Is this the assembled flower of manhood and womanhood, called "best
society," and to see which is so envied a privilege? If such are the
elements, can we be long in arriving at the present state, and necessary
future condition of parties?

_Vanity Fair_ is peculiarly a picture of modern society. It aims at
English follies, but its mark is universal, as the madness is. It is
called a satire, but, after much diligent reading, we can not discover
the satire. A state of society not at all superior to that of _Vanity
Fair_ is not unknown to our experience; and, unless truth-telling be
satire; unless the most tragically real portraiture be satire; unless
scalding tears of sorrow, and the bitter regret of a manly mind over the
miserable spectacle of artificiality, wasted powers, misdirected
energies, and lost opportunities, be satirical; we do not find satire in
that sad story. The reader closes it with a grief beyond tears. It
leaves a vague apprehension in the mind, as if we should suspect the air
to be poisoned. It suggests the terrible thought of the enfeebling of
moral power, and the deterioration of noble character, as a necessary
consequence of contact with "society." Every man looks suddenly and
sharply around him, and accosts himself and his neighbors, to ascertain
if they are all parties to this corruption. Sentimental youths and
maidens, upon velvet sofas, or in calf-bound libraries, resolve that it
is an insult to human nature--are sure that their velvet and calf-bound
friends are not like the _dramatis personæ_ of _Vanity Fair_, and that
the drama is therefore hideous and unreal. They should remember, what
they uniformly and universally forget, that we are not invited, upon the
rising of the curtain, to behold a cosmorama, or picture of the world,
but a representation of that part of it called Vanity Fair. What its
just limits are--how far its poisonous purlieus reach--how much of the
world's air is tainted by it, is a question which every thoughtful man