I never know whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

Thackeray’s line turns on the double-edged nature of “coming to one’s senses.” To recover sobriety, realism, or moral clarity can be a victory—an escape from delusion, vanity, or self-destructive passion. Yet it can also be a loss: the end of consoling illusions, youthful hope, or romantic intoxication. The speaker’s uncertainty—pity or congratulate—captures Thackeray’s characteristic irony about human self-knowledge: enlightenment may bring freedom, but it often arrives with disappointment and a sharper awareness of life’s compromises. The remark suggests that maturity is not purely gain; it is also a reckoning with what one must relinquish to see clearly.