“The ladies in the drawing room,” said one lady to Thackeray, when “Vanity Fair” in monthly parts publishing had just reached the catastrophe of Rawdon, Rebecca, old Steyne and the bracelet—“The ladies have been discussing Becky Sharpe and they all agree that she was guilty. May I ask if we guessed rightly?”
“I am sure I don't know,” replied the “seared cynic,” mischievously. “I am only a man and I haven't been able to make up my mind on that point. But if the ladies agree I fear it may be true—you must understand your sex much better than we men!”
That is proof that she was not guilty with Steyne. But straightway then, Thackeray starts out to make her guilty with others. It is so much the more proof of her previous innocence that, incomparable artist as he was in showing human character, he recognized that he could convince the reader of her guilt only by disintegrating her, whipping himself meanwhile into a ceaseless rage of vulgar abuse of her, a thing of which Thackeray was seldom guilty. But it was not really Becky that became guilty—it was the woman that English society and Thackeray remorselessly made of her. I wouldn't be a lawyer for a wagon load of diamonds, but if I had had to be a lawyer I should have preferred to be a solicitor at the London bar in 1817 to write the brief for the respondent in the celebrated divorce case of Crawley vs. Crawley. Against the back-ground of the world she lived in Becky could have been painted as meekly white and beautiful as that lovely old picture of St. Cecilia at the Choir Organ.
Perhaps Becky was not strictly a heroine; but she was a honey.
Men can not “create” heroines in the sense of shadowing forth what they conceive to be the glory, beauty, courage and splendor of womanly character. It is the indescribable sum of womanhood corresponding to the unutterable name of God. The true man's love of woman is a spirit sense attending upon the actual senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. The woman he loves enters into every one of these senses and thus is impounded five-fold upon that union of all of them, which, together with the miracle of mind, composes what we call the human soul as a divine essence. She is attached to every religion, yet enters with authority into none. She is first at its birth, the last to stay weeping at its death. In every great novel a heroine, unnamed, unspoken, undescribed, hovers throughout like an essence. The heroism of woman is her privacy. There is to me no more wonderful, philosophical, psychological and delicate triumph of literary art in existence than the few chapters in “Quo Vadis” in which that great introspective genius, Sienkiewicz, sets forth the growth of the spell of love with which Lygia has encompassed Vinicius, and the singular development and progress of the emotion through which Vinicius is finally immersed in human love of Lygia and in the Christian reverence of her spiritual purity at the same time. It is the miracle of soul in sex.
Every clean-hearted youth that has had the happiness to marry a good woman—and, thank Heaven, clean youths and good women are thick as leaves in Vallambrosa in this sturdy old world of ours—every such youth has had his day of holy conversion, his touch of the wand conferring upon him the miracle of love, and he has been a better and wiser man for it. Not sense love, not the instinctive, restless love of matter for matter, but the love that descends like the dove amid radiance.
We've all seen that bridal couple; she is as pretty as peaches; he is as proud of her as if she were a splendid race horse; he glories in knowing she is lovely and accepts the admiration offered to her as a tribute to his own judgment, his own taste and even his merit, which obtained her. There is a certain amount of silliness in her which he soon detects, a touch of helplessness, and unsophistication in knowledge of worldly things that he yet feels is mysteriously guarded against intrusion upon and which makes companionship with her sometimes irksome. He feels superior and uncompensated; from the superb isolation of his greater knowledge, courage and independence, he grants to her a certain tender pity and protection; he admits her faith and purity and—er—but—you see, he is sorry she is not quite the well poised and noble creature he is! Mr. Youngwed is at this time passing through the mental digestive process of feeling his oats. He is all right, though, if he is half as good as he thinks he is. He has not been touched by the live wire of experience—yet; that's all.
Well, in the course of human events, there comes a time when he is frightened to death, then greatly relieved and for a few weeks becomes as proud as if he had actually provided the last census of the United States with most of the material contained in it. A few months later, when the feeble whines and howls have found increased vigor of utterance and more frequency of expression; when they don't know whether Master Jack or Miss Jill has merely a howling spell or is threatened with fatal convulsions; when they don't know whether they want a dog-muzzle or a doctor; when Mr. Youngwed has lost his sleep and his temper, together, and has displayed himself with spectacular effect as a brute, selfish, irritable, helpless, resourceless and conquered—then—then, my dear madame, you have doubtless observed him decrease in self-estimated size like a balloon into which a pin has been introduced, until he looks, in fact, like Master Frog reduced in bulk from the bull-size, to which he aspired, to his original degree.