Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair, by William
Makepeace Thackeray

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Title: Vanity Fair
Author: William Makepeace Thackeray

Release Date: July, 1996 [EBook #599] [This file was last updated on
October 9, 2002]
Edition: 12
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANITY
FAIR ***

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Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

BEFORE THE CURTAIN
As the manager of the Performance sits before the curtain on the boards
and looks into the Fair, a feeling of profound melancholy comes over
him in his survey of the bustling place. There is a great quantity of
eating and drinking, making love and jilting, laughing and the contrary,
smoking, cheating, fighting, dancing and fiddling; there are bullies
pushing about, bucks ogling the women, knaves picking pockets,
policemen on the look-out, quacks (OTHER quacks, plague take them!)
bawling in front of their booths, and yokels looking up at the tinselled
dancers and poor old rouged tumblers, while the light-fingered folk are
operating upon their pockets behind. Yes, this is VANITY FAIR; not a
moral place certainly; nor a merry one, though very noisy. Look at the
faces of the actors and buffoons when they come off from their
business; and Tom Fool washing the paint off his cheeks before he sits
down to dinner with his wife and the little Jack Puddings behind the
canvas. The curtain will be up presently, and he will be turning over
head and heels, and crying, "How are you?"

A man with a reflective turn of mind, walking through an exhibition of
this sort, will not be oppressed, I take it, by his own or other people's
hilarity. An episode of humour or kindness touches and amuses him
here and there--a pretty child looking at a gingerbread stall; a pretty girl
blushing whilst her lover talks to her and chooses her fairing; poor Tom
Fool, yonder behind the waggon, mumbling his bone with the honest
family which lives by his tumbling; but the general impression is one
more melancholy than mirthful. When you come home you sit down in
a sober, contemplative, not uncharitable frame of mind, and apply
yourself to your books or your business.
I have no other moral than this to tag to the present story of "Vanity
Fair." Some people consider Fairs immoral altogether, and eschew such,
with their servants and families: very likely they are right. But persons
who think otherwise, and are of a lazy, or a benevolent, or a sarcastic
mood, may perhaps like to step in for half an hour, and look at the
performances. There are scenes of all sorts; some dreadful combats,
some grand and lofty horse-riding, some scenes of high life, and some
of very middling indeed; some love-making for the sentimental, and
some light comic business; the whole accompanied by appropriate
scenery and brilliantly illuminated with the Author's own candles.
What more has the Manager of the Performance to say?--To
acknowledge the kindness with which it has been received in all the
principal towns of England through which the Show has passed, and
where it has been most favourably noticed by the respected conductors
of the public Press, and by the Nobility and Gentry. He is proud to
think that his Puppets have given satisfaction to the very best company
in this empire. The famous little Becky Puppet has been pronounced to
be uncommonly flexible in the joints, and lively on the wire; the
Amelia Doll, though it has had a smaller circle of admirers, has yet
been carved and dressed with the greatest care by the artist; the Dobbin
Figure, though apparently clumsy, yet dances in a very amusing and
natural manner; the Little Boys' Dance has been liked by some; and
please to remark the richly dressed figure of the Wicked Nobleman, on
which no