Walter was failing when he began those literary confessions; good as
they are, he came to them too late. Yet these are not confessions
which an author can make early. The pagan Aztecs only confessed
once in a lifetime--in old age, when they had fewer temptations to
fall to their old loves: then they made a clean breast of it once
for all. So it might be with an author. While he is in his
creative vigour, we want to hear about his fancied persons, about
Pendennis, Beatrix, Becky, not about himself, and how he invented
them. But when he has passed his best, then it is he who becomes of
interest; it is about himself that we wish him to speak, as far as
he modestly may. Who would not give "Lovel the Widower" and
"Philip" for some autobiographical and literary prefaces to the
older novels? They need not have been more egotistic than the
"Roundabout Papers." They would have had far more charm. Some
things cannot be confessed. We do not ask who was the original Sir
Pitt Crawley, or the original Blanche Amory. But we might learn in
what mood, in what circumstances the author wrote this passage or
that.

The Letters contain a few notes of this kind, a few literary
confessions. We hear that Emmy Sedley was partly suggested by Mrs.
Brookfield, partly by Thackeray's mother, much by his own wife.
There scarce seems room for so many elements in Emmy's personality.
For some reason ladies love her not, nor do men adore her. I have
been her faithful knight ever since I was ten years old and read
"Vanity Fair" somewhat stealthily. Why does one like her except
because she is such a thorough woman? She is not clever, she is not
very beautiful, she is unhappy, and she can be jealous. One pities
her, and that is akin to a more tender sentiment; one pities her
while she sits in the corner, and Becky's green eyes flatter her oaf