She proves the misery of her own career so fully that no one will follow it.

The example is so awful that it will surely deter.

The girl will declare to herself that not in that way will she look for the happiness which she hopes to enjoy; and the young man will say as he reads it, that no Beatrix shall touch his heart.
You may go through all his characters with the same effect.

Pendennis will be scorned because he is light; Warrington loved because he is strong and merciful; Dobbin will be honoured because he is unselfish; and the old colonel, though he be foolish, vain, and weak, almost worshipped because he is so true a gentleman.

It is in the handling of questions such as these that we have to look for the matter of the novelist,--those moral lessons which he mixes up with his jam and his honey.