“Oh, be humble, my brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less lucky, if not more deserving. Think, what right have you to be scornful, whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whose success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor’s accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire.” Vanity Fair, II, 43.
[130] Pendennis, II, 53.
The introductory chapter of The Newcomes needs only to be recalled as an instance of the satirical fable. Nor is the beginning of Henry Esmond lacking in the satirical tone.
[131] Oliver Twist, 350. The idea was possibly suggested by Sartor Resartus.
[132] Nicholas Nickleby, I, 286. This thrust is aimed especially at Paul Clifford.
[133] Barnaby Rudge, I, 296.
[134] Bleak House, 553.
[135] Little Dorrit, I, 139.
[136] Cf. his description of one of his favorite characters, Nesta Radnor,—“what she did, she intended to do.”
[137] Beauchamp’s Career, 2, 3, 4.