CHAPTER XI. THE VICTORIAN AGE (1850-1900)harshly, he finds good everywhere, even in the jails and in the
slums, simply because he is looking for it. Thackeray, after a
boyhood spent in the best of English schools, with money,
friends, and comforts of every kind, faces life timidly, dis-
trustfully, and dislikes the literary work which makes him
famous. He has a gracious and lovable personality, is kind
of heart, and reveres all that is pure and good in life; yet he
is almost cynical toward the world which uses him so well,
and finds shams, deceptions, vanities everywhere, because
he looks for them. One finds what one seeks in this world,
but it is perhaps significant that Dickens sought his golden
fleece among plain people, and Thackeray in high society.
The chief difference between the two novelists, however, is
not one of environment but of temperament. Put Thackeray
in a workhouse, and he will still find material for another
Book of Snobs;put Dickens in society, and he cannot help find-
ing undreamed-of possibilities among bewigged and bepow-
dered high lords and ladies. For Dickens is romantic and
emotional, and interprets the world largely through his imag-
ination; Thackeray is the realist and moralist, who judges
solely by observation and reflection. He aims to give us a
true picture of the society of his day, and as he finds it per-
vaded by intrigues and snobbery he proceeds to satirize it
and point out its moral evils. In his novels he is influenced
by Swift and Fielding, but he is entirely free from the bitter-
ness of the one and the coarseness of the other, and his satire
is generally softened by a noble tenderness. Taken together,
the novels of Dickens and Thackeray give us a remarkable
picture of all classes of English society in the middle of the
nineteenth century.
LIFE.Thackeray was born in 1811, in Calcutta, where his fa-
ther held a civil position under the Indian government. When
the boy was five years old his father died, and the mother
returned with her child to England. Presently she married
again, and Thackeray was sent to the famous Charterhouse
school, of which he has given us a vivid picture inThe New-