n
delightful, is one of its chief charms and characteristics. And
contrariwise, the looseness of construction, the lack of careful
architecture in Thackeray's stories, look to the same fact.

It can not justly be said of these earlier and minor writings
that, taken as a whole, they reveal a cynic. They contain many
thrusts at the foolishness and knavery of society, especially
that genteel portion of it with which the writer, by birth,
education and experience, was familiar. When Thackeray, in the
thirties, turned to newspaper writing, he did so for practical
reasons: he needed money, and he used such talents as were his
as a writer, knowing that the chances were better than in art,
which he had before pursued. It was natural that he should have
turned to account his social experiences, which gave him a power
not possessed by the run of literary hacks, and which had been
to some extent disillusioning, but had by no means soured him.
Broadly viewed, the tone of these first writings was genial, the
light and shade of human nature--in its average, as it is seen
in the world--was properly represented. In fact, often, as in
"The Great Hoggarty Diamond," the style is almost that of
burlesque, at moments, of horse-play: and there are too touches
of beautiful young-man pathos. Such a work is anything rather
than tart or worldly. There are scenes in that enjoyable story
that read more like Dickens than the Thackeray of "Vanity Fair."
The same remark applies, though in a different way, to the
"Yellowplush Papers." An early work like "Barry Lyndon," unique
among the productions of the young writer, expresses the deeper
aspect of his tendency to depict the unpleasant with satiric
force, to make clear-cut pictures of rascals, male and female.
Yet in this historical study, the eighteenth century setting
relieves the effect and one does not feel that the author is
speaking with that direct earnestness one encounters in
"Pendennis" and "The Newcomes." The many essays, of which the
"Roundabout Papers" are a type, exhibit almost exclusively the
sunnier and more attractive side of Thackeray's genius. Here and
there, in the minor fiction of this experimental period, there
are premonitions of he more drastic treatment of later years:
but the dominant mood is quite other. One who read the essays
alone, with no knowledge of the fiction, would be astonished at
a charge of cynicism brought against the author.

And so we come to the major fi