much of his
own person, and is selfish. Thackeray puts in a touch or two here and
there by which he is made to be odious. He would rather give a present
to himself than to the girl who loved him. Nevertheless, when her father
is ruined he marries her, and he fights bravely at Waterloo, and is
killed. "No more firing was heard at Brussels. The pursuit rolled miles
away. Darkness came down on the field and the city,--and Amelia was
praying for George, who was lying on his face, dead, with a bullet
through his heart."

Then follows the long courtship of Dobbin, the true hero,--he who has
been the friend of George since their old school-days; who has lived
with him and served him, and has also loved Amelia. But he has loved
her,--as one man may love another,--solely with a view to the profit of
his friend. He has known all along that George and Amelia have been
engaged to each other as boy and girl. George would have neglected her,
but Dobbin would not allow it. George would have jilted the girl who
loved him, but Dobbin would not let him. He had nothing to get for
himself, but loving her as he did, it was the work of his life to get
for her all that she wanted.

George is shot at Waterloo, and then come fifteen years of
widowhood,--fifteen years during which Becky is carrying on her
manoeuvres,--fifteen years during which Amelia cannot bring herself to
accept the devotion of the old captain, who becomes at last a colonel.
But at the end she is won. "The vessel is in port. He has got the prize
he has been trying for all his life. The bird has come in at last. There
it is, with its head on its shoulder, billing and cooing clean up to his
heart, with soft outstretched fluttering wings. This is what he has
asked for every day and hour for eighteen years. This is what he has
pined after. Here it is,--the summit, the end, the last page of the
third volume."

The reader as he closes the book has on his mind a strong conviction,
the strongest possible conviction, that among men George is as weak and
Dobbin as noble as any that he has met in literature; and that among
women Amelia is as true and Becky as vile as any he has encountered. Of
so much he will be conscious. In addition to this he will unconsciously
have found that every page he has read will have been of interest to
him. There has been no padding, no longueurs; every bit will have had
its weight with him. And he will find too at the end, if he will think
of it--thoug