These Harvard critics did not make for themselves this opinion of Thackeray they brought it with them from home. They were judged, as minorities are, found guilty of running counter to accepted opinions, and outlawed from further literary criticism. In every fold there are some to lower the general standard of critical excellence there were some partisans of Dickens. Public opinion went that Thackeray was the novelist of gentlemen and for gentlemen that Dickens was undoubtedly strong, but he had not had the privilege of knowing and of delineating the things which were adapted to interest the most select of Harvard undergraduates. Of a Sunday morning, this student was likely to be discovered complacent over the Book of Snobs or serious over Vanity Fair. The name, boldly printed, greeted you as you entered the door, and served, together with sundry red - sealed certificates and beribboned silver medals, to inform you of the general respectability and gentility of your host. TWENTY years ago, at Harvard College, in the rooms of all students of certain social pretensions who affected books, you were sure to see on the most conspicuous shelf, in green and gold or in half calf, the works of William Makepeace Thackeray.
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