Notes_.

On the other hand, he was not free from the defects of his qualities,
mental and artistic, from the propensity to set points of character in
violent relief, or from the somewhat unfair generalisation which grows
out of the habit of drawing types and distributing colours for
satirical effect.

In regard to his religion, it appears to have been of the
rationalistic eighteenth-century order in which moral ideas are
entirely dominant, to the exclusion of the deeply spiritual modes of
thought; and we may say of him, as of Carlyle, that his philosophy was
more practical than profound. The subjoined quotation is from a letter
to his daughter:

'What is right must always be right, before it was practised as
well as after. And if such and such a commandment delivered by
Moses was wrong, depend upon it, it was not delivered by God, and
the whole question of complete inspiration goes at once. And the
misfortune of dogmatic belief is that, the first principle granted
that the book called the Bible is written under the direct
dictation of God--for instance, that the Catholic Church is under
the direct dictation of God, and solely communicates with Him--that
Quashimaboo is the directly appointed priest of God, and so
forth--pain, cruelty, persecution, separation of dear relatives,
follow as a matter of course.... Smith's truth being established in
Smith's mind as the Divine one, persecution follows as a matter of
course--martyrs have roasted over all Europe, over all God's world,
upon this dogma. To my mind Scripture only means a writing, and
Bible means a book.... Every one of us in every part, book,
circumstance of life, sees a different meaning and moral, and so it
must be about religion. But we can all love each other and say "Our
Father."'

This is true, stout-hearted, individualistic liberty of believing--an
excellent thing and wholesome, though it by no means covers the whole
ground, or meets all difficulties. The logical consequence is a strong
distaste for theology, and no very high opinion of the priesthood,
wherein we may probably find the root of Thackeray's proclivity,
already mentioned, toward unmerited sarcasm upon the clergy. In the
Introduction to _Pendennis_ is a letter written from Spa, in which he
says, 'They have got a Sunday service here in an extinct
gambling-house, and a clerical professor to perform, whom