Excerpt from Christmas Stories; Ballads and Other Poems; Tales WE have referred more than once in these notes to the relation subsisting between Thackeray and Dickens. To the superficial eye, the two figures always seem contrasted they were of the same generation, of the same race, of the same city; they both wrote fiction, and yet appeared to be at Opposite poles. If one brought out a serial novel in green covers, the other followed with one in yellow covers; if one set the fashion of Christmas books, the other was prompt to trim his sails to the same breeze. On the other hand, the admirer of Thackeray is apt to resent any sugges tion that his hero was in any way indebted to Dickens, and to be impatient of the kind of comparison which bids two authors stand back to back that critical friends may see which is the taller. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.