r, its embodiment in a scene that
shall pass directly in front of us. The method that was not demanded
by the preceding phases of the tale is here absolutely prescribed.
Becky, Rawdon, Steyne, must now take the matter into their own hands
and show themselves without any other intervention. Hitherto,
practically throughout, they have been the creatures of Thackeray's
thought, they have been openly and confessedly the figures of _his_
vision. Now they must come forward, declare themselves, and be seen
for what they are.

And accordingly they do come forward and are seen in a famous passage.
Rawdon makes his unexpected return home from prison, and Becky's
unfortunate disaster overtakes her, so to say, in our very presence.
Perhaps I may seem to exaggerate the change of method which I note at
this point; but does it not appear to any one, glancing back at his
recollection of the book, that this particular scene is defined and
relieved and lighted differently, somehow, from the stream of
impressions in which it is set? A space is cleared for it, the stage
is swept. This is now no retrospective vision, shared with Thackeray;
it is a piece of present action with which we are confronted. It is
strictly dramatic, and I suppose it is good drama of its kind. But
there is more to be said of it than this--more to be said, even when
it has been admitted to be drama of rather a high-pitched, theatrical
strain. The foot-lights, it is probably agreed, seem suddenly to flare
before Becky and Rawdon, after the clear daylight that reigned in
Thackeray's description of them; they appear upon the scene, as they
should, but it must be owned that the scene has an artificial look, by
comparison with the flowing spontaneity of all that has gone before.
And this it is exactly that shows how and where Thackeray's skill
betrays him. He is not (like Dickens) naturally inclined to the
theatre, the melodramatic has no fatal attraction for him; so that if
he is theatrical here, it is not because he inevitably would be, given
his chance. It is rather because he must, at all costs, make this
climax of his story conclusively _tell_; and in order to do so he is
forced to use devices of some crudity--for him they are crude--because
his climax, his _scene a faire_, has been insufficiently prepared for.
Becky, Rawdon, Steyne, in all this matter that has been leading up to
the scene, have scarcely before been rendered in these immediate
terms; and now that th