in John, and the nine verses are better than the million books. The
story of David and Uriah's wife is in a similar catalogue as regards
quality and usefulness; the story of Esther is a pearl of great beauty.

* * * * *

But to return to heroines, let us make a volte face. There is an old
story of the lady who wrote rather irritably to Thackeray, asking,
curtly, why all the good women he created were fools and the bright
women all bad. "The same complaint," he answered, "has been made,
Madame, of God and Shakespeare, and as neither has given explanation I
can not presume to attempt one." It was curt and severe, and, of course,
Thackeray did not write it as it would appear, even though he may have
said as much jestingly to some intimate who understood the epigram;
but was not the question rather impudently intrusive? Thackeray, you
remember, was the "seared cynic" who created Caroline Gann, the gentle,
beautiful, glorious "Little Sister," the staunch, pure-hearted woman
whose character not even the perfect scoundrelism of Dr. George Brand
Firmin could tarnish or disturb. If there are heroines, surely she has
her place high amid the noble group!

There are plenty of intelligent persons sacramentally wedded to mere
conventions of good and bad. You could never persuade them that Rebecca
Sharp--that most perfect daughter of Thackeray's mind--was a heroine.
But of course she was. In that world wherein she was cast to live she
was indubitably, incomparably, the very best of all the inhabitants to
whom you are intimately introduced. Capt. Dobbin? Oh, no, I am not
forgetting good Old Dob. Of all the social door mats that ever I wiped
my feet upon Old Dob is certainly the cleanest, most patient,
serviceable and unrevolutionary. But, just a door mat, with the virtues