It will be said of course that this came from the earlier popularity of
Dickens. That is of course; but why should it have been so? They had
begun to make their effort much at the same time; and if there was any
advantage in point of position as they commenced, it was with Thackeray.
It might be said that the genius of the one was brighter than that of
the other, or, at any rate, that it was more precocious. But
after-judgment has, I think, not declared either of the suggestions to
be true. I will make no comparison between two such rivals, who were so
distinctly different from each, and each of whom, within so very short a
period, has come to stand on a pedestal so high,--the two exalted to so
equal a vocation. And if Dickens showed the best of his power early in
life, so did Thackeray the best of his intellect. In no display of
mental force did he rise above _Barry Lyndon_. I hardly know how the
teller of a narrative shall hope to mount in simply intellectual faculty
above the effort there made. In what then was the difference? Why was
Dickens already a great man when Thackeray was still a literary
Bohemian?

The answer is to be found not in the extent or in the nature of the
genius of either man, but in the condition of mind,--which indeed may be
read plainly in their works by those who have eyes to see. The one was
steadfast, industrious, full of purpose, never doubting of himself,
always putting his best foot foremost and standing firmly on it when he
got it there; with no inward trepidation, with no moments in which he
was half inclined to think that this race was not for his winning, this
goal not to be reached by his struggles. The sympathy of friends was
good to him, but he could have done without it. The good opinion which
he had of himself was never shaken by adverse criticism; and the
criticism on the other side, by which it was exalted, came from the