ter all, Harry had been in love with the mother,
as well as with the daughter, all along. If they consider this an
aggravation, it cannot be helped: but, except from the extreme point of
view of Miss Marianne Dashwood in her earlier stage, it ought rather to be
considered a palliative. And if they say further that the thing is made
worse still by the fact that Harry was himself Rachel's _second_ love, and
that she did not exactly wait to be a widow before she fell in love with
him--why, there is, again, nothing for it but to confess that it is very
shocking--and excessively human. Indeed, the fact is that Rachel is as
human as Beatrix, though in a different way. You may not only _love_ her
less, but--in a different sense of contrast from that of the Roman
poet--_like_ her a little less. But you cannot, if you have any knowledge
of human nature, call her unnatural. And really I do not know that the
third lady of the family, Isabel Marchioness of Esmond, though there is
less written about her, is not as real and almost as wonderful as the
other two. She is not so fairly treated, however, poor thing! for we have
her Bernstein period without her Beatrix one.

As for my Lords Castlewood--Thomas, and Francis _pere et fils_--their
creator has not taken so much trouble with them; but they are never "out".
The least of a piece, I think, is Rachel's too fortunate or too
unfortunate husband. The people who regard Ibsen's great triumph in the
_Doll's House_ as consisting in the conduct of the husband as to the
incriminating documents, ought to admire Thackeray's management of the
temporary loss of Rachel's beauty. They are certainly both touches of the
baser side of human nature ingeniously worked in. But the question is,
What, in this wonderful book, is _not_ ingeniously worked in--character or
incident, description or speech?

If the champions of "Unity" were wise, they would take _Esmond_ as a
battle-horse, for it is certain that, great as are its parts, the whole is
greater than almost any one of them--which is certainly not the case with
_Pendennis_. And it is further certain that, of these parts, the
personages of the hero and the heroine stand out commandingly, which is
certainly not the case with _Pendennis_, again. The unity, however, is of
a peculiar kind: and differs from the ordinary non-classical "Unity of
Interest" which Thackeray almost invariably exhibits. It is rather a Unity
of _Temper_, which is also present (as