But if they benefit
the world, it is no less true that a vivid apprehension of the depths
into which we are sunken or may sink, nerves the soul's courage quite as
much as the alluring mirage of the happy heights we may attain. "To
hold the mirror up to Nature," is still the most potent method of
shaming sin and strengthening virtue.
If _Vanity Fair_ be a satire, what novel of society is not? Are _Vivian
Grey_, and _Pelham_, and the long catalogue of books illustrating
English, or the host of Balzacs, Sands, Sues, and Dumas, that paint
French society, less satires? Nay, if you should catch any dandy in
Broadway, or in Pall-Mall, or upon the Boulevards, this very morning,
and write a coldly true history of his life and actions, his doings and
undoings, would it not be the most scathing and tremendous satire?--if
by satire you mean the consuming melancholy of the conviction that the
life of that pendant to a mustache is an insult to the possible life of
a man.
We have read of a hypocrisy so thorough, that it was surprised you
should think it hypocritical: and we have bitterly thought of the
saying, when hearing one mother say of another mother's child, that she
had "made a good match," because the girl was betrothed to a stupid boy
whose father was rich.
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