Crawley, the Major or the Colonel,--is it Lord Steyne or Rebecca? All
are excellent, all seem perfect in truth, in consistency, in contrast.

The great triumph of _Vanity Fair_--the great triumph of modern
fiction--is Becky Sharp: a character which will ever stand in the very
foremost rank of English literature, if not with Falstaff and Shylock,
then with Squire Western, Uncle Toby, Mr. Primrose, Jonathan Oldbuck,
and Sam Weller. There is no character in the whole range of literature
which has been worked out with more elaborate completeness. She is
drawn from girlhood to old age, under every conceivable condition, and
is brought face to face with all kinds of persons and trials. In all
circumstances Becky is true to herself; her ingenuity, her wit, her
selfishness, her audacity, her cunning, her clear, cool, alert brain,
even her common sense, her spirit of justice, when she herself is not
concerned, and her good-nature, when it could cost her nothing--all
this is unfailing, inimitable, never to be forgotten. Some good people
cry out that she is so wicked. Of course she is wicked: so were Iago
and Blifil. The only question is, if she be real? Most certainly she
is, as real as anything in the whole range of fiction, as real as
Tartuffe, or Gil Blas, Wilhelm Meister, or Rob Roy. No one doubts that
Becky Sharps exist: unhappily they are not even very uncommon. And
Thackeray has drawn one typical example of such bad women with an
anatomical precision that makes us shudder.

And if Becky Sharp be the masterpiece of Thackeray's art amongst the
characters, the scene of her husband's encounter with her paramour is
the masterpiece of all the scenes in _Vanity Fair_, and has no
superior, hardly any equal, in modern fiction. Becky, Rawdon Crawley,
and Lord Steyne--all are inimitably true, all are powerful, all are
fearful in their agony and rage. The uprising of the poor rake almost