e only five feet high he does not try to enlist
in the Guards. Thackeray complains that many ladies have "remonstrated
and subscribers left him," because of his realistic tendency.
Nevertheless he has gone on with his work, and, in _Pendennis_, has
painted a young man as natural as Tom Jones. Had he expended himself in
the attempt, he could not have drawn a Master of Ravenswood.

It has to be admitted that Pendennis is not a fine fellow. He is not as
weak, as selfish, as untrustworthy as that George Osborne whom Amelia
married in _Vanity Fair_; but nevertheless, he is weak, and selfish, and
untrustworthy. He is not such a one as a father would wish to see his
son, or a mother to welcome as a lover for her daughter. But then,
fathers are so often doomed to find their sons not all that they wish,
and mothers to see their girls falling in love with young men who are
not Paladins. In our individual lives we are contented to endure an
admixture of evil, which we should resent if imputed to us in the
general. We presume ourselves to be truth-speaking, noble in our
sentiments, generous in our actions, modest and unselfish, chivalrous
and devoted. But we forgive and pass over in silence a few delinquencies
among ourselves. What boy at school ever is a coward,--in the general?
What gentleman ever tells a lie? What young lady is greedy? We take it
for granted, as though they were fixed rules in life, that our boys from
our public schools look us in the face and are manly; that our gentlemen
tell the truth as a matter of course; and that our young ladies are
refined and unselfish. Thackeray is always protesting that it is not so,
and that no good is to be done by blinking the truth. He knows that we
have our little home experiences. Let us have the facts out, and mend
what is bad if we can. This novel of _Pendennis_ is one of his loudest
protests to this effect.

I will not attempt to tell the story of Pendennis, how his mother loved
him, how he first came to be brought up together with Laura Bell, how he
thrashed the other boys when he was a boy, and how he fell in love with
Miss Fotheringay, nee Costigan, and was determined to marry her while he
was still a hobbledehoy, how he went up to Boniface, that well-known
college at Oxford, and there did no good, spending money which he had
not got, and learning to gamble. The English gentleman, as we know,
never lies; but Pendennis is not quite truthful; when the college tutor,
thinkin