self-love; so that, if some Liberal statesman desire to rouse against an aristocracy the class just below it, he has only to persuade a fine lady to be exceedingly civil 'to that sort of people.'"
Book IV
Chapter IX
"* * * The aboriginal Man-Eater, or Pocket Cannibal, is susceptible to the refining influences of Civilization. He decorates his lair with the skins of his victims; he adorns his person with the spoils of those whom he devours."
Of the nine remaining names on the list, the real Victorians
according to chronology, it happens that two-thirds
are almost negative examples of direct satire. Reade,
Trollope, and Kingsley take their own moralizing for the
most part seriously, as do also the three women, Mrs. Gaskell,
Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot. Such instances
to the contrary as there are only serve in the usual capacity
of exceptions. It is the remaining third, Thackeray,
Dickens, and Meredith, who are prominent in this matter
as in most others.
Thackeray usually trusts to the metaphorical and allusive to secure a humorous effect. Vanity Fair is itself a symbolic term, elaborated upon in the Introduction and harped upon constantly throughout the story. The account, for instance, of the Sedley sale is prefaced by a description of a similar conclusion to the career of the late Lord Dives, the chapter beginning as follows:[1]
"If there is any exhibition in all Vanity Fair which Satire
and Sentiment can visit arm in arm together; where you light
on the strangest contrasts laughable and tearful; where you may
be gentle and pathetic, or savage and cynical with perfect pro-*
- ↑ Vanity Fair, I, 225.
