Fair, ch. ix.

heavy onset of a gross geometrical satire. Think, lastly (between ourselves), that, in politics as in religion, they have been for a thousand years very well governed, over governed; that when a man is bored he desires to be so no more; that a coat too tight splits at the elbows and elsewhere. They are critics from choice; from choice they like to insinuate forbidden things; and often, by abuse of logic, by transport, by vivacity, from ill humour, they strike at society through government, at morality through religion. They are scholars who have been too long under the rod; they break the windows in opening the doors. I dare not tell you to please them; I simply remark that, in order to please them, a grain of seditious humour will do no harm.

I cross seven leagues of sea, and here I am in a great unadorned hall, with a multitude of benches, with gas burners, swept, orderly, a debating club or a preaching house. There are five hundred long faces, gloomy and subdued;1 and at the first glance it is clear that they are not there to amuse themselves. In this land a grosser mood, overcharged with a heavier and stronger nourishment, has deprived impressions of their flat mobility, and thought, less facile and prompt, has lost its vivacity and its gaiety. If you rail before them, think that you are speaking to attentive, concentrated men, capable of durable and profound sensations, incapable of changeable and sudden emotion. Those immobile and contracted faces will preserve the same attitude; they resist fleeting and half-formed smiles; they cannot unbend; and their laughter is a convulsion as stiff as their gravity. Do not skim over your subject, lay stress upon it; do not pass over it lightly, impress it; do not dally, but strike; reckon that you must vehemently move vehement passions, and that shocks are needed to set these nerves in motion. Reckon also that your hearers are practical minds, lovers of the useful; that they come here to be taught; that you owe them solid truths; that their common sense, somewhat contracted, does not fall in with hazardous extemporisations or doubtful hints; that they demand worked out refutations and complete explanations; and that if they have paid to come in, it was to hear advice which they might apply, and satire founded on proof. Their mood requires strong emotions; their mind asks for precise demonstrations. To satisfy their mood, you must not touch the surface, but torture vice; to satisfy their mind, you must not rail in sallies, but by arguments. One word more : down there, in the midst of the assembly, behold that gilded, splendid book, resting royally on a velvet cushion. It is the Bible; about it there are fifty moralists, who a while ago met at the theatre and pelted an actor off the stage with apples, who was guilty of having the wife of a townsman for his mistress. If with your finger-tip, with all the compliments and disguises in the world, you touch a single sacred leaf, or

1 Thackeray, in his Book of Snobs, says: Their usual English expression of intense gloom and subdued agony.'