Most true, beloved R. L. S., but did you forget that this is precisely what Thackeray himself says? He tells us not to be too quick or absolute in our judgments; to acknowledge that we have some faults and failings of our own; to remember that other people have sometimes hinted at a vein, a trace, a vestige of snobbery in ourselves. Search for truth and speak it; but, above all, no arrogance—_faut pas monter sur ses grands chevaux_. Have you ever read the end of the lecture on “Charity and Humour”? “The author ... has been described by _The London Times_ newspaper as a writer of considerable parts, but a dreary misanthrope, who sees no good anywhere, who sees the sky above him green, I think, instead of blue, and only miserable sinners around him. _So we are, as is every writer and reader I have heard of; so was every being who ever trod this earth, save One._ I cannot help telling the truth as I view it, and describing what I see. To describe it otherwise than it seems to me would be falsehood in that calling in which it has pleased Heaven to place me; treason to that conscience which says that men are weak; that truth must be told; that faults must be owned; that pardon must be prayed for; and that Love reigns supreme over all.” II With _Vanity Fair_ begins what some one has called the _quadrilateral_ on which Thackeray’s larger fame rests. The three other pillars are, _Henry Esmond_, _Pendennis_, and _The Newcomes_. Which is the greatest of these four novels? On this question there is dispute among critics, and difference of opinion, even among avowed Thackerayans, who confess that they “like everything he wrote.” Why try to settle the question? Why not let the interesting, illuminating _causerie_ run on? In these furious days when the hysteria of world-problems vexes us, it is good to have some subjects on which we can dispute without ranting or raving. For my part, I find _Vanity Fair_ the strongest, _Pendennis_ the most intimate, _The Newcomes_ the richest and in parts the most lovable, and _Henry Esmond_ the most admirable and satisfying, among Thackeray’s novels. But they all have this in common: they represent a reaction from certain false fashions in fiction which prevailed at that time. From the spurious romanticism of G. P. R. James and Harrison Ainsworth, from the philosophic affectation of Bulwer, from the gilding and rococo-work of the super-snob Disraeli—all of them popular writers of their day—Thackeray turned away, not now as in his earlier period to satirize and ridicule and parody them, but to create something in a different _genre_, closer to the facts of life, more true to the reality of human nature. We may read in the preface to _Pendennis_ just what he had in mind and purpose: