One interesting but unnoticed thing about these minor characters is that they all have their life-size prototypes in the novels of Dickens. Thackeray's characters, as he explains in his preface, are "mere puppets," who must move when he pulls the strings. Dickens does not have to explain that his characters are men and women who do very much as they please. That is, perhaps, the chief difference between the two novelists. [Sidenote: PENDENNIS] _Pendennis_ is a more readable novel than _Vanity Fair_ in this respect, that its interest centers in one character rather than in a variety of knaves or fools. Thackeray takes a youthful hero, follows him through school and later life, and shows the steady degeneration of a man who is governed not by vicious but by selfish impulses. From beginning to end _Pendennis_ is a penetrating ethical study (like George Eliot's _Romola_), and the story is often interrupted while we listen to the author's moralizing. To some readers this is an offense; to others it is a pleasure, since it makes them better acquainted with the mind and heart of Thackeray, the gentlest of Victorian moralists. [Sidenote: AFTERTHOUGHTS] The last notable works of Thackeray are like afterthoughts. _The Virginians_ continues the story of Colonel Esmond, and _The Newcomes_ recounts the later fortunes of Arthur Pendennis. _The Virginians_ has two or three splendid scenes, and some critics regard _The Newcomes_ as the finest expression of the author's genius; but both works, which appeared in the leisurely form of monthly instalments, are too languid in action for sustained interest. We grow acquainted with certain characters, and are heartily glad when they make their exit; perhaps someone else will come, some adventurer from the road or the inn, to relieve the dullness. The door opens, and in comes the bore again to take another leave. That is realism, undoubtedly; and Laura Pendennis is as realistic as the mumps, which one may catch a second time. The atmosphere of both novels--indeed, of all Thackeray's greater works, with the exception of _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_--is rather depressing. One gets the impression that life among "the quality" is a dreary experience, hardly worth the effort of living. [Illustration: CHARTERHOUSE SCHOOL After a rare engraving by J. Rogers from the drawing made by Thomas H. Shepherd at the time Thackeray was a student there]