When we search back from symptom to cause we find the secret of these and many other differences in the fact that the work of Dickens is primarily sentimental, while Thackeray's is primarily intellectual. This is by no means equivalent to saying that Dickens is deficient in intellect, or Thackeray in sentiment. It means rather that the strong intellect of Dickens is the servant of sentiment, the strong sentiment of Thackeray the servant of intellect. It is another way of saying that Thackeray is essentially of the eighteenth century, the century of predominant understanding. It follows from his satirical way of viewing life; for the satirist must not wholly lose himself even in his _sæva indignatio_. The effect of his satire depends upon his keeping aloof, critical, superior. The Romans were great satirists because they did so; the English are great satirists in so far as they do so likewise. Something is lost in emotion, as art, something is gained in comprehension, for practical application. No one can doubt that Thackeray is thus reflective and satirical. Critic after critic has called attention to his habit of staying the course of his story for comment and exposition. Not only so, but there is subdued and disguised comment all through. The artist makes each character criticise itself; and the effect is as if we were walking constantly in the light of those rays which pierce through the opaque and reveal what lies beneath. Thackeray's satire plays continually over the characters he creates for warning and example. Blanche Amory, Becky Sharp, Major Pendennis, all have their inner motives exposed by this searching and pitiless light. So much is this the case that Thackeray has been described as not properly a novelist at all, but first of all a satirist. The difference is that the novelist primarily exhibits life as it is, while the satirist comments upon it. That Thackeray does the latter is obvious; but it seems an exaggeration to say that he is not properly a novelist. Though most of his stories are loosely constructed, though plot and incident are of subordinate importance, yet without the story his books would be vitally different. Moreover, the pure satirist commonly deals with types rather than individuals. Juvenal does so, Horace does so, Swift does so. So does Thackeray himself in _The Book of Snobs_. But Becky Sharp and Major Pendennis and Beatrix Esmond all have individuality.