Now Thackeray could draw and has drawn English gentlemen and gentlewomen; but has he ever drawn a high-minded, self-forgetting man or woman devoted to some, to any, great object, or cause, or purpose of any kind in life--absorbed by it and faithful to it? Is it true that even in London society men are wholly given up to dining, and paying visits, and making and spending money? Is it true that all men, even in London society, pass their lives in a purposeless, drifting way, making good resolves and not carrying them out; doing good things now and then out of easy, generous impulse; loving lightly, and recovering from love quickly? Are there in London society, on the one hand, no passions; on the other hand, no simple, strong, consistent, unselfish, high-minded lives? Assuredly there are; but Thackeray, the greatest painter of English society England has ever had, chose, for some reason or another, to ignore them. Only when he comes to speak of artists, more especially of painters, does he ever hint that he is aware of the existence of men whose lives are consistent, steadfast, and unselfish. Surely this is a great omission. One does not care to drag into this discussion the names of living illustrations; but I should like to have pointed Thackeray's attention to this and that and the other man whom, to my certain knowledge, he knew and warmly, fully appreciated, and asked him, "Why, when you were painting with such incomparable fidelity such illustrations of English life as you chose to select, did you not think fit to picture such a simple, strong, consistent, magnanimous, self-forgetting, self-devoting nature as that, or that, or that?"--and so on, through many examples which I or anybody could have named. I suppose the honest answer would have been, "I cannot draw that kind of character; I cannot quite enter into its experiences and make it look life-like as I see it; it is not in my line, and I prefer not to attempt it." Now, I think it to the credit of Bulwer-Lytton, as a mere artist, that he did include such figures even in his wax-work gallery. He could not make them look like life; but he showed at least that he was aware of their existence, and that he did his best to teach the world to recognize them.