A very simple and obvious step too, it will be said, the natural device of the story-teller for giving his tale a look of truth. It is so indeed; but the interest of the matter lies in recognizing exactly what it is that is gained, what it is that makes that look. Esmond tells the story quite as Thackeray would; it all comes streaming out as a pictorial evocation of old times; there is just as little that is strictly dramatic in it as there is in Vanity Fair. Rarely, very rarely indeed, is there anything that could be called a scene; there is a long impression that creeps forward and forward, as Esmond retraces his life, with those piercing moments of vision which we remember so well. But to the other people in the book it makes all the difference that the narrator is among them. Now, when Beatrix appears, we know who it is that so sees her, and we know where the seer is placed; his line of sight, striking across the book, from him the seer to her the seen, is measurable, its angle is shown; it gives to Beatrix a new dimension and a sharper relief. Can you remember any moment in Vanity Fair when you beheld Becky as again and again you behold Beatrix, catching the very slant of the light on her face? Becky never suddenly flowered out against her background in that way; some want of solidity and of objectivity there still is in Becky, and there must be, because she is regarded from anywhere, from nowhere, from somewhere in the surrounding void. Thackeray's language about her does not carry the same weight as Esmond's about Beatrix, because nobody knows where Thackeray is, or what his relation may be to Becky.