ll, a certain vacillation--an uncertainty of design
not often accompanying genius like his--must be acknowledged in
Thackeray. For a time he hesitated between pen and pencil, the latter of
which implements he fortunately never abandoned, though the former was
his predestined wand. Then he could not, or would not, for years, get
out of the "miscellaneous" style, or patchwork of styles--reviews, short
stories, burlesques, what not. His more important attempts seemed to
have an attendant _guignon_.[22] _Catherine_ (1839-1840), a very powerful
thing in parts, was ill-planned and could not be popular. _A Shabby
Genteel Story_ (1841), containing almost the Thackerayan _quiddity_, was
interrupted partly by his wife's illness, partly, it would seem, by
editorial disfavour, and moreover still failed to shake off the
appearance of a want of seriousness. Even _The Great Hoggarty Diamond_
(1841-1842) was apparently cut short by request, and still lay open to
an unjust, but not quite inexcusable, question on this same point of
"seriousness." In all there was, or might seem to be, a queer and to
some readers an unsatisfactory blend of what they had not learnt to call
"realism" with what they were quite likely to think fooling. During
these years Thackeray was emphatically of the class of writers of whom
people "do not know what to make." And it is a true saying of English
people--though perhaps not so pre-eminently true of them as some would
have it--that "not to know what to make" of a thing or a person is
sufficient reason for them to distrust, dislike, and "wash their hands
of" it or him.

[22] For this reason, and for the variety of kind of his later
novels a little more individual notice must be given to them
than in the case of Dickens, but still only a little, and
nothing like detailed criticism.

Some would have it that _Barry Lyndon_ (1843) marks the close of this
period of indecision and the beginning of that of maturity. The commoner
and perhaps the juster opinion is that this position belongs to _Vanity
Fair_ (1846-1848). At any rate, _after_ that book there could be no
doubt about the fact of the greatness of its writer, though it may be
doubted whether even now the quality of this greatness is correctly and
generally recognised. It is this--that at last the novel of real life on
the great scale has been discovered. Even yet a remnant of shyness hangs
on the artist. He puts his scene a little though not