[450] Diana of the Crossways, 153.
[451] One of Our Conquerors, 70. Etymologically, it is only the sarcastic variety which pushes the attack so far.
[452] Autobiography, 86. Even the ingenuous Mr. Brooke of Middlemarch had made the subtle discovery that “Satire, you know, should be true up to a certain point.” And a century before, satire’s warmest defender, John Brown, had cautioned the wits against degrading her “to a scold.”
[453] Sense and Sensibility, 244.
[454] Raleigh: The English Novel, 112.
[455] Middlemarch, I, 174. Cf. the taunt of the practical young Radical to Esther Lyon, on her choice of literature: “* * * gentlemen like your Rénés, who have no particular talent for the finite, but a general sense that the infinite is the right thing for them.” Felix Holt, II, 34.
[456] Romola, I, 287.
[457] In his initial pleasure over Wickham, he defies “even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law,” but later, after reading a letter from Collins, he concludes,—“I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law.”
[458] “God forgive you,” he exclaims to Carrasco, “the injury you have done the whole world, in endeavouring to restore to his senses the most diverting madman in it. Do you not see, sir, that the benefit of his recovery will not counterbalance the pleasure his extravagancies afford?” III, 449.
[459] Evan Harrington, 457. Cf. a similar idea in The Shaving of Shagpat. The narrator of The Newcomes speaks in the Preface of the “pert little satirical monitor” which sprang up inwardly and upset the fond humbug he was cherishing. It is a curious circumstance that neither Dickens nor Thackeray, with all their humor, could create characters with that quality. Even of Becky it might be said that she never did a foolish thing, nor ever said a wise one.