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Meantime, the effect upon himself is seen and avowed. Between Svoermere and Benoni comes the frankly first-personal narrative of a vagabond who describes himself, upon interrogation, as "Knut Pedersen" which is two-thirds of Knut Pedersen Hamsund and hailing from Nordland which embraces Lofoten.
I refer to the intrusion of the author into the story in first-personal comment and criticism. This is tabooed by the present-day realist canons. It weakens the illusion, say the artists of our own day, this entrance of an actual personality upon the stage of the imagined scene.
Nearly all the novels that have, by the lapse of time, reached an assured position of recognised greatness, are not only saturated in the personality of the author, but have in addition quite unaffected personal outbreaks. The least successful instance the one that is made the text against all such first-personal interventions, is, of course, Thackeray.
But I think the trouble with Thackeray is not that he makes first-personal interventions, but that he does so with a curious touch of dishonesty. I agree with the late Mrs. Craigie that there was something profoundly vulgar about Thackeray.
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