into dignity and heroism, and his wife's outburst of admiration at his
vengeance, are strokes of really Shakespearean insight. It was with
justice that Thackeray himself felt pride in that touch. "_She stood
there trembling before him. She admired her husband, strong, brave,
victorious_." It is these touches of clear sight in Becky, her respect
for Dobbin, her kindliness to Amelia apart from her own schemes, which
make us feel an interest in Becky, loathsome as she is. She is always
a woman, and not an inhuman monster, however bad a woman, cruel,
heartless, and false.

There remains always the perpetual problem if _Vanity Fair_ be a
cynic's view of life, the sardonic grin of a misanthrope gloating over
the trickery and meanness of mankind. It is well to remember how many
are the scenes of tenderness and pathos in _Vanity Fair_, how
powerfully told, how deeply they haunt the memory and sink into the
heart. The school life of Dobbin, the ruin of old Sedley and the
despair of 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