This is what Thackeray meant, and, having this in his mind, he produced _Pendennis_.
The object of a novel should be to instruct in morals while it amuses.

I cannot think but that every novelist who has thought much of his art will have realised as much as that for himself.

Whether this may best be done by the transcendental or by the commonplace is the question which it more behoves the reader than the author to answer, because the author may be fairly sure that he who can do the one will not, probably cannot, do the other.

If a lad be only five feet high he does not try to enlist in the Guards.

Thackeray complains that many ladies have "remonstrated and subscribers left him," because of his realistic tendency.
Nevertheless he has gone on with his work, and, in _Pendennis_, has painted a young man as natural as Tom Jones.