They have better heads, stronger wills, richer natures than the good and kind ones who are their butts.  Dobbin, as the author himself tells us, “is a spooney.”  Amelia, as he says also, “is a little fool.”  Peggy O’Dowd, dear old goody, is the laughing-stock of the regiment, though she is also its grandmother. Vanity Fair has here and there some virtuous and generous characters.  But we are made to laugh at every one of them to their very faces.  And the evil and the selfish characters bully them, mock them, thrust them aside at every page—­and they do so because they are more the stuff of which men and women of any mark are made.

There are evil characters in Shakespeare, in Fielding, in Goldsmith, in Scott:  we find ruffians, rakes, traitors, and parasites.  But they are not paramount, not universal, not unqualified.  Iago is utterly overshadowed by Othello, Blifil by Alworthy, Tom Jones by Sophia Western, Squire Thornhill by Dr. Primrose, the reprobate Staunton by the good angel Jeanie Deans.  Shakespeare, Fielding, Goethe, Scott draw noble and generous natures quite as well as they paint the evil natures:  indeed they paint them better; they enjoy the painting of them more; they make us enjoy them more.  Take this test:  if we run over the characters of Shakespeare or of Scott we have to reflect before we find the villains.  If we run over the characters in Thackeray, it is an effort of memory to recall the generous and the fine natures.  Thackeray has given us some loveable and affectionate men and women; but they all have qualities which lower them and tend to make them either tiresome or ridiculous.  Henry Esmond is a high-minded and almost heroic gentleman, but he is glum, a regular kill-joy, and, as his author admitted, something of a prig.  Colonel Newcome is a noble true-hearted soldier; but he is made too good for this world and somewhat too innocent, too transparently a child of nature.  Warrington, with all his sense and honesty, is rough; Pendennis is a bit of a puppy; Clive Newcome is not much of a hero; and as for Dobbin he is almost intended to be a butt.

A more serious defect is a dearth in Thackeray of women to love and to honour.  Shakespeare has given us a gallery of noble women; Fielding has drawn the adorable Sophia Western; Scott has his Jeanie Deans.  But though Thackeray has given us over and over again living pictures of women of power, intellect, wit, charm, they are all marred by atrocious selfishness, cruelty, ambition, like Becky Sharp, Beatrix Esmond, and Lady Kew; or else they have some weakness, silliness, or narrowness which prevents us from at once loving and respecting them.  Amelia is rather a poor thing and decidedly silly; we do not really admire Laura Pendennis; the Little Sister is somewhat colourless; Ethel Newcome runs great risk of being a spoilt beauty; and about Lady Castlewood, with all her love and devotion, there hangs a certain sinister and unnatural taint,