I have left myself scant space to speak of Thackeray’s third phase in writing—his work as a moralist. But perhaps this is well, for, as he himself said, (and as I have always tried to practise), the preacher must be brief if he wishes to be heard. Five words that go home are worth more than a thousand that wander about the subject.
Thackeray’s direct moralizings are to be found chiefly in his lectures on “The Four Georges,” “The English Humourists,” and in the “Roundabout Papers.” He was like Lowell: as a scholastic critic he was far from infallible, but as a vital interpreter he seldom missed the mark.
After all, the essential thing in life for us as real men is to have a knowledge of facts to correct our follies, an ideal to guide our efforts, and a gospel to sustain our hopes.
That was Thackeray’s message as moralist. It
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 is expressed in the last paragraph of his essay “Nil Nisi Bonum,” written just after the death of Macaulay and Washington Irving:
“If any young man of letters reads this little sermon—and to him, indeed, it is addressed—I would say to hi............