Amelia, the last parting of Amelia and George, Osborne
revoking his will, Sedley broken down, Rawdon in the sponging-house,
the birth and boyhood of Georgy Osborne, the end of old Sedley, the end
of old Osborne, are as pathetic and humane as anything in our
literature. Mature men, who study fiction with a critical spirit and a
cool head, admit that the only passages in English romance that they
can never read again without faltering, without a dim eye and a
quavering voice, are these scenes of pain and sorrow in _Vanity Fair_.
The death of old Sedley, nursed by his daughter, is a typical
piece--perfect in simplicity, in truth, in pathos.

One night when she stole into his room, she found him awake, when the
broken old man made his confession. "O, Emmy, I've been thinking we
were very unkind and unjust to you," he said, and put out his cold and
feeble hand to her. She knelt down and prayed by his bed-side, as he
did too, having still hold of her hand. When our turn comes, friend,
may we have such company in our prayers.

And this is the arch-cynic and misanthrope, grinning at all that is
loveable and tender!

It is too often forgotten that _Vanity Fair_ is not intended to be
simply the world: it is society, it is fashion, the market where
mammon-worship, folly, and dissipation display and barter their wares.
Thackeray wrote many other books, and has given us many worthy
characters. Dobbin, Warrington, Colonel Newcome, Ethel Newcome, Henry
Esmond are generous, brave, just, and true. Neither _Esmond_, nor _The
Newcomes_, nor _The Virginians_ are in any sense the work of a
misanthrope. And where Thackeray speaks in his own person, in the
lectures on the _English Humourists_, he is brimful of all that is
genial, frank, lenient, and good-hearted. What we know of the man, who
loved his friends and was loved by them, and who in all his critical
and personal sketches showed himself a kindly, courteous, and
considerate gentleman, inclines us to repel this charge of cynicism.
We will not brand him as a mere satirist, and a cruel mocker at human
virtue and goodness.

This is, however, not the whole of the truth. The consent of mankind,
and especially the consent of women, is too manifest. There is
something ungenial, there is a bitter taste left when we have enjoyed
these books, especially as we lay down _Vanity Fair_. It is a long
comedy of roguery, meanness, selfishness, intrigue, and affectation.
Rakes, ruffi