with vanity fair begins what some one has called the quadrilateral on which thackeray’s larger fame rests. the three other pillars are, henry esmond, pendennis, and the newcomes. which is the greatest of these four novels? on this question there is dispute among critics, and difference of opinion, even among avowed thackerayans, who confess that they “like everything he wrote.” why try to settle the question? why not let the interesting, illuminating causerie run on? in these furious days when the hysteria of world-problems vexes us, it is good to have some subjects on which we can dispute without ranting or raving.
for my part, i find vanity fair the strongest, pendennis the most intimate, the newcomes the richest and in parts the most lovable, and henry esmond the most admirable and satisfying, among thackeray’s novels. but they all have this in common: they represent a reaction from certain false fashions in fiction which prevailed at that time. from the spurious romanticism of g. p. r. james
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and harrison ainsworth, from the philosophic affectation of bulwer, from the gilding and rococo-work of the super-snob disraeli—all of them popular writers of their day—thackeray turned away, not now as in his earlier period to satirize and ridicule and parody them, but to create something in a different genre, closer to the facts of life, more true to the reality of human nature.
we may read in the preface to pendennis just what he had in mind and purpose:
“many ladies have remonstrated and subscribers left me, because, in the course of the story, i described a young man resisting and affected by temptation. my object was to say, that he had the passions to feel, and the manliness and generosity to overcome them. you will not hear—it is best to know it—what moves in the real world, what passes in society, in the clubs, colleges, mess-rooms—what is the life and talk of your sons. a little more frankness than is customary has been attempted in this story; with no bad desire on the author’s part, it is hoped, and with no ill consequence to any reader. if truth is not always pleasant, at any rate truth is
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best, from whatever chair—from those whence graver writers or thinkers argue, as from that at which the story-teller sits as he concludes his labour, and bids his kind reader farewell.”
william makepeace thackeray.
reproduced from the kensington edition of thackeray’s works.
it is amusing, in this age of art undressed, to read this modest defense of frankness in fiction. its meaning is very different from the interpretation of it which is given by disciples of the “show-everything-without-a-fig-leaf” school.
thackeray did not confuse reality with indecency. he did not think it needful to make his hero cut his toe-nails or take a bath in public in order to show him as a real man. the ordinary and common physical details of life may be taken for granted; to obtrude them is to exaggerate their importance. it is with the frailties and passions, the faults and virtues, the defeats and victories of his men and women that thackeray deals. he describes pendennis tempted without making the description a new temptation. he brings us acquainted with becky sharp, enchanteresse, without adding to her enchantment. we feel that she is capable of anything; but we do not know all that she actually
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did,—indeed thackeray himself frankly confessed that even he did not know, nor much care.
the excellence of his character-drawing is that his men and women are not mere pegs to hang a doctrine or a theory on. they have a life of their own, independent of, and yet closely touching his. this is what he says of them in his essay “de finibus”:
“they have been boarding and lodging with me for twenty months.... i know the people utterly,—i know the sound of their voices.”
fault has been found with him (and that by such high authority as mr. howells) for coming into his own pages so often with personal comment or, “a word to the reader.” it is said that this disturbs the narrative, breaks the illusion, makes the novel less convincing as a work of art. frankly, it does not strike me that way. on the contrary, it adds to the verisimilitude. these men and women are so real to him that he cannot help talking to us about them as we go along together. is it not just so in actual life, when you go with a friend to watch the passing show? do you think that what thackeray
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says to you about colonel newcome, or captain costigan, or helen pendennis, or laura, or ethel, or george warrington, makes them fade away?
yes, i know the paragraphs at the beginning and end of vanity fair about the showman and the puppets and the box. but don’t you see what the parable means? it is only what shakespeare said long ago:
all the world’s a stage,
and all the men and women merely players.
nor would thackeray have let this metaphor pass without adding to it pope’s fine line:
act well your part, there all the honour lies.
of course, there is another type of fiction in which running personal comment by the author would be out of place. it is illustrated in dickens by a tale of two cities, and in thackeray by henry esmond. the latter seems to me the most perfect example of a historical novel in all literature. more than that,—it is, so far as i know, the best portrayal of the character of a gentleman.
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the book presents itself as a memoir of henry esmond, esq., a colonel in the service of her majesty, queen anne, written by himself. here, then, we have an autobiographical novel, the most difficult and perilous of all modes of fiction. if the supposed author puts himself in the foreground, he becomes egotistical and insufferable; if he puts himself in the background, he becomes insignificant, a mere chinese “property-man” in the drama. this dilemma thackeray avoids by letting esmond tell his own story in the third person—that is to say, with a certain detachment of view, such as a sensible person would feel in looking back on his own life.
rarely is this historic method of narration broken. i recall one instance, in the last chapter, where beatrix, after that tremendous scene in the house of castlewood with the prince, reveals her true nature and quits the room in a rage. the supposed author writes:
“her keen words gave no wound to mr. esmond; his heart was too hard. as he looked at her, he wondered that he could ever have loved her....
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the prince blushed and bowed low, as she gazed at him and quitted the chamber. i have never seen her from that day.”
thackeray made this slip on purpose. he wanted us to feel the reality of the man who is trying to tell his own story in the third person.
this, after all, is the real value of the book. it is not only a wonderful picture of the age of queen anne, its ways and customs, its manner of speech and life, its principal personages—the red-faced queen, and peremptory marlborough, and smooth atterbury, and rakish mohun, and urbane addison, and soldier-scholar richard steele—appearing in the background of the political plot. it is also, and far more significantly, a story of the honour of a gentleman—namely, henry esmond—carried through a life of difficulty, and crowned with the love of a true woman, after a false one had failed him.
some readers profess themselves disappointed with the dénouement of the love-story. they find it unnatural and disconcerting that the hero should win the mother and not the daughter as the guerdon
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of his devotion. not i. read the story more closely.
when it opens, in the house of castlewood, esmond is a grave, lonely boy of twelve; lady castlewood, fair and golden-haired, is in the first bloom of gracious beauty, twenty years old; beatrix is a dark little minx of four years. naturally, henry falls in love with the mother rather than with the daughter, grows up as her champion and knight, defends her against the rakishness of lord mohun, resolves for her sake to give up his claim to the title and the estate. then comes the episode of his infatuation by the wonderful physical beauty of beatrix, the vixen. that madness ends with the self-betrayal of her letter of assignation with the prince, and her subsequent conduct. esmond returns to his first love, his young love, his true love, lady castlewood. of its fruition let us read his own estimate:
“that happiness which hath subsequently crowned it, cannot be written in words; it is of its nature sacred and secret, and not to be spoken of, though the heart be ever so full of thankfulness,
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save to heaven and the one ear alone—to one fond being, the truest and tenderest and purest wife ever man was blessed with.
