Thackeray again has less story to tell than his greatest contemporary and never gained a sure hand in construction, with the possible exception of his one success in plot, "Henry Esmond." Nothing is more apparent than the loose texture of "Vanity Fair," where two stories centering in the antithetic women, Becky and Amelia, are held together chronicle fashion, not in the nexus of an organism of close weave. But this very looseness, where there is such superlative power of characterization with plenty of invention in incident, adds to the verisimilitude and attraction of the book. The impression of life is all the more vivid, because of the lack of proportioned progress to a climax. The story conducts itself and ends much as does life: people come in and out and when Finis is written, we feel we may see them again--as indeed often happens, for Thackeray used the pleasant device of re-introducing favorite characters such as Pendennis, Warrington and the descendants thereof, and it adds distinctly to the reality of the ensemble. "Vanity Fair" has most often been given precedence over the other novels of contemporary life: but for individual scenes and strength of character drawing both "Pendennis" and "The Newcomes" set up vigorous claims. If there be no single triumph in female portraiture like Becky Sharp, Ethel New-come (on the side of virtue) is a far finer woman than the somewhat insipid Amelia: and no personage in the Mayfair book is more successful and beloved than Major Pendennis or Colonel Newcome. Also, the atmosphere of these two pictures seems mellower, less sharp, while as organic structures they are both superior to "Vanity Fair." Perhaps the supremacy of the last-named is due most of all to the fact that a wonderfully drawn evil character has more fascination than a noble one of workmanship as fine. Or is it that such a type calls forth the novelist's powers to the full? If so, it were, in a manner, a reproach. But it is more important to say that all three books are delightfully authentic studies of upper-class society in England as Thackeray knew it: the social range is comparatively restricted, for even the rascals are shabby-genteel. But the exposure of human nature (which depends upon keen observation within a prescribed boundary) is wide and deep: a story-teller can penetrate just as far into the arcana of the human spirit if he confine himself to a class as if he surveyed all mankind. But mental limitations result: the point of view is that of the gentleman-class: the ideas of the personal relation to one's self, one's fellow men and one's Maker are those natural to a person of that station. The charming poem which the author set as Finis to "Dr. Birch and His Young Friends," with its concluding lines, is an unconscious expression of the form in which he conceived human duty. The "And so, please God, a gentleman," was the cardinal clause in his creed and all his work proves it. It is wiser to