body but
herself; but, as far as she is concerned, we cannot pretend to be
scandalized--for how could she without a heart? It is very shocking of
course that she committed all sorts of dirty tricks, and jockeyed her
neighbours, and never cared what she trampled under foot if it happened
to obstruct her step; but how could she be expected to do otherwise
without a conscience? The poor little woman was most tryingly placed;
she came into the world without the customary letters of credit upon
those two great bankers of humanity, "Heart and Conscience," and it was
no fault of hers if they dishonoured all her bills. All she could do in
this dilemma was to establish the firmest connexion with the inferior
commercial branches of "Sense and Tact," who secretly do much business
in the name of the head concern, and with whom her "fine frontal
development" gave her unlimited credit. She saw that selfishness was the
metal which the stamp of heart was suborned to pass; that hypocrisy was
the homage that vice rendered to virtue; that honesty was, at all
events, acted, because it was the best policy; and so she practised the
arts of selfishness and hypocrisy like anybody else in Vanity Fair, only
with this difference, that she brought them to their highest possible
pitch of perfection. For why is it that, looking round in this world, we
find plenty of characters to compare with her up to a certain pitch, but
none which reach her actual standard? Why is it that, speaking of this
friend or that, we say in the tender mercies of our hearts, "No, she is
not _quite_ so bad as Becky?" We fear not only because she has more
heart and conscience, but also because she has less cleverness.

No; let us give Becky her due. There is enough in this world of ours, as
we all know, to provoke a saint, far more a poor little devil like her.
She had none of those fellow-feelings which make us wondrous kind. She
saw people around her cowards in vice, and simpletons in virtue, and she
had no patience with either, for she was as little the one as the other
herself. She saw women who loved their husbands and yet teazed them, and
ruining their children although they doated upon them, and she sneered
at their utter inconsistency. Wickedness or goodness, unless coupled
with strength, were alike worthless to her. That weakness which is the
blessed pledge of our humanity, was to her only the despicable badge of
our imperfection. She thought, it might be, of her ma