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Title: The Way They Lived Then
       Serious Interviews, Strong Women, and Lessons for Life in the Novels of Anthony Trollope


Author: Taylor Prewitt



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THE WAY THEY LIVED THEN

Serious Interviews, Strong Women, and Lessons for Life
in the Novels of Anthony Trollope

by

TAYLOR PREWITT






Westfield Press

Copyright 2013 by Taylor Prewitt

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition

ISBN 978-0615866420

Westfield Press
Fort Smith, Arkansas




   For Mary and
   Kendrick, Ellen, and Sally




CONTENTS

Introduction

Required Reading for the Seminary
_The Warden_

The Church in Peace and War
_Barchester Towers_

Trollope's Alter Ego
_Doctor Thorne_

An All-Star Cast
_Framley Parsonage_

The Swell, the Hobbledehoy, and the Small House
_The Small House at Allington_

The Victory of the Righteous
_The Last Chronicle of Barset_

Can You Forgive a few Additions to the Text?
_Can You Forgive Her?_

English Politics 101
_Phineas Finn_

A Cunning Woman
_The Eustace Diamonds_

How the Women Took Care of Phineas
_Phineas Redux_

"Are Not Politics Odd?"
_The Prime Minister_

The Old Order Passeth
_The Duke's Children_

Ruins, Ruin, and Ruined
_The Macdermots of Ballycloran_

The Irish as Others See Them
_The Kellys and the O'Kellys_

A Tale of No City
_La Vendée_

The Office
_The Three Clerks_

The Proud Young Lovers
_The Bertrams_

Coping with Starvation
_Castle Richmond_

The Lady Faces Them Down
_Orley Farm_

Lear Revisited
_The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson:
By One of the Firm_

Bringing Good Beer to Devon
_Rachel Ray_

"He Cometh Not; I Am Aweary"
_Miss Mackenzie_

The School of Self-Assertiveness
_The Belton Estate_

Love Conquers All, In the Ninth Inning
_Nina Balatka: The Story of a Maiden of Prague_

More than Soap Opera, More than Fairy Tale
_The Claverings_

Several Degrees of Stubborn
_Linda Tressel_

The Downside of Chivalry
_He Knew He Was Right_

The Prodigal Daughter
_The Vicar of Bullhampton_

A Terminal Affection
_Sir Harry Hotspur_

The Heir and the Bastard
_Ralph the Heir_

A Hard Case
_The Golden Lion of Granpere_

How to Become a Lady
_Lady Anna_

Territory Folks Should Stick Together
_Harry Heathcote of Gangoil_

The Way They Lived Then
_The Way We Live Now_

What's a Poor Girl to Do?
_The American Senator_

Lesser Barchester
_Is He Popenjoy?_

Too Near the Precipice
_An Eye for An Eye_

What Happens in Australia . . .
_John Caldigate_

A Gifted Child
_Ayala's Angel_

Keeping the Old Acreage Together
_Cousin Henry_

What to Do About Muddy Boots
_Dr. Wortle's School_

The Curse of Consumption
_Marion Fay_

The Dog That Wouldn't Stay Under the Bed
_Kept in the Dark_

The Advance Directive
_The Fixed Period_

Details about Entails
_Mr. Scarborough's Family_

Promises, Promises
_An Old Man's Love_

Running in Full Stride at the End
_The Landleaguers_




INTRODUCTION

Several pleasant hosts wearing the blue and orange scarves or bow
ties of the Trollope Society were circulating through the crowd
on a May evening at the Knickerbocker Club in New York, making
conversation and bringing the outliers among us into small groupings
to join in. These board members were faithfully performing their task
of "pushing the ball along," as Trollope sometimes put it, at the
society's annual dinner. Comparing notes as to what Trollope novel we
had last read was the default gambit. One of the books mentioned was
_Kept in the Dark_; another was _He Knew He was Right_--a bit beyond
the entry-level Barsetshire and Palliser series.

These reviews of all forty-seven of Trollope's novels were written
somewhat in the spirit of such dinner-table chatter as one might hear
at a meeting of the Trollope Society--appreciative, mostly, but not
without a word of criticism here and there. The guests I met were
stockbrokers, booksellers, doctors, retirees; and these reviews were
written by and for such a reader as one might encounter at a cocktail
party--whose interests are a bit more informal than those of grad
students searching for original information and insights for their
dissertations.

It so happens that my wife and I were introduced to Anthony Trollope
through Simon Raven's BBC production of _The Pallisers_ in 1974; a
few subsequent television series have brought in other novels. This
may qualify as a response to the public media. But if there is
any common thread among the faithful readers of Trollope, it is a
willingness to pick up something to read that is not on the current
best seller list, hardly on a book club list, not something that
everyone is talking about.

The better-known and more frequently read of his novels are pretty
long. A few have told me that they have read all six of the
Barsetshire series, or all six of the Palliser series. A few have
stepped out beyond these familiar confines to the relatively
uncharted void of his other thirty-five novels. A couple of these,
the acclaimed _The Way We Live Now_ and _He Knew He Was Right_, are
available as video copies of television productions. Several others
are sitting there on the shelf, waiting for some genius to bring them
forward in similar fashion. I have entertained myself at times with
generating my own candidates: among these are _Orley Farm_, _The
Claverings_, and _The American Senator_.

Trollope sabotaged his own reputation with his disclosure of his
writing habits, and it may never recover. The very idea that anyone
could approach writing without appealing to the muse, just getting
up every morning and doing it--two hours every morning, with a
self-imposed quota of words to write! The muse was not amused, and
her devotees have been unforgiving. If this confession had been well
known during his years in service, I suspect that his advancement
would have been significantly curtailed. The public requires its
geniuses to be seized by the spirit. It's not as if just anybody
could do it. An inspired author must rise from a dinner table full of
guests when gripped by his muse, as did Charles Dickens, and, as if
in a trance, transcribe the words dictated by the spirit.

Any respectable agent, if Trollope had had one, would surely have
warned him about the risks of overexposure. Even the great and
prolific Dickens wrote only about a dozen novels. Jane Austen wrote
six. George Eliot and the Brontes only wrote a few.

A prodigious writer must necessarily have a little tool box,
deploying and mixing different plot devices, assumptions about
society, views on current issues, and references to the way they
lived then--which was different in many ways from our own world, and
similar in others.

One of his favorite tools was the Serious Interview, and few writers
have used it to such advantage as did Trollope. He introduces this
device in a chapter entitled "The Serious Interview" in _Barchester
Towers_, one of his early novels, in which Archdeacon Grantly makes
the strategic error of engaging his sister-in-law Eleanor Bold about
his suspicion that she is about to accept a marriage proposal from
the sly and scheming Rev. Slope. The components of the Serious
Interview are present in this prototype:

The _prologue_, in which Trollope explains to the reader that there
are some who delight in offering advice or administering rebuke, and
that the archdeacon is among these.

_The entry of the combatants._ In this instance Eleanor's usually
mild demeanor was absent, and the archdeacon "almost wished he had
taken his wife's advice," i.e., not to speak to her.

_The opening statements._ Here he assures her that she has no
sincerer friend than he.

_The initial sparring._ He accuses her of having received a letter
from Mr. Slope, and she admits it.

_The counterattack._ She tells him he may read the letter, and she
hands it over to him. She over-reacts, however, in claiming that Mr.
Slope is an "industrious, well-meaning clergyman."

_The author's commentary._ In a paragraph beginning, "Here
undoubtedly Eleanor put herself in the wrong," Trollope indulges in
a review of the defender's tactics--her assumption of the "prejudice
and conceit of the archdeacon" leading to her error of going too far.
"She would neither give nor take quarter."

_The attacker's final thrust_, in which the archdeacon says that Mr.
Arabin (who is destined to marry Eleanor in one of the last chapters)
agrees with him and his wife "that it is quite impossible you should
be received at Plumstead as Mrs. Slope."

_The defender's final reaction._ Her look was one Dr. Grantly "did
not soon forget," and saying, "How dare you be so impertinent?" she
hurriedly leaves the room--with the standard reaction in private:
"and then, locking the door, she threw herself on her bed and sobbed
as though her heart would break."

_The postmortem._ "By some maneuver of her brain, she attributed the
origin of the accusation to Mr. Arabin," and she lay awake all night
thinking of what had been said. "Nor was the archdeacon a bit better
satisfied with the result of the serious interview than was Eleanor."
He understood that she was angry, but it never occurred to him that
Eleanor viewed the supposed union with Mr. Slope with as much disgust
as did he. "He returned to his wife vexed and somewhat disconsolate."

_The morning after._ Eleanor sent word that she was not well enough
to attend prayers. "Everyone walked about with subdued feet." The
sisters (Eleanor and the Archdeacon's wife) were peeved with each
other, but after a bit of diplomacy by their father Mr. Harding, they
"sat down each to her crochet work as though nothing was amiss in all
the world."

As noted, the author often serves as a guide to the reader, offering
his own critical observations on how each of the participants played
their hand. Indeed, most of his novels include at least one of these
confrontations that serve primarily to entertain the reader, but also
to unveil hitherto unappreciated character traits and to advance the
story.

Trollope enjoyed using his stories as little Clinics in the Lessons
of Life, injecting himself as an observer, critic and instructor
in other everyday matters. In _Ralph the Heir_ he explains how the
beauty of Mary Bonner afforded her the Priority of Service that is
the due primarily of beauty, but also of money, political position,
and noble birth. A diligent worker himself, he extolled the virtues
of hard work in _Castle Richmond_: "It is my opinion that nothing
seasons the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should
perhaps be added."

Victorians wrote letters, and they mailed them by post, and Trollope
as a veteran of the postal service used letters and the service of
mail delivery to advantage, again often with editorial asides
as to how something may have been better phrased. In another
little lesson of life in _The Bertrams_, he offered another
too-frequently-neglected lesson: "Sit down and write your letter;
write it with all the venom in your power . . . and, as a matter of
course, burn it before breakfast the next morning." He goes on to
extol pleasant letters, concluding his advice for letter writing:
"But, above all things, see that it be good-humored."

The development of character is generally one of Trollope's
strengths. His observations were probing and acute; these are
transformed into portrayals of certain characters who are so
life-like that the reader comes to know them and their foibles as
well as he knows his own friends and neighbors. Certain character
traits must have particularly fascinated Trollope because they recur
in several of his novels. Among these is the trait that might be
referred to as terminal stubbornness, most obviously shown in Louis
Trevelyan and Emily Rowley, who becomes Trevelyan's wife in _He Knew
He Was Right_. Emily receives frequent visits from an older family
friend, Colonel Osborne. Her husband Louis considers these to be
inappropriate and an affront to his honor, whether they represent
any misbehavior by his wife or not. She has been raised to be an
independent spirit and refuses to follow his command. This difference
is pursued to the end, literally, with Trevelyan finally succumbing
to his madness.

Other couples demonstrating a reluctance or refusal to come to terms
with each other appear in _The Bertrams_ (Caroline Waddington and
Arthur Wilkinson), _Kept in the Dark_ (Cecilia Holt and George
Western), and _Cousin Henry_ (Isabel Brodrick and Reverend William
Owen).

Several plots rely on a woman's determination to remain true, no
matter what, to a man whom she once agreed to marry--most notoriously
in the case of Lily Dale, in _The Small House at Allington_. Forsaken
by a handsome rake who subsequently makes a more advantageous
marriage, Lily considers herself consigned to spinsterhood, refusing
to consider any other suitor, particularly the devoted Johnny Eames.
Occasionally these self-sacrificing women can be persuaded to get
a life for themselves, but it's never easy and often impossible.
Some of these steadfast heroines are Florence Mountjoy in _Mr.
Scarborough's Family_ and Lady Anna, Linda Tressel, Rachel Ray, and
Nina Balatka in the novels bearing their names. Of these, Linda fails
to survive. Emily Hotspur also succumbs after being forbidden to
marry her worthless cousin George Hotspur, a somewhat ordinary rake,
in _Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite_.

The Victorian woman suffered a number of disadvantages that no longer
apply to today's woman, and Trollope explored these features of the
world of his day, illustrating them so that today's reader cries out
at such injustices. Trollope himself never acknowledged any sympathy
for the feminist movement, and indeed he sometimes parodied some of
its more ardent advocates, but a number of his works can be read as
feminist texts for exposing the problems that women faced. Lady Laura
Standish, in _Phineas Finn_, refuses Phineas's gallant offer of
marriage, even though she loves him, because neither of them has
enough money to support his political ambitions. However, she devotes
herself to furthering his political career, hoping to use him as a
mouthpiece for her own political interests. Caroline Waddington in
_The Bertrams_ suffers the powerless state of a married woman before
the appearance in England of rather modest reforms.

Trollope's insight and skill in presenting women was such that the
faithful reader is tempted to sort them into bins--not an unfair
analysis of a writer who was so workmanlike in his approach to his
craft that he wrote regularly and prolifically. Some of his women
appear as rather one-dimensional role players, even though they may
be designated as "heroines"; others are developed in such depth
that the reader feels that he knows them as long-time friends.
Individuals, even fictional creations, defy classification, but the
all-too-conscientious reader cannot resist creating a few tentative
file folders:

The Faithful Woman, exemplified by Lily Dale, has already been
mentioned.

There are a few Women Who Can't Make Up Their Mind, among whom Alice
Vavasor of _Can You Forgive Her?_ is the prototype. Others include
Lady Clara Desmond in _Castle Richmond_ and Clara Amedroz of _The
Belton Estate_.

The Husband Hunter (one is tempted to refer to her as the Gold
Digger) is the woman who sets out to marry well; Arabella Trefoil
of _The American Senator_ stands out among these. Another is Lizzie
Greystock of _The Eustace Diamonds_, who does not become Lady Eustace
for love of the sickly Florian Eustace.

The Senior Dowager is well represented by Lady Lufton, who stands
down the elderly Duke of Omnium in _Framley Parsonage_. These are
some of the most entertaining of the women, who also include Lady
Aylmer in _The Belton Estate_.

A somewhat younger variant is the Woman of Independent Means. Miss
Martha Dunstable is undaunted by the Archbishop's wife in _Barchester
Towers_, gently declines the proposal of Frank Gresham in _Dr.
Thorne_, and eventually marries Dr. Thorne in _Framley Parsonage_.
Others are Miss Todd of _The Bertrams_ and the eponymous Miss
Mackenzie.

Trollope seemed to have had a particular fondness for The Little
Woman Who Could, exemplified by Lucy Robarts, who rose to the
occasion to assert herself when challenged by Lady Lufton in _Framley
Parsonage_. Mary Thorne in _Doctor Thorne_ and Florence Burton of
_The Claverings_ were a few other of these courageous young women.

And then there is the American Woman, described as "exigeant" by
Charles Glascock in _He Knew He Was Right_. (Would "high maintenance"
be the current equivalent of "exigeant"?) Trollope had personal
experience with the American woman in his close friendship with
Kate Field and aspects of her personality must have surely appeared
in some of his American women: Caroline Spalding, the woman who
was tarred with the "exigeant" brush in _He Knew He Was Right_;
Isabel Boncassen (_The Duke's Children_); Rachel O'Mahoney (_The
Landleaguers_); and Lucinda Roanoke (_The Eustace Diamonds_).

Is there a classification for Lady Glencora Palliser, who dominates
the society of the Palliser novels, even after her death, and for
Mrs. Proudie, who also exerts the power of her personality throughout
the Barsetshire series? I prefer to think of these women as
Unclassified. And a list of memorable Trollope women must include a
few who appeared in only one novel--Dorothy ("Dolly") Grey, daughter
of the attorney Mr. Grey in _Mr. Scarborough's Family_, Lizzie
Eustace of _The Eustace Diamonds,_ and Lady Mary Mason of _Orley
Farm_.

Trollope's own interest in politics evidenced itself in the
glorification of an ambition to serve in Parliament--as in Mr. Grey
and also Plantagenet Palliser in the Palliser series. However, he
was disgusted by rotten boroughs and the corrupt practices of buying
votes. We see these practices as a potential path to ruin for several
of his characters, including George Vavasor in _Can You Forgive
Her?_, Sir Thomas Underwood in _Ralph the Heir_, and Butler Cornbury
in _Rachel Ray_.

Much depended on birth in the Victorian world. The eldest son, by
right of birth, got it all. This was of such importance that there
was sometimes a question as to who was the oldest son--that is, who
was the oldest legitimate son. Alleged weddings on foreign soil
were particularly suspect, as in _Marion Fay_, _Lady Anna_, and _Is
He Popenjoy?_ The questions of birthright could be complex in the
extreme and could foster blackmail and fraud. _Castle Richmond_
and _Mr. Scarborough's Family_ show us how family secrets could be
exploited.

The beginnings and endings of novels have been considerably
streamlined since Trollope's day. Just as movies no longer show the
credits before the action starts, today's writer knows to start the
story as late into the action as possible, picking up background
information along the way--or never at all. Trollope sometimes
apologized to his readers for his lengthy introductory chapters, and
today's readers do have to pay their dues by slogging through family
trees and historical details before being allowed to read the story.
However, this obligation is often mitigated by capsule summaries that
are concise, ironic, and satirical.

Concluding chapters have also gone out of style. No one ever gets
married at the end of a love story any more. The lovers may be seen
gazing at a tropical sunset, or they may be the only ones left
standing, but the reader has to supply the details. Trollope did his
duty, though, devoting one or two chapters to wrapping up all the
loose ends, sometimes apologizing for having to do so. And these do
indeed provide a bit of closure for the reader who has faithfully
followed the trials of the principals through eight hundred or so
pages. I doubt that many of even the most modern of readers will
close the book with a shrug and skip the author's conclusion.

Trollope was an ardent sportsman, and many of his stories include fox
hunting episodes, given with such enthusiasm and authority that the
reader welcomes these outings as much as the author obviously did.
Sometimes an injury or a bit of stupidity will be an important part
of the ongoing story, but the reader understands that the hunt is
more for fun and sport than for business.

But if the New Criticism, which was the prevailing approach during my
undergraduate years, taught us anything, it is that the work stands
on its own merits. We know very little about how the great cathedrals
were built--we know few names of architects or engineers. But there
they are. How would our assessment of these great accomplishments
be modified by greater knowledge of the details of their conception
and construction? Would we rearrange our pecking order of their
superiority? Sometimes we can know too much.

But in the case of Anthony Trollope, we do know that he produced
forty-seven novels, and other assorted writings--another of those
examples of the great energy of the Victorians. Certainly there are
clunkers in the lot, particularly among his earlier works, such as
_The Macdermots of Ballycloran_ and _La Vendée_. And the results were
mixed when he attempted to get away from the English countryside,
as in _The Fixed Period_. But I began going through them for the
sleepers--the underappreciated novels that deserve more recognition.
And sure enough, there are a significant number of these. It's been
fun to look--as though I were rummaging around in a trunk full of
books in a dusty attic to see what's in there. This is a report of
what I found.

   Taylor Prewitt
   Fort Smith, Arkansas




REQUIRED READING FOR THE SEMINARY

THE WARDEN

While touring Sussex in 2007, Mary and I came across a building near
the Long Melford church with the following plaque:

   HOSPITAL OF THE HOLY
   AND BLESSED TRINITY
   ESTABLISHED IN 1573 BY SIR WILLIAM CORDBELL
   OF MELFORD HALL AS AN ALMSHOUSE FOR 12
   AGED MEN AND A WARDEN AND STILL SERVES ITS
   ORIGINAL PURPOSE. TODAY IT ALSO PROVIDES
   ACCOMMODATION FOR WOMEN AND MARRIED
   COUPLES. IT IS AN ENDOWED CHARITY
   ADMINISTERED BY A BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

We knew all about an almshouse for twelve aged men and a warden.
We had read _The Warden_. This is the first in the Barsetshire
series, six novels dealing with the clergy in and around Barchester
Cathedral. Although I have often thought the Barsetshire series
should be required reading for all seminary students, _The Warden_
is perhaps less pertinent to today's church, because it exposes the
disproportionately high incomes earned by some of the clergy in the
Church of England, and the disproportionately small amount of work
done by some. Since this is an infrequent issue in today's churches,
some appreciation of the concerns in Victorian England is gained from
a tabulation of clerical incomes in the novel, converted into an
approximation of 2013 currency values:

   Mr. Harding's income
      As Precentor           £80/yr     £6,112
      As Warden             £800/yr    £61,120
      As Crabtree vicar      £80/yr     £6,112
      Paid to Rev. Smith
      At St. Cuthbert's      £75/yr     £5,730

   Archdeacon Grantly's
      Income as rector of
      Plumstead Episcopi   £3,000/yr  £229,200

   Bishop's income         £9,000/yr  £687,600    (pretax)

As of September, 2013, the conversion rate was $1.60 per pound. This
shows that the Bishop's income was more than a million dollars a year
before taxes. In the absence of concern about the income and bonuses
of corporate CEO's in Victorian England, it's understandable that
this issue led to efforts at reform.

The test case in the story is not the Bishop, at the equivalent of
over a million dollars a year, or even his son the Archdeacon at a
third that amount--but Mr. Septimus Harding, precentor (music and
choir director in the cathedral) and also warden of Hiram's Hospital.
A gentle and kindly soul, beloved of the twelve old men in his charge
in the hospital, Mr. Harding frequently plays his violoncello for
them. As a more concrete gesture, he has voluntarily increased their
daily pittance by two shillings, which amounted to some sixty-four
pounds a year out of his own income.

Mr. Harding is father-in-law to the Archdeacon, and the Bishop
appointed him to this coveted sinecure shortly after the marriage
between Mr. Harding's daughter and the Bishop's son. All is
harmonious until some of the citizens of Barchester begin to wonder
whether John Hiram, founder of Hiram's Hospital by his will, intended
the warden to live in such luxury as the estate now provided. (John
Hiram died in 1434, more than a hundred years before the will of Sir
William Cordbell of Melford Hall established the Hospital of the Holy
and Blessed Trinity in Long Melford in 1573.) This campaign of reform
is led by an idealistic young surgeon of the town, Dr. John Bold, who
also happens to be a suitor for the hand of Mr. Harding's daughter
Eleanor.

Caught up in such controversy, Mr. Harding emerges as one of
Trollope's most memorable, and certainly most lovable, characters.
The question of his excessive income is publicized in _The Jupiter_,
a London newspaper somewhat reminiscent of _The Times_, by Tom
Towers, a young muckraking investigative journalist. Mr. Harding
begins to wonder whether he can continue to hold the position under
these circumstances, but he must also deal with his son-in-law
Archdeacon Grantly, an outspoken and intimidating champion of the
Church, who obtains the opinion of Sir Abraham Haphazard, the
Attorney-General. Sir Abraham declares that the point is "so nice"
that the plaintiffs would run up fifteen thousand pounds in legal
costs before having a chance to prevail.

Not only are the costs of pursuing the campaign prohibitive, but John
Bold himself comes to think that his respect for the Warden and his
love for the Warden's daughter Eleanor are such that he must drop the
case. He finds, however, that the issue, fanned by _The Jupiter_, has
already been decided in the court of public opinion.

So we see that the problem of Mr. Harding's generous income has few
parallels in today's church. Should seminarians still be required to
read it? Yes. I don't know of any other series of novels that shows
the many facets of clerical personalities as they interact with
one another and with the world. _The Warden_ introduces us to
this community and is thus a prerequisite to an appreciation of
_Barchester Towers_, _The Last Chronicle of Barset_, and the others
in the series. In _The Warden_ we meet the old Bishop of Barchester,
benign and gentle, never questioning the right of the Church to enjoy
the blessings given to it by God; Archdeacon Grantly, a formidable
defender of the faith who is not to be trifled with; and of course
Mr. Harding, a quiet and somewhat timid man who comes to understand
that his conscience commands him to assert himself.

I grew up listening to my father and grandfather discuss the
preachers of the Little Rock Conference of the Methodist
Church--their gifts and their shortcomings, their ambitions, their
foibles. "Preachers are the most jealous profession there is," Dad
explained to me. Several I knew only by name; several I came to know
when they came to town and had dinner at our house. Not knowing about
Anthony Trollope's novels, I couldn't look up anything they talked
about in any book. It was apparent that church politics and the
variety of clerical personalities would be a fertile field for the
novelist.

No one has done it like Anthony Trollope. Individual preachers turn
up here and there--Sinclair Lewis's _Elmer Gantry_; John Ames in
Marilynne Robinson's _Gilead_; Father Jean Marie Latour in _Death
Comes for the Archbishop_ by Willa Cather; and Reverend Arthur
Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne's _The Scarlet Letter_. But these
books deal with individual clergy; none get into the church and its
politics as does Trollope's series.

Peter Raible writes in "Images of Protestant Clergy in American
Novels" (Berry Street Essay, 1978) that the sexual activities of the
clergy are represented disproportionately in fictional portrayals,
at the expense of those whose achievements and shortcomings are
in another realm. Surely he did not include Trollope in this
generalization.

And for the sake of having a list, Kim Fabricius offers on the
internet the following list of "Twenty great clergymen in novels:"

    1. William Collins in Jane Austen, _Pride and Prejudice_ (1813)

    2. Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne, _The Scarlet Letter_
       (1850)

    3. Father Mapple in Herman Melville, _Moby-Dick_ (1851)

    4. Obadiah Slope in Anthony Trollope, _Barchester Towers_ (1857)

    5. Charles François-Bienvenu Myriel in Victor Hugo, _Les
       Misérables_ (1862)

    6. Edward Casaubon in George Eliot, _Middlemarch_ (1871)

    7. Father Zossima in Fyodor Dostoevsky, _The Brothers Karamazov_
       (1880)

    8. Jean Marie Latour in Willa Cather, _Death Comes for the
       Archbishop_ (1927)

    9. The young curate in Georges Bernanos, _The Diary of a Country
       Priest_ (1936)

   10. The unnamed priest in Graham Greene, _The Power and the Glory_
      (1940)

   11. Father Paneloux in Albert Camus, _The Plague_ (1947)

   12. Hazel Motes in Flannery O'Connor, _Wise Blood_ (1952)

   13. Stephen Kumalo in Alan Paton, _Cry, the Beloved Country_ (1948)

   14. Dean Jocelin in William Golding, _The Spire_ (1964)

   15. Sebastião Rodrigues in Endo Shusaku, _Silence_ (1966)

   16. William of Baskerville in Umberto Eco, _The Name of the Rose_
      (1983)

   17. Oscar Hopkins in Peter Carey, _Oscar and Lucinda_ (1988)

   18. Clarence Wilmot in John Updike, _In the Beauty of the Lilies_
       (1996)

   19. Nathan Price in Barbara Kingsolver, _The Poisonwood Bible_
       (1998)

   20. John Ames in Marilynne Robinson, _Gilead_ (2004)

That this is by no means an authoritative or final list is shown by
the absence of the illustrious Mr. Chadband of Charles Dickens's
_Bleak House_, not to mention several more of the Barsetshire clergy,
especially the Rev. Josiah Crawley of _The Last Chronicle of Barset_.
But Trollope is the only writer who deals with a diocese full of
preachers, and who presents so many of them as three-dimensional
characters in their own right--not as caricatures.

Yes, seminarians should be required to read the Barsetshire
novels--one a semester, perhaps.




THE CHURCH IN PEACE AND WAR

BARCHESTER TOWERS


Two passages come to mind from my first reading of _Barchester
Towers_ over thirty years ago. The first is the Archdeacon's "Good
Heavens!" upon leaving his first interview with Bishop and Mrs.
Proudie; this steamy outburst occurs relatively early in the story,
initiating Chapter 6, "War": as "smoke issued forth from the uplifted
beaver as if it were a cloud of wrath," we find ourselves immersed in
the pitched battle between the new bishop and traditional Barchester.

The second is the description of Ullathorne Hall, about midway
through a fifteen-page chapter describing first Wilfred Thorne, Esq.,
and his sister, and then the features of the ancient house they lived
in. The most tedious of these passages describes "three quadrangular
windows with stone mullions, each window divided into a larger
portion at the bottom, and a smaller portion at the top and each
portion again divided into five by perpendicular stone supporters."
I remember thinking when I stumbled onto it: Why was I made for the
long and the painful passage I was subjecting myself to?

Since _Barchester Towers_, Trollope's best-known novel, may be the
first, or even the last, of Trollope that some readers may encounter,
these two passages need to be acknowledged--the first to illustrate
his ability to stand far enough aside from the human drama to
appreciate its occasional absurdity; and the second to recognize his
tendency to indulge in sentimental reflections shared, no doubt, by
a number of his countrymen, but lacking in relevance to readers of
another background. And although I now consider Squire Thorne's
pretensions to Saxon ancestry, and the house's "delicious tawny hue
which no stone can give, unless it has on it the vegetable richness
of centuries" to add charm to the book, Chapter 22 would surely be
the first to go in any abridged edition of the work.

Why has _Barchester Towers_ outpaced the other novels in popularity?
First, I think, because the characters are strong, memorable, in
conflict with one another, and elicit just enough sympathy for
their positions that the reader smiles and even laughs. There is
no sugarcoating; this is no tract intended to bring its readers to
commit their lives to the service of the Church of England. The
reader sees the deficiencies of even the most virtuous, such as Mr.
Harding, but there is also just a touch of sympathy for the worst of
the villains, such as Mr. Slope and (perhaps, on a sunny day) Mrs.
Proudie.

Trollope depicts the life of the church better than anyone else has
done, before or since. He shows the affairs of the clergymen of
Barchester much as he also shows us those of politicians, lawyers,
merchants, and idle country gentlemen. Perhaps more than any other
occupational group, the clergy of the close are bound together as an
inner group, almost a fraternity. And this may be why clergy and
politicians, the subjects of the Barsetshire series and the Palliser
series, were such ready subjects for novel after novel: their
professional association involved just enough interaction and
jockeying for position to entertain the reader.

Several of the characters come to us from _The Warden_, chiefly Mr.
Septimus Harding, the Warden himself, bruised from his attack in _The
Jupiter_, the newspaper of the day. Mr. Harding has surrendered his
position as Warden of Hiram's Hospital, feeling that he could not
justify the high salary attached to the position, and not caring to
attempt to do so. In this matter he was in direct opposition to the
advice of his son-in-law Archdeacon Grantly, aggressive warrior of
the Church Militant, and one who benefits even more from the riches
of the church. The author must have gloated to himself as he set
up the situation with which the story begins: the saintly Bishop
Grantly, dear friend of Mr. Harding and father of Archdeacon Grantly,
is about to die. His successor is to be named by the prime minister,
who is sufficiently friendly to the Grantlys that he would be
expected to name the archdeacon to succeed his father. But the
government is about to fall, and the next prime minister would be
expected to look elsewhere for a successor. If the bishop dies
quickly, there would be time for the present prime minister to act.
The poor bishop apologizes on his deathbed for taking so long.

And he does take too long. Though the conflicted archdeacon attempts
to convey the news of his father's death to the prime minister before
he leaves office, he does not succeed. A new prime minister makes the
appointment, and the new bishop is to be a low churchman, one Dr.
Proudie.

The supreme irony in this situation is not left to implication and
inference, as we read of the disappointed Archdeacon Grantly's
reaction:

   Many will think that he was wicked to grieve for the loss of
   Episcopal power, wicked to have coveted it, nay, wicked even to
   have thought about it, in the way and at the moments he had done
   so.

   With such censures I cannot profess that I completely agree. The
   _nolo episcopari_, though still in use, is so directly at variance
   with the tendency of all human wishes, that it cannot be thought
   to express the true aspirations of rising priests in the Church of
   England.

_Nolo episcopari_ is explained on the internet in _Trollope's Apollo:
A Guide to the Uses of Classics in the Novels of Anthony Trollope_
(www.trollope-apollo.com), a project undertaken by students at
Hendrix College under Professor Rebecca Resinski:

   A Latin phrase meaning "I do not wish to be bishop." This is the
   appropriate response with which an individual should reply if he
   is offered the position of bishop in the church, even if he wishes
   to accept it. Trollope implies here that any other person, besides
   Bishop Proudie, would probably not want to be the bishop if he had
   to deal with Mrs. Proudie and her constant meddling; and thus,
   this person would actually mean _nolo episcopari_ when saying the
   phrase. [MD]

(It is worth noting that _nolo episcopari_ has survived in the
Methodist Church to the extent that when Dean William Cannon was
elected to the episcopacy in 1968, he protested, "Why, you can't
elect me bishop. I didn't even bring my robes," in gentle mockery of
the aggressive campaigns conducted by candidates for the episcopacy.)

Enter Mrs. Proudie, Barchester's answer to Lady Macbeth. A 1982 BBC
production of _The Barchester Chronicles_ followed the text of _The
Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_ quite closely, and the direction and
acting were superb. Mrs. Proudie, though, gave me pause. On screen
she is shown as a slender, scheming woman who narrows her eyes as she
schemes. I think of her as a more straightforward champion of her own
views, more given to the direct approach than to subtlety. She speaks
early on the evils of Sabbath-traveling, and on the necessity for
Sabbath Day schools. We can assume that she prompted the Bishop's
chaplain, the sly Obadiah Slope, to preach the sermon against Mr.
Harding's beloved high church music, leading the author to the
following meditation on the sermon as an art form:

   There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on
   mankind in civilized and free countries, than the necessity of
   listening to sermons. . . . We desire, nay, we are resolute, to
   enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we
   may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature
   cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the
   house of God, without that anxious longing to escape, which is
   the common consequence of common sermons.

I should think that this paragraph alone should justify my contention
that the Barchester novels, but particularly _Barchester Towers_,
should be required study in all seminaries.

Mr. Slope goes on to use his position as chaplain to the bishop in
a power struggle with Mrs. Proudie. He loses. He learns that Mr.
Harding's daughter Eleanor Bold, recently widowed in a death between
novels, has an income of a thousand pounds a year. (The mortality
risk of the period between novels was significant in the Barsetshire
and Palliser series, leading to the deaths of John Bold, Eleanor's
suitor and husband in _The Warden_, and Lady Glencora Palliser, who
did not survive the period between _The Prime Minister_ and _The
Duke's Children_.) Having promised Mr. Harding's former position as
Warden of Hiram's Hospital to Mr. Quiverful, whose twelve children
in addition to his wife and himself provided "fourteen arguments in
favour of Mr. Quiverful's claims," he then reverses his field and
indicates to Mrs. Bold that through his efforts and kind services her
father may yet be restored to his former position. But when Eleanor
shows his subsequent letter on the subject to her father, Mr. Harding
finds a reference to his daughter's "silken tresses," and Mr. Slope's
scheme dies aborning.

Although Mrs. Proudie reigns triumphant throughout _Barchester
Towers_ and goes on undeterred in subsequent Barsetshire novels, the
reader derives some consolation from Mr. Slope's downfall. Indeed,
he is refused by three women: one of the Bishop's daughters; Eleanor
Bold (with a slap on the ear); and the infamous Signora Neroni. Ah,
Signora Neroni! Somehow she and her family come across with more
charm in the video presentation than in my reading of the book and
listening to it on tape a few years ago. As feckless foils to the
saintly Mr. Harding, and as legitimate targets for reform of the
church, the reader may have limited patience with them. But brought
to the screen by buoyant actors, they display the charm that enabled
them to get by with so much in Barchester society. Trollope tells us
that their heartlessness was accompanied by such good nature as to
make itself "but little noticeable to the world." This introductory
comment was, of course, absent from the video presentation, leaving
the viewer to draw his own conclusions. But the mind of this
puritanical reader, I'm afraid, was poisoned by the author's
observation.

The father, Dr. Vesey Stanhope, is summoned home from Italy by the
new bishop. Dr. Stanhope, it turns out, had gone to Italy for his
health; he had had a sore throat twelve years earlier and had never
returned. He brings with him his wife, two daughters and a son. The
card of the younger daughter is decorated with a coronet, and it
reads "La Signora Madeline Vesey Neroni--Nata Stanhope." She is
somewhat indifferent to her situation of having married a captain of
no birth and no property, leaving her with a young daughter but no
husband, and a knee injury that she attributed to ascending a ruin,
leaving her to walk with "the grace of a hunchback." And so she has
chosen to be carried everywhere she goes.

Her brother Bertie, the son of a man without fortune, feels no
obligation to earn his own bread. Madeline and Bertie prove to be
rolling cannons on the decks of Barchester. The beautiful Madeline
has separate and conspicuous _tête-á-têtes_ with the Bishop, Mr.
Slope, Squire Thorne, and a newly arrived clergyman from Oxford,
Francis Arabin. Bertie distinguishes himself at Mrs. Proudie's
reception by remarking to the bishop that he once had thoughts of
being a bishop himself. "That is, a parson--a parson first, you know,
and a bishop afterwards. If I had once begun, I'd have stuck to it.
But on the whole, I like the Church of Rome the best."

But one comes closest to feeling some sympathy for Mr. Slope--whom
the author confesses that he himself does not like--when Signora
Neroni uses an audience for the purpose of humiliating him. (This is
after Mr. Slope has proposed unsuccessfully to Signora Neroni and to
Eleanor Bold, and at a time when he has had his friend Tom Towers of
_The Jupiter_ write in its pages that Mr. Slope would be the best
candidate to replace the lately deceased Dean of the Chapter--a
position that is to be offered to Mr. Harding and eventually accepted
by Mr. Arabin.) Her morning _levée_ includes Mr. Thorne; Mr. Arabin
("It may seem strange that he should thus come dangling about Madame
Neroni because he was in love with Mrs. Bold; but was nevertheless
the fact"); Mr. Slope; and a couple of other young men about the
city.

Bertie and Charlotte are spectators as she follows one thrust at
Mr. Slope with another, saying that everybody knows that he is to be
the new dean, passing over old men like her father and Archdeacon.
She then taunts him with having been refused by Mrs. Bold, singing

   It's gude to be off with the old love--Mr. Slope,
   Before you are on with the new.
   'Ha, ha, ha!'

Mr. Slope's sins were such as to merit little mercy from the court of
public and private opinion. And perhaps his punishment did fit his
crime. But his punishment was severe.

This meeting was no serious interview. But Trollope does give the
more serious sort its name in Chapter 29, "A Serious Interview,"
as described in the Introduction. Suffice it to repeat here, the
Archdeacon assumes falsely that his daughter Eleanor Bold is likely
to accept the suit of Mr. Slope. His wife had told him he would not
prevail with Eleanor, but he was so sure he was right and that it was
his duty to intervene, that he could not go to bed quietly. His wife,
of course, was right.

_Barchester Towers_ is a comedy, and it has a happy ending, which
required a good bit of doing by the author. Trollope self-consciously
bemoaned the difficulty of pronouncing a credible happy ending to a
novel; but he did it anyway.




TROLLOPE'S ALTER EGO

DOCTOR THORNE


_Doctor Thorne_ is a fairy tale. What else can one say after
finishing a book in which the heroine, a poor girl of illegitimate
birth but "the sweetest girl in the world," is changed at a stroke
(although long anticipated) into the wealthiest heiress in the
county, gaining the blessings of her lover's mother, Lady Arabella,
for her marriage to the most eligible young bachelor in Barsetshire?
So much for the plot. Trollope cared little, in general, for
maintaining the reader's suspense and usually revealed in advance how
it would turn out. But the questions are: What about the good parts?
The serious interviews? The irony? The social satire? And though the
general outlines of the plot are predictable, are there details that
keep us going?

Few of Trollope's young lovers are very complex; the supporting
characters are often the ones with interesting quirks and turns.
The young may be true or false, or they may be first one and
then the other (as Frank Gresham, heir to the rapidly disappearing
Gresham estate, shows himself to be); and one often views such turns
with the detachment of Olympian gods. What fools these mortals be!
But Dr. Thorne, Roger Scatcherd, Lady Arabella: they have a history
as well as a future, and there is more to learn about them as one
turns the pages.

I think the book succeeds as comedy, not as romance. My second time
through the story was through a reading by David Case, a genius of
the spoken word, and his inflections bring out the comedy that the
reader may not take the time to extract while merely gliding over the
text.

One of the serious interviews, the confrontation between Doctor
Thorne and Lady Arabella, is a masterpiece, as she strives to use
her position as a De Courcy to separate his niece Mary Thorne from
her daughter Beatrice, in order to prevent a union of Mary with her
son Frank.

A student in the school of life could do worse than to use Trollope
as a guide in playing this game. Dr. Thorne and Lady Arabella play
their hands with skill and subtlety. And lest the student miss some
of the finer points, the author provides a running commentary on
how each is doing in the contest. Here Dr. Thorne responds to her
suggestion that his niece has been throwing herself in the way of
her son, asking, "What would my dear friend Mr. Gresham say, if some
neighbor's wife should come and so speak to him? I will tell you what
he would say: he would quietly beg her to go back to her own home and
meddle only with her own matters." Lady Arabella cannot accept Dr.
Thorne's unprecedented hint that she might be at the same level as
common humanity. Declaring that it would not become her to argue with
him, she ends the interview.

Dr. Thorne, we see, can take care of himself. One would expect him
to perform equally well in his profession, though we see relatively
little of his medical life. In contrast to a "surgeon," who would be
addressed as "Mr.," Dr. Thorne was a "graduated physician," entitled
to be addressed as "Doctor." There was a third class of medical
practitioners in England, also descended from the medieval guilds,
known as "apothecaries." They compounded and sold medications. Here
also Dr. Thorne differed from his proud colleagues; he served as
a dispensing apothecary as well as a physician, as did many other
country doctors who were more concerned with their patients' comforts
than with their own dignity. Dr. Thorne was reviled in the nearby
towns of Barchester, home to a number of locally eminent physicians,
and Silverbridge, home to a physician for some forty years. None of
these dispensed medications.

In this arcane classification of health care providers, so strange to
us today, the "general practitioner" apparently played a role similar
to that of the "nurse practitioner" in a rural practice today.
Dr. Thorne had been preceded at Greshemsbury by an humble general
practitioner, a faithful soul who duly respected the county
physicians. Though he had sometimes treated the children and
servants, he "had never had the presumption to put himself on a par
with his betters."

Dr. Thorne at the time of his story had been in practice in the small
town of Greshamsbury for over twenty years. He is described as a
proud man with a sharp tongue, but his outlook was so similar to that
of the author that Trollope has been said to have poured into the
character of Dr. Thorne those characteristics that he himself most
admired, which comprised the ideal of the conservative English
country gentleman. His integrity obliged him to be open about his
fees; he had a fixed schedule of how much was to be charged for
each visit, with allowance for the distance he had to travel. His
colleagues considered this to be unprofessional. "A physician should
take his fee without letting his left hand know what his right hand
was doing; it should be taken without a thought, without a look,
without a move of the facial muscles; the true physician should
hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand had been
made more precious by the touch of gold."

In one of our few glimpses of Dr. Thorne at work, he visits his
childhood friend who has become Sir Roger Scatcherd, the wealthiest
man in the county. Sir Roger refuses to accept a recommendation of
abstinence from alcohol and rest from work, and he threatens to call
another of the town doctors, Dr. Fillgrave. Dr. Thorne calls his
bluff and dares him to call Dr. Fillgrave, requesting only that he
let Lady Scatcherd remove the brandy bottle.

Of course a consultation with a childhood friend can hardly be
considered a representative sample of Dr. Thorne's bedside manner.
But it can be assumed that he made himself sufficiently acceptable to
make a living in his country practice. We are told that he was
occasionally summoned to neighboring towns to consult with colleagues
on difficult cases.

The great crisis in Dr. Thorne's practice had to do with Lady
Arabella Gresham. After he refused to forbid his daughter to see her
son, she angrily transferred her case to the infamous Dr. Fillgrave.
She still did not thrive, however, and as she became worse, the
family in desperation sent to London for the great Sir Omicron Pie,
who came and assessed her condition. "'You should have Thorne back
here, Mr. Gresham,' said Sir Omicron, almost in a whisper, when they
were quite alone. 'Dr. Fillgrave is a very good man, and so is Dr.
Century; very good, I am sure. But Thorne has known her ladyship so
long.'" And so Dr. Thorne was recalled to the care of Lady Arabella.

The story of Dr. Thorne himself is almost a subplot in the novel that
bears his name. It is enough to say here that the author is careful
to take good care of Dr. Thorne in the end. And the major plot moves
along its fairy tale course. We stay with the story not so much
because of the plot as because of the characters who propel it. Sir
Roger's story is a rather unlikely one of a stone mason who rises to
become an immensely wealthy builder and contractor, but an alcoholic
(more plausible) who cannot survive long to enjoy the fruits of his
labors. His son Louis succumbs a bit early to the ravages of alcohol,
but this is a necessary plot device.

Frank Gresham, ordered by his mother Lady Arabella to marry money,
makes a rather half-hearted effort to do so, but he is put right by
Miss Dunstable, who rebukes his suit but remains a constant friend
and encourages him to remain true to his love for Mary despite
the prohibitions by his family. We are barely introduced to Miss
Dunstable before she demonstrates her social skills by trouncing Mrs.
Proudie, the ardent anti-Papist wife of the bishop, who makes a cameo
appearance at Courcy Castle. Discounting Mrs. Proudie's concern that
the Sabbath is hardly observed at all in Rome, Miss Dunstable agrees
but says that Rome is a "delicious place" and asks the bishop's
wife if she has ever been there. Of course not. It's a dangerous
place--not because of malaria, as Miss Dunstable appears to assume,
but because of the danger to the soul in a city with no Sabbath
observations.

With that Miss Dunstable turns away abruptly and asks Mr. Gresham
if he has been in Rome.

Familiar figures from the two previous Barsetshire novels, _The
Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_, make infrequent and brief
appearances, but they make good use of them. And we meet a personage
who is to be prominent in the Palliser series when Frank is invited
to a dinner at Omnium Castle by the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum.
Frank feels himself insulted that the Duke not only doesn't welcome
him to the castle but only makes a token appearance at the dinner,
sitting alone at the head of the table and making an early exit.

If some of the conventions of Victorian life appear incongruous to us
in the twenty-first century, we find that Trollope, the contemporary
observer of the scene, found them grist for his mill. Some of the
subtleties of rank and duty were spelled out in correspondence
between Miss Augusta Gresham, the once-jilted eldest daughter of the
proud Lady Arabella, and Augusta's mentor in such matters, her cousin
Lady Amelia de Courcy of Courcy Castle. Augusta has received a
proposal of marriage from an attorney who has been assisting with
family business affairs, and she would like to accept him; but even
more she would like to have the blessing of such a union from Courcy
Castle.

She pleads that her younger sister is to marry a clergyman, and she
pleads further that some attorneys are better than others. But Lady
Amelia reminds Augusta that since "it has been God's pleasure that
we should be born with high blood in our veins," duty must take
precedence over inclination.

Thus instructed and vanquished, Augusta refuses Mr. Gazebee. But the
author cannot forbear disclosing in an immediate epilogue that some
four years after this exchange of correspondence, the proud Lady
Amelia succeeded so well in overcoming her scruples that she could
accept her own proposal of marriage from Mr. Gazebee.

 Thus we see that in
theory the attorney, the physician, the wealthy businessman, and to a
large extent the clergyman, are viewed with disdain from the heights
of nobility, whose inherited wealth seems to come from the land. But
does that mean the lord of the manor is a farmer? Frank Gresham
receives a lesson in this from his father when he suggests that since
his proposed marriage to a penniless woman would destroy his chance
for a large estate, perhaps he could settle for a relatively small
farm. Preoccupied with the ruin to the family that will result from
this injudicious marriage, his father--also preoccupied with the
reflection that it was his own squandering of the family fortune that
has led his son to the consideration of working for a living--can
hardly bring himself to think of it. He barely hears his son say that
it would take so much time to become an attorney or a doctor.

"Yes: I dare say you could have a farm."

How quaint these conventions seem to our twenty-first century
American sensitivities, liberated from hereditary nobility! Or are
they? In Boston, "where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and
the Cabots speak only to God?" In New Orleans, where Rex is a deity?
In any city, where the names of prominent families may outlast the
family fortunes and retain a meaning for those who know? What is the
basis for our subliminal awareness of class snobbishness, if not from
a place and time so well described for us in the novels of Trollope?

And how would this Victorian romance play out in today's world? Dr.
Thorne would probably not be making house calls today. Perhaps he
would be the senior partner in the family practice section of a large
multi-specialty clinic. Lady Arabella would be Mrs. Gresham, but she
would still find a way to run through her husband's money. Her son
Frank would still marry a charming though penniless young woman; and
they would succeed in some ways by virtue of their own gifts, though
the measure of success would be a bit different. And with luck, some
wry observer of the human comedy would tell us about it. If the
observer should be blessed with a certain genius, the story would be
as entertaining as _Dr. Thorne_.




AN ALL-STAR CAST

FRAMLEY PARSONAGE


_Framley Parsonage_ is altogether a charming piece in the Barsetshire
collection. The major figures in the story are new ones, but familiar
friends from previous volumes reappear in subplot roles, lending
continuity for the benefit of faithful readers. Indeed, _Framley
Parsonage_ is almost an all-star game, or Old Timers' Day at the
Ball Park, with brief appearances by stars of previous and future
novels--the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum, Rev. Josiah Crawley, Mrs.
Proudie, Miss Dunstable, and Griselda Grantly. Mark Robarts appears
as a favored young parson at Framley, and one gets the impression
early on that this is the story of a Pinocchio, a naive and untested
cleric who falls into bad company and does a few foolish things.
Specifically, he becomes one of a large company of Trollope's young
men who sign their names to bills of accommodation, basically
cosigning a note, with no means of paying the sum involved. Perhaps
this was a frequent route of descent for the foolish in Victorian
society.

Following the course of Mark's stupidity becomes a bit tedious. There
are, of course, other threads of action. Mark's sister Lucy Robarts
falls in love with the young lord of the manor--Lord Lufton. The
familiar problem of working out a match between a deserving but poor
young girl and a highly-placed lover was just addressed in _Dr.
Thorne_, and here again we have the conflict between the young swain
and his mother who feels obliged to place her son's interests above
every other consideration. Lady Lufton is presented as a basically
kind woman who attempts to ward off little Lucy, sister of the
clergyman of the parish that was "a part of her own establishment."
Lady Lufton is almost persuaded to abandon her objection by Lucy's
forthright presentation.

Lucy alludes to King Cophetua, a legend about a king who saw a beggar
maid from his window and went out and told her that she was to be his
wife. No mention is made of King Cophetua's having had a mother or
an aunt to try to dissuade him from such an unequal liaison, but the
efforts of such mothers and aunts have provided a useful writer's
device.

Lucy's wit emerges as she tells her brother that Lady Lufton had been
civil: "You would hardly believe it, but she actually asked me to
dine. She always does, you know, when she wants to show her good
humour. If you'd broken your leg, and she wished to commiserate you,
she'd ask you to dinner."

The story rumbles along slowly but is redeemed by the great scene
in which Lucy accompanies her brother to Hogglestock Parsonage and
kidnaps Mr. Crawley's four children and sends them to Framley for
proper care while she stays at Hogglestock to risk her life by
nursing Mrs. Crawley, who has typhus, all despite the objections of
Mr. Crawley, the poor but proud parson. Humble little Lucy takes
action while the men at the scene, Dean Arabin and her brother Mark,
just stand around.

The patient reader is rewarded for wading through familiar
machinations by a number of rollicking scenes. Mr. Harold Smith
delivers a lecture on the South Sea islands to the humble citizens of
Barchester in which he extols the virtues of Civilization--"'And to
Christianity,' shouted Mrs. Proudie, to the great amazement of the
assembled people and to the thorough wakening of the bishop."

Framley Parsonage gives us our first look into the character of a
singular personage who will later be the protagonist in _The Last
Chronicle of Barset_: the Reverend Josiah Crawley. Mr. Crawley is the
impoverished parson of the parish of Hogglestock, where he serves the
Lord and the parish and attempts to feed his wife and four children
on ninety pounds a year. His religion and his pride are unbending
and immune to compromise. He is chosen by Lady Lufton to counsel her
wayward parson Mark Robarts, and the scene in which he visits Mark
in his study is one in which young Mark is chastened by a prophet
of old. One does not envy Mark his position under the gaze of Mr.
Crawley, whose "sunken gray eyes" make his victim quail under a
repetition of the question: "I now make bold to ask you, Mr. Robarts,
whether you are doing your best to lead such a life as may become a
parish clergyman among his parishioners?"

Besides the Serious Interview, such as the one above, Trollope revels
in the Victorian party scene, two of which are presented as the
_conversazione_ of Mrs. Proudie and the subsequent _conversazione_
of Miss Dunstable. On each occasion familiar characters are summoned
to play cameo roles. Lord Dumbello is introduced as a suitor for the
hand of the statuesque but silent beauty Griselda Grantly, and we
are given full disclosure of the extent of the courtship. Griselda
observes that it is "rather cold." Lord Dumbello replies with two
words: "Deuced cold." That's it. They were subsequently married, and
the reader may wonder whether their conversations ever became more
substantial.

Mrs. Proudie has a little tilt with Mrs. Grantly, and Miss Dunstable
reappears as the good-natured fairy godmother from the previous
novel, _Dr. Thorne_. But the meeting of meetings is that between Lady
Lufton and the personification in her eyes of all that is evil and
opposed to her interests in the county, the Duke of Omnium. Aware
that the crowding in the room had led the Duke to being pressed close
against her, she turns quickly but with maintenance of her dignity
and removes her dress from the contact. Thus face to face, the Duke
begs her pardon--the only words ever to pass between them in their
lives. Retreating, she makes a low and slow curtsey.

   [B]ut the curtsey, though it was eloquent, did not say half so
   much--did not reprobate the habitual iniquities of the duke with a
   voice nearly as potent as that which was expressed in the gradual
   fall of her eyes and the gradual pressure of her lips. When she
   commenced her curtsey she was looking full in her foe's face. By
   the time that she had completed it her eyes were turned upon the
   ground, but there was an ineffable amount of scorn expressed in
   the lines of her mouth.

Lady Lufton had conquered. If one is looking for a passage
that illustrates Trollope's mastery of the subtleties of human
interaction, this is it. What is not said, what is not done, and what
little may be said or done when the world assumes that much must have
been said or done, rarely escapes Trollope's notice. Griselda Grantly
and Lord Hartletop hardly speak to each other; Lady Lufton says
nothing to the Duke of Omnium; and nothing much is said at Gatherum
Castle when the world assumes that the political powers assembled
there must be constantly discussing matters of state.

Lady Lufton does not finish the course undefeated. Her inevitable
fall comes when she attempts to dismiss the "insignificant," "brown,"
"little" Lucy Robarts as her son's intended bride. Lucy fears a
lecture when she is summoned, and she heads it off at every turn,
and when she makes her little speech acknowledging her love for her
son, she refuses to allow Lady Lufton to interrupt her: "I beg your
pardon, Lady Lufton; I shall have done directly, and then I will hear
you. . . ."

Never fear: all ends happily. Indeed, the author develops the
reader's good will with such memorable scenes and characters that
repetitious themes and plotlines are readily forgiven.




THE SWELL, THE HOBBLEDEHOY, AND THE SMALL HOUSE

THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON


The Small House at Allington may be, after all, what Anthony
Trollope's novel of this title is about. Is it really about Lily
Dale? She is a major figure and comes across as a strong, even
dominating individual. But her fate as a rejected woman, determined
to embrace a life of spinsterhood, is settled early in the book, so
that the plot is finished in Part I. What is Part II for, if not to
determine the fate of the Small House, which seems doomed to be
abandoned by Lily and her sister and mother?

Of the subplots, the most amusing is the celebrated introduction of
Plantagenet Palliser, whose scandalous affair with Lady Dumbello
is discussed all over London. The reader knows that the outward
manifestations of this affair are limited to one or two comments
about the weather when he comes to stand by her chair at large
parties. The climax of the affair occurs when Mr. Palliser dares
to address her as "Griselda," and it concludes when she promptly
responds by asking him to send for her coach. Around these modest
happenings the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum feels obliged to threaten
to cut off his nephew from his allowance and perhaps even cut off
his status as heir by marrying and begetting a son himself, at his
advanced age. With no interest in Griselda until so threatened, the
young nephew feels obliged to challenge his uncle by addressing
Griselda. However, the seeding of the wild oats is finished with the
arranged marriage of the young Member of Parliament to the wealthy
young Lady Glencora McCluskie. All these events are dramatized in the
1974 BBC television series, _The Pallisers_, and form the prequel to
Trollope's series of six novels about the Pallisers.

Such comic relief is welcome in a rather serious novel which is
destined to have no fairy tale ending. As such, it stands as a
credible account of human affairs as we humans may conduct them. I
suppose that sometimes women do indeed take voluntary private vows
of chastity after being jilted, and sometimes keep them, and perhaps
it happened more often in Victorian society over a hundred years ago
than in our seemingly more open society today, but it takes a strong
woman to do it; and the unusual occurrence of the phenomenon is
emphasized by the author in the refusal of any of Lily's family or
friends to acknowledge her statement of purpose. John Eames, faithful
in his unrequited love for Lily, seems to understand it better
than any of them, but he sympathizes with her position in his own
profession never to love anyone else.

One could make a case for the novel's being a story about the
hobbledehoy, the author's term for awkward late bloomers like John
Eames. Johnny progresses toward manhood and is considered to have
succeeded in this by the end of Part II; he "thrashes" Adolphus
Crosbie by punching him in the eye at a railway station; he is
promoted to be the private secretary to Sir Raffle Baffle in the
bureaucracy, and he never allows himself to be demeaned by fetching
Sir Raffle's boots; he earns the friendship and patronage of the
Earl de Guest by saving him from a bull in his pasture; he escapes
a foolish liaison with Amelia Roper, the designing daughter of his
landlady; and he receives encouragement from the Earl and from Lily's
mother in his suit. But he doesn't get the girl.

Lilian Dale is one of Trollope's acclaimed heroines, and for good
reason. She dominates every encounter from first to last, from
proclaiming that Adolphus Crosbie is a swell when we first meet her,
to her compulsive interruptions of her mother at the last as Mrs.
Dale endeavors to tell her daughter of the Squire's conversion from
being an old grump to being a generous old grump. She rather quickly
falls in love with the swell from London and accepts his proposal
of marriage, expressing her love without qualification and making
generous concessions to the prospect of marrying a relatively poor
London clerk. Her loving attentions to Adolphus leave the reader in
no doubt as to Mr. Crosbie's good fortune in winning her hand. No
scene in the book is better presented than that in which Mrs. Dale
tells Lily that her letter from Mr. Crosbie puts a definite end to
their engagement. Lily had expected it, and she assumes the fortitude
of a Joan of Arc as she hears it, astonishing her mother with her
presence of mind and astonishing the reader when she does not resort
to the universal ploy of Trollope's women, who routinely retire to
their room and weep on the bed after a crucial development.

The author succeeds in showing us Adolphus Crosbie as a cad and a
scoundrel in the eyes of the world. But we also see the world through
the eyes of Mr. Crosbie; and from his own perspective he is shown
rather non-judgmentally to be stupid and lacking in a sense of
purpose that would reward him with happiness. The torments of Mr.
Crosbie as the son-in-law to the Earl de Courcy constitute the just
punishment that his sins deserve.

And what of the Small House? It succeeds where Johnny Eames had
failed: it gets the girl. We are left with the prospect of Lily
and her mother permanently in residence in the Small House, which
Mrs. Dale had announced that she would leave, at the behest of her
daughters, in rebellion against the authority and interference
of their uncle the Squire, who allowed them the use of the house
rent-free. The title of the book is indeed appropriate; the Dale
women's residence in the house indicates harmony and stability in
their little world in Allington. In the end, communication overcomes
pride, and peace returns, even though in Lily's case it is a peace of
resignation and acceptance.

One accepts certain conditions in reading Trollope, and in this
instance the conditions are a bit heavier than usual. Plot concludes
in Part I; Part II is one of the longer epilogues in literature. The
pace is leisurely; there is a bit of repetition. But the conditions,
though heavy, are not without reward. Lilly is well presented, and
the reader, like her friends and family, love and admire her but
wish she could be a bit more flexible. Lady Dumbello is shown in a
masterpiece of irony and caricature, just closely enough that one
suspects that the portrait is plausible and not far from true. The
phenomenon of the hobbledehoy is given its definitive representation
in John Eames. In Adolphus Crosbie's disillusionment with the
noble family into which he marries, we see the difference between
perception and reality in how the "quality" sometimes live. One might
wish for a bit of a story; but the reader is grateful for a kindly
but ironic and amusing guide to the gentle country life.




THE VICTORY OF THE RIGHTEOUS

THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET


Is there a more memorable scene in all Trollope's novels than the
image of the Rev. Josiah Crawley walking miles through the mud to
answer the summons of the Bishop of Barchester? Mrs. Crawley had
arranged for a local farmer to offer him a ride, but the ruse only
took him part of the way, and Mr. Crawley forgot his suspicions of
his wife as he thought of how, with his dirty boots and pants, he
would crush the sleek and clean bishop in his own study--"crush
him--crush him--crush him!" And the subsequent interview with Bishop
and Mrs. Proudie stands as one of Trollope's great set pieces. Mr.
Crawley, the underdog, the Perpetual Curate of Hogglestock, ignores
the interruptions of the bishop's wife as he argues against the
bishop's illegal request (which the reader knows originated with Mrs.
Proudie) that Mr. Crawley vacate his pulpit at Hogglestock until his
trial for theft of twenty pounds is concluded. And two more memorable
words are not uttered in the Barsetshire series than "Peace, woman,"
when he finally acknowledges her presence. After further admonishing
her that she was debasing her husband's high office by interfering,
he wishes the bishop good morning and is out the door. "Yes, he had,
he thought, in truth crushed the bishop."

One can hardly quarrel with Trollope's assertion that he considered
Plantagenet and Lady Glencora Palliser and Josiah Crawley to be his
best creations. Although _The Last Chronicle_ serves as a grand
summation of the Barsetshire series and reprise for its characters,
it is around Mr. Crawley and the mystery of how he got the twenty
pound check that everything revolves. The stubborn Perpetual Curate
whom we met in _Framley Parsonage_ continues to cling to his
principles in spite of every adversity. He doubts himself to the
extent that he concedes he may have absent-mindedly taken the check
in question, but when roused to defend whatever position he stakes
out, he does so with boldness and authority that none can withstand.
And this list includes such formidable opponents as Archdeacon
Grantly of the thundering "Good Heavens!", Mr. Crawley's loving wife
and daughters, and the heretofore undefeated Mrs. Proudie, ruler of
the episcopal palace.

Is Mr. Crawley mad? Well we may wonder: his wife thinks he sometimes
is; his daughter thinks so. And he even suspects it himself. Mr.
Crawley is an articulate victim of the inequalities within the
Church. He knows many of the Odes of Pindar and Horace by heart, in
Greek, and teaches them to his daughters. His friend from school
days, Dean Arabin, dean of the Close, had not done so well in class
as he had. But Mr. Arabin is Dean, wealthy enough to be traveling
to Jerusalem at the time of the story, and Mr. Crawley's family can
barely find enough food for the table with his meager stipend in
Hogglestock. We have previously seen Mr. Crawley descending as
the Voice of God on the worldly Mr. Robarts, vicar of Framley, in
_Framley Parsonage_. And now we see him as the long-suffering servant
of the brick makers of Hogglestock. He resigns his curacy (and his
minuscule income) after being accused of theft, as a matter of
principle. Several of his esteemed colleagues attempt to reason with
him, but none can contend with him in his determination.

Trollope claimed to have avoided theological issues and to have
limited himself to the personal lives of the people of the church
in the Barsetshire series. Perhaps so. Few sermons are quoted.
But political issues of the church rear their head at every turn:
Archdeacon Grantly is twice denied the bishopric. Mr. Arabin becomes
a dean. The bishop's authority is challenged. High Church contends
with Low Church. Bishop Proudie and his wife come into Barsetshire
opposed to its high church tendencies, and Mrs. Proudie preaches
the importance of keeping the Sabbath Day holy according to her
standards. No railway trips on Sunday. No games. Services twice on
Sunday. The old ways of the Church are battered. Even the saintly Mr.
Harding had been known to chant in Evensong, but no more.

Yet Mr. Crawley cares not for either faction. He resents the bishop's
wife's interference in his right and obligation to his parish, but
he cites the importance of obedience to the bishop within the limits
of legality. He stands down the bishop when challenged, but he is
also an uncomfortable member of the family of the bishop's chief
antagonist, Archdeacon Grantly. Mr. Crawley is not comfortable with
the riches of the world and conducts himself as if convinced of the
literal truth of the difficulty of a rich man's entering the kingdom
of heaven.

Archdeacon Grantly is not the protagonist in any of the Barsetshire
novels, but he makes his appearance in the first of the series,
_The Warden_, and appears so prominently in the others as to become
one of the most memorable of Trollope's men of the cloth. Rector of
Plumstead Episcopi, Archdeacon of Barsetshire, son of the Bishop, and
son-in-law of Mr. Harding (the Warden), the Archdeacon is a wealthy
and worldly churchman who defends the church energetically throughout
the series. A wealthy clergyman? Surely a contraindication in terms.
After all, this was only a little over a hundred years ago. But so it
was. He inherited his wealth from his saintly father the Bishop, who
possessed his wealth in connection with his position in the church.
Those blessed by the material riches of the church alluded to their
position with the same euphemisms employed by the nobility--those
whom God has endowed, and so forth.

But not all clergymen were so endowed, as we are continually reminded
by Mr. Crawley. We are not accustomed to thinking of Trollope
as a social crusader, and he probably was not, certainly not in
the tradition that Charles Dickens established. Trollope had his
psychological baggage resulting from his impoverished childhood and
a certain amount of rough treatment as a town boy among the more
privileged classmates in school. But although he had no connection
and little experience with the church, there is no reason to think
that he didn't tell it like it was.

In _The Last Chronicle_ Trollope was careful to conclude several of
the lives. Even Mrs. Proudie meets a somewhat untimely death. If
we are to believe Trollope's own account in his autobiography, he
overheard some men in his club saying how tired of her they had
become, and he announced to them that he was going home right
away to kill her off. Her demise of a sudden cardiac death is
epidemiologically correct, in that 250,000 Americans die in this way
every year now. Few, however, have such a dramatic end as does Mrs.
Proudie, found standing up, leaning against her bedpost. Mrs. Proudie
was a great comic creation, personifying the conflict between low
church and high church--yet another of the women in Victorian society
who were forced to achieve their goals through the agency of their
lord and master. Several others come to mind--Alice Vavasor, Glencora
Palliser, Lady Laura Standish.

Mr. Septimus Harding meets a more orthodox end, dying quietly in his
old age. Mr. Harding was a gentler saint than Mr. Crawley; he had
also faced the humiliation of displacement from his post of service,
in _The Warden_, accepting his fate with quietness and resignation.
There are few more sympathetic portraits of the loneliness of the
aged than that of Mr. Harding finishing his days wandering about the
rooms of his daughter's house, "ashamed when the servants found him
ever on the move."

While Mr. Crawley is facing the judgment of his community for a crime
he suspects he may have actually committed, his daughter Grace finds
herself in love with Major Henry Grantly, son of the Archdeacon, who
violently opposes a proposed union of his son with an impoverished
woman, however worthy she may be. We follow every opportunity the
father and son miss in their stubborn refusal to concede any of their
pride and independence in their relationship with each other. Here
Trollope's persistence in showing every nuance of each character's
thoughts is effective in presenting each of the men as understandable
and even likeable, even though we follow each mistaken turn that
each of them takes. Thank goodness they had a little help. Conflict
resolution occurs only when the women in their lives lead the two men
into agreement without suffering the embarrassment of losing face.

The subplot in which John Eames becomes involved in a flirtation with
Madalina Desmolines through his friendship with the painter Conway
Dalrymple tries the reader's patience at times; here, however, the
author spins out the story of how Dalrymple mocks the impassive Clara
Van Siever by offering to paint her portrait as Jael driving a peg
through the head of Sisera, a story from Judges often portrayed
by painters who devoutly chose Biblical themes but selected the
bloodiest. This subplot concludes with a farcical scene that could be
played on the stage with few alterations, in which John is entrapped
by Madalina's mother. Threatened with a shotgun wedding, he only
manages his escape after opening the window and calling to a
policeman on the street.

And although one may have supposed that the story of Lily Dale
and Johnny Eames was concluded in _The Small House at Allington_,
both reappear to provide yet another identical conclusion to his
courtship. And as another part of the epilogue to _The Small
House_, we see Adolphus Crosbie suffering still more punishment in
consequence of courting and jilting Lily. Dr. Thorne briefly appears
as a magistrate considering the case of Mr. Crawley, and his wife the
former Miss Dunstable also reappears to give counsel to Lily Dale.
Mark Robarts of _Framley Parsonage_ also sits with the magistrates.

Few bases remain untouched. Mr. Toogood, a London attorney and a
relation of Mrs. Crawley, appears as a sleuth to dig out a few
details of Mr. Crawley's mystery. Johnny Eames makes a heroic trip
to Europe to help solve it. But when Mrs. Arabin (Mr. Harding's
daughter) is finally notified of the problem, she sorts it out, as
she would have done without any assistance.

And so the Barsetshire series is concluded. _The Last Chronicle_
rewards the faithful reader of the previous five novels in the series
with reunions with familiar friends. But it stands on its own as an
outstanding novel of the nineteenth century, following the dogged Mr.
Crawley as he gives his own witness to the less rigid world around
him.




CAN YOU FORGIVE A FEW ADDITIONS TO THE TEXT?

CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?


I met Glencora and Plantagenet Palliser when we were in England in
1974. They lived in their own television series, _The Pallisers_,
Simon Raven's BBC television serial based on six Anthony Trollope
novels. The Times published a supplement describing the Palliser
series as "the finest sequence of fiction ever to be based on British
Parliamentary life." Susan Hampshire played Glencora, and not only
she, but the entire cast now represent those characters in my mind.
And so, although I can be appropriately dispassionate and critical
about Anthony Trollope and his novels, loyalty makes it difficult in
regard to Plantagenet and Glencora. They are old friends.

Episodes 1-6 of The Pallisers are based on the first novel in the
series, _Can You Forgive Her?_ First, the reader and the viewer
must understand that the woman we are asked to forgive is not Lady
Glencora M'Cluskie, the true heroine, but Alice Vavasor, a distant
cousin of Glencora's. Alice's story is indeed the main plot of the
book, but Simon Raven apparently realized that Glencora's story
would be more appealing to the television audience, and he focused
the first episodes on her, starting with events that Trollope had
described in a novel of the Barsetshire series, _The Small House at
Allington_. The spectacular set piece in the television presentation
is the first scene, a garden party given by the Duke of Omnium and
Gatherum. (Trollope was shameless in the selection of names for his
characters and places; other favorites include the Marquis of Auld
Reekie in Scotland, the law firm of Slow and Bideawhile, and Dr.
Fillgrave, who was the competitor of Dr. Thorne.) At this party
Glencora flirts with Burgo Fitzgerald, a handsome rake, little
knowing that her fate is being decided from on high. Her guardian,
the Marchioness of Auld Reekie, is observing all from her chair
beside a little Greek temple above the lake. There she negotiates
with the Duke of Omnium for a marital alliance between Glencora and
the Duke's heir, Plantagenet Palliser. The Duke replies, "I find the
thing will suit me well enough."

The innocent reader goes from the television series to the text and
immediately finds himself reading about Alice Vavasor, a young woman
engaged to a young country gentleman, "John Grey, The Worthy Man."
She had been previously engaged to her first cousin "George Vavasor,
The Wild Man." We then stumble into subplot number one, in which
George's sister goes to spend three weeks with her Aunt Greenow, a
well-to-do widow who must deal with two suitors: Mr. Cheesacre, a
"fat Norfolk farmer," and the rather disreputable Captain Bellfield.

Where is Glencora? Not yet to be found. By the time we reach Chapter
Seventeen, the standard Trollope fox-hunting chapter, we find Burgo
Fitzgerald first among the riders--

   Burgo Fitzgerald, whom no man had ever known to crane at a fence,
   or to hug a road, or to spare his own neck or his horse's. And yet
   poor Burgo seldom finished well--coming to repeated grief in this
   matter of his hunting, as he did so constantly in other matters of
   his life.

In the next chapter we learn that Burgo, eighteen months earlier, had
almost won the hand, as he had already won the heart, of the Lady
Glencora M'Cluskie. Finally. This is page 162. But what about the
garden party? About the garden party, the text is silent. That this
memorable scene appears nowhere in Trollope's novel is almost beside
the point. The dialogue of the BBC production is as Trollopian as
any of the rest, which adheres closely to the text. Raven has the
Duke later admonish Plantagenet, who has been rumored to be having
an affair with Lady Dumbello (another of Trollope's apt names),
that he should not pursue such an affair until after he has become
respectably married and produced an heir. "After that, you may suit
yourself. Only see to it that there's no open scandal. When I was a
boy it didn't matter much, but for some reason it does now."

And the grand wedding that we saw at Westminster Abbey? "She had
married Mr. Palliser at St. George's Square." So we, and the author,
have missed the most memorable scenes in the whole series. If we go
back to a few pages of _The Small House at Allington_, we find the
story of Plantaget Palliser's flirtation with Lady Dumbello, and we
find the interview between Plantagenet and Mr. Fothergill, the "man
of business" for the Duke of Omnium, in which Mr. Fothergill passed
the word to the rebellious young buck that he must abandon his
friendship with Lady Dumbello, who happened to be the daughter-in-law
of an old friend (and former mistress) of the Duke. We find no
description of the scene in which the Duke brings Lady Hartletop and
Lady Dumbello to Plantagenet's drawing room for Lady Dumbello to
declare to Plantagenet, in a choked voice, that their association is
at an end.

What we do find in _Can You Forgive Her?_ is a brief reference to
Glencora's having attempted unsuccessfully to persuade her distant
cousin Alice to allow her to use her house in London for a tryst with
Burgo, to arrange an elopement. Alice barely knows Glencora, and she
refuses. All things conspire against Glencora, and she finds herself
engaged, by arrangement of "sagacious heads," to Mr. Palliser.

And now, finally, Glencora and Alice have a chance to become
acquainted with each other. Alice receives an invitation from
Glencora to come to Matching Priory for a visit before Christmas.

Important conversations in Trollope sometimes occur on carriage
rides, and a chapter entitled "Dandy and Flirt" is ample warning that
Dandy and Flirt are the horses pulling the "light stylish-looking
cart" driven by Lady Glencora, who conveys Alice from the station to
Matching Priory, and demonstrates in her breathless exposition of her
situation that she is, in fact, a lonely little rich girl, way out in
the country, who needs a friend. (In the television production, she
is often shown carrying and holding a doll in her first months of
marriage.)

My wife and I saw "Matching Priory," the stately home that was used
in the BBC television series, when we visited Sudely Castle one
afternoon in the course of a short stay in the Cotswolds. This
castle's greatest historical significance was having been the last
home, and the burial place, of Katherine Parr, last wife and widow
of Henry VIII. Matching Priory, though, had a somewhat different
history, as described by Lady Glencora, who shows Alice the "Matching
oak, under which Coeur de Lion or Edward the Third, I forget, was met
by Sir Guy de Palisere as he came from the war, or from hunting, or
something of that kind." Sir Guy offered the king some brandy, the
king responded with a generous bequest of real estate, and the rest
was history. "As Jeffrey Palliser says, it was a great deal of money
for a pull at his flask."

And so we have the history of England according to Lady Glencora. And
having finally arrived at subplot two, the story of the Pallisers,
we can follow the development of their marriage, which is the real
story of _Can You Forgive Her?_ Trollope summarizes the contrasting
personalities of Glencora and Plantagenet as he describes Glencora's
reaction when she realizes that Mrs. Marsham has actually come to
their house to be her duenna. Though Glencora knew little about the
British Constitution, she "was much quicker, much more clever, than
her husband." Though he had a keen intelligence, he could be easily
deceived. "And, to a certain extent, she looked down upon him for
this obtusity." This contrast in their personalities is played out in
the book's production number, Lady Monk's ball. Lady Glencora begs
her husband to be excused from attending because she knows Burgo,
Lady Monk's nephew, will be there. But Plantagenet, saying that "it
does not signify," insists that she attend. After Glencora arrives
(separately), he excuses himself and takes his leave; she dances
"recklessly" with Burgo, watched by her "nemesis" Mr. Bott (a
political disciple of her husband) and her "duenna" Mrs. Marsham,
who leaves to fetch Mr. Palliser. He arrives in the nick of time,
Glencora gives him her hand, and they depart. In their carriage
she says, "If you did not wish me to see Mr. Fitzgerald you should
not have sent me to Lady Monk's. But, Plantagenet, I hope you will
forgive me if I say that no consideration shall induce me to receive
again as a guest, in my own house, either Mrs. Marsham or Mr. Bott."

There was more to be said. The night before must be followed by the
morning after; Plantagenet invited his wife to breakfast with him
after he had "slept on it." In these interviews the woman does not
always win. But she usually does. In this case, though, it may
be said that if Glencora won the battle, Plantagenet won the war.
Glencora's wit and spirit posed a challenge to her husband. "'I am
very serious,' she replied, as she settled herself in her chair with
an air of mockery, while her eyes and mouth were bright and eloquent
with a spirit which her husband did not love to see."

Plantagenet turned the tide, after her accusation that he had planted
spies, with his admission: "If it were ever to come to that, that I
thought spies necessary, it would be all over with me."

This changes the tone; she abandons her raillery and declares that
she cannot make him happy, confesses that she loves Burgo Fitzgerald,
and that she and Plantagenet do not love each other. Here Plantagenet
does his duty, tells her he does love her, puts his arms around her,
and decides on the spur of the moment to abandon politics for a
while and take her to Europe. At this very moment the Duke of St.
Bungay is announced, and he enters to offer Plantagenet the position
of Chancellor of the Exchequer, the office that Plantagenet has
coveted. But Plantagenet declines, pleading family reasons, and the
conversation is over. No English gentleman would inquire or disclose
anything further.

This is the turning point, and the rest all works itself out in
subplot number two. As for the main plot, Alice Vavasor proves
herself to be as contrary a heroine as Glencora is attractive, as she
deals with successive engagements to George Vavasor, John Grey, back
to George Vavasor, and back to John Grey, whose sainthood is assured
by the persistence of his suit.

At this point we find Glencora's and Alice's personalities summarized
as Glencora congratulates her friend on her fourth engagement: "I
know that it is quite a misery to you that you should be made a happy
woman at last. I understand it all, my dear, and my heart bleeds for
you."

As for subplot number one: Simon Raven properly omitted it from his
television presentation. It is a third variation on the theme of a
woman torn between a dashing scoundrel and a boring steady gentleman.
In this one, as it turns out, Aunt Greenow selects the impecunious
Captain Bellfield, and we leave her beginning to get him housebroken.

Trollope's great achievement in this novel is the creation of
Glencora and Plantagenet. They have not become household words in our
time, but they had enough in them for elaboration of their stories
in another medium, and they carried a series of six political novels
in which they played sometimes major and sometimes quite minor roles.
Political figures in England have cited these novels as the best
fictional presentation of parliamentary process, and wives of great
men have cited Lady Glencora as the model of all that a political
wife should be and do.

It is Glencora's sense of fun and play that makes her an endearing
figure to her friends, and also to the reader. At Baden she takes
Alice with her to the casino to play "one little Napoleon," with
which she wins a little pile and finally loses it. Plantagenet finds
her, scolds her, and takes her away. Alice feels wrongly scowled
upon by Mr. Palliser and follows them to their room, where Glencora
affects laughter. "Here's a piece of work about a little accident."

Plantagenet fails to see the humor and admonishes her for sitting at
a common gambling table amid heaps of gold. "You wrong me," Glencora
replies. "There was only one heap, and that did not remain long. Did
it, Alice?"

Alice, with her own agenda of being wronged, takes her candle and
takes her leave. This was the set of family and friends that Simon
Raven brought us on BBC. Glencora, pert and pretty, sometimes
strayed, and she sometimes strayed further than to the tables of
Baden; but she was a lot more fun than Alice. She was more fun than
any of them.

And the inevitable question: Was the television series more fun
than the book? And the required qualifying query: What did you
do first--see it on television or read the book? In my case, the
television series came first, and yes, the portrayal on television
was more fun. But it was so much fun that the text is required
reading.




ENGLISH POLITICS 101

PHINEAS FINN


_Phineas Finn_ is a political novel. Others in Anthony Trollope's
Palliser series stray here and there from the political scene in
Victorian England, but this one is rooted in the pursuit of political
ambition. A chapter is allocated to a cabinet meeting in which the
members of the cabinet are named, described, and seated at the table.
The furnishings of the "large dingy room" in Downing Street are
enumerated, and rituals are observed. Political strategy is discussed
and determined. The author obviously puts politics right up there
with fox hunting among his passions.

Phineas Finn is the focal point of the story as he embarks on a
career in the service of the nation as a Member of Parliament.
Phineas appears as an impressionable young Irishman, whose charm and
gift for pleasant conversation bring him opportunities that push his
capacity for maintaining focus. He is several grades advanced beyond
the stage of the hobbledehoy portrayed by Trollope in Johnny Eames
of the Barsetshire series, but he is still learning the ways of the
world. And so we learn the ways of Phineas's world as he endures the
inconveniences and embarrassments of the learning process.

One could do worse than to use this novel as a textbook on the
English Constitution. We follow Phineas through election to
Parliament from two different boroughs, we observe the protocols and
courtesies in the House of Commons, we see his landlord participate
in a riot, we meet with the Cabinet, and we see governments formed,
dissolved, and replaced.

Through all this Phineas pursues his career with ambition and charm.
The men like him, and the women love him. He makes love to four of
the women, including his childhood sweetheart, with varying results.
A clandestine duel on a beach in Belgium, ending as happily as any
duel can, is the central event of the story, after which our hero
shrugs and marches on.

The first to refuse Phineas is Lady Laura Standish. One of Trollope's
strong women, she sublimates her political interests and ambitions
into a vicarious interest in Phineas's career. Though she is in love
with him, they are both poor, and she decides to accept marriage to a
wealthy Scot with a large home place in the country and a promising
career in Parliament. Unfortunately for Laura, his unbending
religious scruples destroy the marriage, affording us insights into
the institution of marriage in Victorian times. Eventually she flees
to Dresden to escape his lawful demand that she live in the same
house with him.

Violet Effingham, beautiful and witty, also refuses a later offer of
marriage. She rebels against the oppressive guardianship of her aunt,
Lady Baldock, and she is too strong-willed to go along with marriage
to Lord Chiltern at the first attempt, having the audacity to propose
to him that he pursue a gainful occupation. Violet was shortchanged
in the BBC production of _The Pallisers_, in which the strength of
her character is sacrificed to the abbreviating demands of film
making.

Madame Max Goesler figures in several of the novels as a friend to
Lady Glencora and to the Duke of Omnium. Representing the foreign
element in the story (and one of the few foreigners whom he presents
in a favorable light), she is a wealthy young widow from Vienna,
given to making innocent observations about some of the curious
English customs. She attracts the elderly Duke of Omnium, who offers
to marry her. Lady Glencora fears that this could lead to the birth
of a son to the Duke, knocking her little son out of the line of
succession to the Duke, and her interview with Madame Max is rather
one-sided. Lady Glencora protests that a seventy year old Duke of
Omnium "may not do as he pleases, as may another man."

Madame Max replies that his Grace should be allowed to try that
question, but she puts this matter aside to assert that she would not
degrade any man whom she should marry. On the other hand, she would
not willingly do him any injury, and she assures Lady Glencora that
her fears for her son are premature--unless Lady Glencora's arguments
should drive her to marrying the Duke just to prove she is wrong.
"But you had better leave me to settle the matter in my own bosom.
You had indeed."

Madame Max bears the burden of offering wise observations on the
world around her, acceptable to the reader who pictures her as a
beautiful dark-haired young woman. Though she refuses the offer
of marriage to the Duke, she remains his friend and offers this
assessment of his role in society in refuting Phineas's claim that he
is useless to society:

   "You believe only in motion, Mr. Finn;--and not at all in
   quiescence. An express train at full speed is grander to you than
   a mountain with heaps of snow. I own that to me there is something
   glorious in the dignity of a man too high to do anything,--if only
   he knows how to carry that dignity with a proper grace. I think
   that there should be breasts made to carry stars."

Conversational virtuosity of this order leaves the reader with jaw
agape. The English are better at this than we Americans are, as can
be seen by tuning in to the prime minister's question and answer
sessions on BBC-TV. And the Victorians were better at it than we
are. In any event, Madame Max holds her ground with poise and
polish, justifying Shirley Robin Letwin's description of her in _The
Gentleman in Trollope: Individuality and Moral Conduct_ (The Akadine
Press, originally published 1982) as "the most perfect gentleman in
Trollope's novels."

This is a picaresque novel that hangs together pretty well, following
the hero from one adventure to the next. He meets fair damsels and
does battle with dragons, also encountering mentors and would-be
mentors who instruct him in _le monde comme il faut_. Surely the
author was already planning a sequel, _Phineas Redux_, to rescue the
young hero from the oblivion in which this story leaves him. This
textbook on politics concludes with the reader waiting for one more
lesson: Politicians may retire, but not for long.




A CUNNING WOMAN

THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS


Lizzie Eustace is beautiful and clever, and she has no intention of
parting with her late husband's gift to her, the Eustace Diamonds.
But does she really have them? And where are they? This well
constructed mystery is one of those Trollope novels which deserves to
be better known and more widely read. (Others in this list include
_The Last Chronicle of Barset_, _The Duke's Children_, and _Orley
Farm_.) Lizzie has been compared to Becky Sharp, the prime mover
in William Makepeace Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_; Trollope actually
invites such comparison, describing her early in the book as an
"opulent and aristocratic Becky Sharp."

Like Becky, Lizzie attracts admirers. "Sometimes I think her the most
beautiful woman I ever saw in the world," says the obviously smitten
Frank Greystock in describing Lizzie Eustace.

But Becky casts a wider net, as described by a servant: "'Miss
B., they are all infatyated about that young woman,' Firkin
replied. . . . 'I can't tell for where nor for why; and I think
somethink has bewidged everybody.'"

Lizzie does not succeed so widely, and she shows that she doesn't
really understand everyone, as when she overplays her hand on first
meeting her prospective mother-in-law, Lady Fawn. Lizzie had heard
that a sermon was read every Sunday evening at Fawn Court, and that
therefore Lady Fawn must be very religious. So it was quite natural
for her to stretch her hand toward a book on Lady Fawn's table,
claiming it as her guide to remind her of her duty to her noble
husband. Lady Fawn, finding the book to be the Bible, replied
that she could hardly do better--"but there was more of censure
than of eulogy in the tone of her voice." We are told later that
Lady Fawn was left with not a word to say in behalf of her future
daughter-in-law, saying nothing about the little scene with the
Bible, but never forgetting it.

As described above, however, Becky Sharp was capable of sweeping
through a household. A governess in Crawley Hall (which she refers to
as Humdrum Hall), she assists elderly Sir Pitt Crawley so effectively
that he later proposes marriage to her. She is in love with Sir
Pitt's second son, Rawdon Crawley, and she makes it a point to attend
faithfully upon Sir Pitt's spinster sister, supplanting her dame
de compagnie, Miss Briggs, so completely that her imitations of
Briggs's weeping snuffle and her manner of using her handkerchief are
performed so well that Miss Crawley "became quite cheerful."

Becky Sharp shows herself as a mistress of all she surveys, whereas
Lizzie succeeds only with the men whom she targets. Lady Fawn and her
daughters were not so easily taken in. On the other hand, Thackeray
shows Becky to have an easier field--the "Vanity Fair" of foolish
mortals, trusting and benighted souls, easily duped. Thackeray, like
Dickens, entertains us much like Becky entertained Miss Crawley, by
mockery; and their mockery spared very few. Trollope, on the other
hand, may have had more respect for people in general; his portraits,
though they did include "warts and all," were less caricatures than
realistic renderings.

Lizzie stars in one of Trollope's memorable scenes, "The Diamonds are
Seen in Public." Her fiancé Lord Fawn, troubled about the diamonds,
has written a letter forbidding her to keep the diamonds, saying
they belong rightfully to her late husband's family. They arrive
separately at a party given by Lady Glencora, not having communicated
in the three weeks since Lord Fawn's letter. She wears the diamonds,
which "seemed to outshine all the jewellery in the room. . . . The
only doubt might be whether paste diamonds might not better suit her
character." Lord Fawn confronts her as soon as he sees her, but no
ears hear the inconsequential words they speak to each other. Lady
Eustace joins Lord Fawn in a quadrille, dances with no one else,
and very soon asks him to get her carriage for her. Taking her
seat, she tells him, "You had better come to me soon." And thus does
Lady Eustace savor her triumph of displaying the diamonds at Lady
Glencora's house.

This may have been the high point for Lizzie. Her one goal in life
was to keep the diamonds, and all else was sacrificed to this
goal. It is not so much that she has an overall strategy; rather,
she constantly improvises from one point to the next, keeping
(supposedly) the diamonds locked up in an iron box.

Of course the diamonds are at risk--not only from Mr. Camperdown, the
Eustace family lawyer who is as determined to recover the diamonds
for the family as Lizzie is to keep them, but also from thieves in
the night. When Lizzie goes to her late husband's ancestral castle
in Scotland, she surrounds herself with unscrupulous friends, runs
through her potential suitors, and loses her diamonds. On the first
attempt at the diamonds, the thieves get an empty iron box, while
Lady Eustace retains the jewels "in her own keeping." Not being one
to blurt out the truth at the first opportunity, however, Lizzie does
not tell the police that she still has the diamonds, and she digs
herself deeper and deeper into her deception until it carries the
name of perjury.

As Lizzie sins, so is she punished, not by the law, but by the irony
of fate, receiving a proposal of marriage by Mr. Joseph Emilius,
described in words which we now find difficult to forgive: "a nasty,
greasy, lying, squinting Jew preacher." This follows his assertions
that he is the greatest preacher of the day and can move masses.
Lizzie knows he is grossly exaggerating his assets, but "A man, to
be a man in her eyes, should be able to swear that all his geese are
swans." When he demands an answer to his proposal of marriage, Lizzie
answers him in kind, making a speech that matches his in length,
protesting that after losing "the dearest husband that a woman had
ever worshipped," she had once thought of matrimony with a man of
high rank for the sake of her child. But he had proved unworthy of
her, she discloses with a scornful expression as she declares that
she can no longer be willing to consider another marriage. "Upon
hearing this, Mr. Emilius bowed low, and before the street-door was
closed against him had begun to calculate how much a journey to
Scotland would cost him."

All these events did not go unnoticed by the gods on Mount
Olympus--in this case, the Pallisers and their friends at Matching
Priory. The Pallisers were less involved in this story than in any
of the other five novels in the Palliser series. Lady Glencora had
intervened a bit, and she had not been wise in choosing sides (a
tendency which was to recur in her favoritism of the villain Lopez in
_The Prime Minister_), and she had called on Lady Eustace to offer
her support. But none of the other gods and goddesses challenged
her. "It was understood that Lady Glencora was not to be snubbed,
though she was very much given to snubbing others. She had attained
this position for herself by a mixture of beauty, rank, wealth,
and courage;--but the courage had, of the four, been her greatest
mainstay." None at Matching were more entertained, however, than the
greatest god of all, the old Duke of Omnium. The old duke was in his
last days, and "It was admitted by them all that the robbery had been
a godsend in the way of amusing the duke."

The Duke was not alone in his enjoyment of the adventures of Lizzie
Eustace. The little vixen has provided pleasant diversion for many
readers; she continues to amuse.




HOW THE WOMEN TOOK CARE OF PHINEAS

PHINEAS REDUX


Perhaps the story of Phineas Finn just wouldn't fit into one novel,
at least not within the limits of Trollope Standard Time, in which
no nuance of thought or motive is left unexplored. Hence, _Phineas
Redux_. Phineas (as he was known to many of his acquaintances even
under the formal conventions of Victorian England) is no more heroic
in the second novel than in the first. Would these two novels rank
higher in our consciousness if the protagonist had been less flawed?
Perhaps. But Phineas's penchant for muddling through without much
in the way of strength or resolution is essential to the story. And
even though the reader may lose patience with Phineas at times, his
foibles and fallibility provide the necessary pinch of charm to this
story of political gamesmanship and matrimonial maneuvering.

The familiar characters of _Phineas Finn_ carry on for us. Mary
Flood Jones Finn is missing, her early death having freed Phineas
to return to London as a widower and resume his career and his old
friendships--especially those with women. The page brightens whenever
the Duchess of Omnium or Madame Max Goesler appear.

Why are these women so delightful? Bright, irreverent, saucy, the
Duchess uses her lofty position in society as a springboard for
making things happen. She appears and reappears in several novels in
the Palliser series, sometimes as the prime mover and always as a
breath of fresh air. (She even makes a cameo appearance in _Miss
Mackenzie_, an unrelated story.) In _Phineas Redux_ she adopts
Phineas as a favorite and meddles in his fate, most prominently when
she promotes his candidacy for office in opposition to the ambitions
of Mr. Bonteen, whom she lures into exposing himself as a boor when
her wine prompts him to make some inappropriate speeches at a dinner
party. How did the author pass up the opportunity to give us the
details of this dialogue? (Simon Raven's screenplay for the BBC
television series remedies this omission, showing the viewer exactly
how Mr. Bonteen destroyed his career.)

We see the Duchess at work when she initiates her project of
promoting the status of Mr. Finn, telling the Duke of St. Bungay that
he must find some place for him. In vain does he protest that he
never interferes. "Why, Duke, you've made more cabinets than any man
living."

She undertakes to promote the marriage prospects of her husband's
cousin Adelaide Palliser by making imaginative use of an unclaimed
legacy that can be used to remedy the young couple's poverty. She
volunteers to intervene in Lord Chiltern's irate assertion that foxes
are being poisoned at the Duke's behest. When she offers her money to
get Phineas acquitted of the accusation of murdering Mr. Bonteen, the
attorney, Mr. Low, is unsuccessful in persuading her that this would
be immoral, illegal, and ineffective. "The more money you spend," she
says, "the more fuss you make. And the longer a trial is about and
the greater the interest, the more chance a man has to escape. If a
man is tried for three days you always think he'll get off, but if it
lasts ten minutes he is sure to be convicted and hung. I'd have Mr.
Finn's trial made so long that they never could convict him."

And what if he should be convicted?

   "I'd buy up the Home Secretary. It's very horrid to say so, of
   course, Mr. Low; and I dare say there is nothing wrong ever done
   in Chancery. But I know what Cabinet Ministers are. If they could
   get a majority by granting a pardon they'd do it quick enough."

She also provides opportunities for her friend Marie Goesler to put
herself in the way of Phineas Finn in another match-making venture.
And in all these projects she succeeds.

How much help does Madame Max (Marie) Goesler need? Not much, though
she accepts the assistance. We have already seen Madame Goesler
outface Lady Glencora (before she became Duchess), mocking Glencora
when she makes a clumsy effort to dissuade Marie from pursuing a
marriage with the old Duke, which would potentially disinherit her
oldest son. And in this novel she again takes the high ground with
Glencora, winning the love and another proposal from the dying Duke
but turning him down, and then refusing the fortune and jewels
bequeathed her by the old Duke (except for one little ring she says
she will always wear).

Is Madame Goesler too good to be true? She is presented as a young
woman, about thirty-two years of age, the same age as Phineas Finn.
But she is miles beyond Phineas in maturity and capability. And not
only that. Wisdom. Her utterances come across as the wisdom of the
ages. In urging Phineas to accept an appointment to the cabinet, she
says, "Your foot must be on the ladder before you can get to the top
of it."

Madame Max never seems to make a mistake. She handles the attentions
of the Duke impeccably, and she manages her relationship with
Lady Glencora with wit and consummate skill. Maybe our greatest
reservation about her judgment has to do with her steadfast
preference for Phineas Finn. But one can hardly doubt the happiness
of the favored couple. There is little reason to doubt that Phineas
can handle prosperity.

And Phineas Finn: not exactly a hobbledehoy. His gift of gab permits
him to sail through social challenges. Perhaps his success with the
ladies gives him self confidence. But the reader grits his teeth as
Phineas allows himself to be sucked into a foolish quarrel with Mr.
Bonteen. And we share Madame Max's counsel to him at the end when he
is offered office and cannot bring himself to accept. His density is
more believable than Madame Max's wisdom. But here the critic is at
odds with the enthusiastic reader who cheers her on.

And what of poor Lady Laura, the other woman who loves Phineas?
None of Trollope's women appear more true to life. She pays a long
and bitter price for having sacrificed herself to bring financial
solvency to her family by a marriage to a lord who ultimately proves
himself to be crazy. She bares her soul to Phineas, who gamely
attempts to bring temporary solace to a grieving woman. But how can
she ever be comforted? Poor Phineas. Many readers may conclude that
he does as well as a kind-hearted Irishman can do.

The climax of the story is Phineas's trial for murder, a device that
lends pace and urgency to the story. In some respects the case is
handled like that of Mr. Crawley in _The Last Chronicle of Barset_,
in which a trip to the continent is heroically taken by an advocate
for the accused, bringing back evidence that breaks open the
case--though it is not necessarily essential.

One more thing: Trollope's touch in portraying the professional
lawyer is as entertaining a presentation of the creed of the Law as
one can hope for. Mr. Chaffanbrass, who is to defend Phineas Finn,
has no interest in knowing the truth about the murderer, despite
being told that the public wants to know. "[T]he public is ignorant."
The public should want to know the truth about the evidence about
the murder. "Now the last man to give us any useful insight into the
evidence is the prisoner himself. In nineteen cases out of twenty a
man tried for murder in this country committed the murder for which
he is tried."

After meeting Phineas Finn, Chaffanbrass maintains that he never
expresses an opinion of guilt or innocence of a client until the
trial is over. In a four-hour speech he argues persuasively for
Phineas's innocence, though he reflects over a pint of port wine in
a small room afterward that he privately believes him to be guilty.
"But to no human being had he expressed this opinion; nor would he
express it--unless his client should be hung."

Though perhaps not among the best few of Trollope's novels, why
should _Phineas Redux_ not be rated among the very good ones? The
difficulty of such a judgment lies in the even quality of many of the
contenders. I would give this one a "very good" rating.




"ARE NOT POLITICS ODD?"

THE PRIME MINISTER


Religion and politics--the two spheres of human activity to
be approached with caution, if not to be avoided, in polite
conversation--are the subjects forming the basis of Anthony
Trollope's two series of novels, the Barsetshire series and the
Palliser series. No other writer of his stature has touched these
areas on such a scale. Perhaps others have avoided them simply
because they haven't been interested. Trollope was certainly
interested in politics; he even ran for the House for Commons once,
was defeated and was disillusioned. His interest in church affairs
and church politics was less personal, though he did maintain his own
personal theology.

His abiding interest in politics is evident in _The Prime Minister_,
fifth in the series of the six Palliser novels. My recollection of
the story from twenty-five years ago is mainly of Ferdinand Lopez, so
that when he threw himself under a train at the Tenway Junction, I
assumed that the book must be over. But no, we had the loose ends of
the fate of his widow, Emily Wharton Lopez, to dispose of; and the
main plot thread, that of the prime minister, the Duke of Omnium, to
be concluded.

Lopez sticks in the memory as one who creates himself on a basis of
audacity, charm, and freedom from any moral restraints. We meet him
as a suitor for the hand of Emily Wharton, daughter of a wealthy
barrister; he preys on her brother Everett and through him finds
entrée to dinner at the Whartons' house. Both his social and
financial careers are leveraged on slender bases that eventually
collapse but support him long enough to make a sensational run. He
is similar in many ways to Augustus Melmotte, who makes a larger run
through the established circles of Victorian England in _The Way We
Live Now_, Trollope's larger portrayal of contemporary mores written
a year earlier in 1874.

A case might be made that the House of Commons is the major character
in the novel. We are told that although the House is sometimes led
and influenced by one of its members, the House during the ministry
of the Duke of Omnium had no Prime Minister sitting among its members
and was essentially on its own. Plantagenet Palliser had been obliged
to leave the House of Commons for the House of Lords when his uncle's
death made him the new Duke of Omnium, and we can hardly doubt
the new Duke when he says that he would rather be a Member of the
House of Commons than Duke of Omnium. It is not that the Duke was a
charismatic leader of his fellows in the House. On the contrary, he
was a patient workman, doing his homework and presenting lengthy
accounts of the state of the Treasury. But without even that
presence, the House first labored under the leadership of Sir Orlando
Drought, whom the Prime Minister offended by his lack of interest
in Sir Orlando's opinions. After the resignation of Sir Orlando,
the Prime Minister was represented by Mr. Monk, a more congenial
colleague. But the House grew restless under a Prime Minister who
made no attempt to be friendly to any of its members and eventually
shucked him off. All this was foreseen and observed by the Duke of
St. Bungay, old and wise, whose counsel the younger Duke could not
always bring himself to heed.

But although the House plays its anthropomorphic role by default in
the absence of a powerful and ambitious Prime Minister, this Prime
Minister is Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium. Trollope considered
him one of his three greatest characters, and in this story he
reaches the peak of his political career. Another of Trollope's trio
of favorites, Lady Glencora, Duchess of Omnium, reaches the height of
her own ambition as wife of the Prime Minister. (The third was Mr.
Crawly in _The Last Chronicle of Barset_.) How would this portrayal
fare as an isolated novel rather than as the linchpin in a series of
six lengthy works? Perhaps an experiment should be conducted in which
a class reads _The Prime Minister_ with no previous exposure to the
Pallisers and another class reads the series straight through. Would
there be enough unpaid volunteers for such an experiment? I think
that those already familiar with the Pallisers would have keener
appreciation for their portrayal in power. Here we see the Duke
accept the position of Prime Minister with reluctance, suffer
through the slings and arrows of criticism, and then face the issue
of whether he should resign. And Lady Glencora pitches in with
enthusiasm to the project of entertaining those who are of any
importance to her husband's success, despite his objections and
refusal to participate in the effort. She encourages the villain
Lopez, who becomes a thorn in their sides, and she pulls back from
her adopted role as the Hostess with the Mostest.

Robert Caro has been compared to Trollope for his delineation of men
and politics in a recent multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson.
This similarity is particularly apparent in Caro's description
of Coke Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson's opponent in the race for the
US Senate in Texas in 1948. Stevenson had served as governor of
Texas and despite his disdain for politics, he had received record
majorities in his gubernatiorial campaigns. He was a scrupulously
honest public servant, but he was also a proud man, too proud to
stoop to indulging in a personal attack on a political opponent.
Johnson knew this, and he capitalized on it.

Reading this, I thought to myself: I know about proud men in
politics. I know about Plantagenet Palliser. Perhaps one of the most
telling portraits is that painted by his wife as she tells her friend
Mrs. Finn that if he should hear treason being plotted against him,
he would stop up his ears with his fingers. "He is all trust, even
when he knows that he is being deceived. He is honor complete from
head to foot."

This is not to say that Coke Stevenson was a latter day Plantagenet
Palliser. But the similarities between the detailed portrayals of
the historical Coke Stevenson and the fictional Plantagenet Palliser
serve to validate the authenticity of the fictional predecessor. Both
even had similar political wives.

Fay Stevenson was outgoing and friendly, but in contrast to Lady
Glencora, she did not establish friendships for political purposes.

Glencora undoubtedly had her political reasons. But Susan Hampshire,
in an interview about the television series in which she played
Glencora, said that politicians' wives told her they considered
Glencora to be the model of the political wife. Lady Glen was a woman
who could flatter Sir Orlando Drought during his visit to Gatherum,
even though she disliked him and knew that her husband had not been
gracious to him.

An advantage of the novelist is the absolute freedom to reveal the
inner workings of the mind, and our understanding of Plantagenet
Palliser, who says so little, is enhanced by such direct disclosures
as his reflection that he had not had a happy day since he took
office, that he had had no gratification, and that he was unconvinced
that he was doing the country any good.

Glencora, on the other hand, is so articulate that she reveals the
inner workings of her mind herself. Some of the last words we hear
from her constitute a quick little aside to her young friend Emily
Wharton:

   "Are not politics odd? A few years ago I only barely knew what the
   word meant. . . . I suppose it's wrong, but a state of pugnacity
   seems to me the greatest bliss we can reach here on earth."

   "I shouldn't like to be always fighting."

   "That's because you haven't known Sir Timothy Beeswax and two or
   three other gentlemen whom I could name. The day will come, I dare
   say, when you will care about politics."

In _The Prime Minister_ we reach the culmination of the political
career of two of Trollope's favorite characters, and we learn how
they handled the acquisition and the loss of power. And yet the
memorable part of the book is not the political drama but the
occurrence at the Tenway Junction, when Ferdinand Lopez finishes his
meteoric career by throwing himself under the wheels of the morning
express from Euston to Inverness. As in some of his other works (such
as _Can You Forgive Her?_ in which Plantagenet and Glencora steal
the scenes from the protagonists of the primary plot), the subplot
upstages the primary story line. Lopez preys on the weaknesses of
others (as does Lyndon Johnson in Caro's biography) and shrewdly
makes a place for himself. But it is a place that will not last.
Emily sees the real man she has married after the wedding ceremony
(as Lady Bird Johnson learned that she was to be humiliated in front
of their friends by her husband's peremptory and petty orders).
Perhaps the most unpalatable of Lopez's commands to his wife is his
telling her to "get round" her father in order to satisfy Lopez's
urgent desire for money to cover his losses in speculation in guano.

Lopez's initial conquests include not only the Whartons but even
the Duchess of Omnium, who, still somewhat aggrieved after years of
marriage that she was not allowed to marry the beautiful scoundrel
Burgo Fitzgerald, has a weakness for charming and beautiful young
scoundrels. There are no bounds to Lopez's ambition and effrontery:
having lost an election in the Duke's home borough of Silverbridge
and having had his campaign expenses reimbursed by his father-in-law
Mr. Wharton, he writes the Duke and demands that the five hundred
pounds expenses be paid by the Duke, since his wife had encouraged
him to run for the office and the Duke had compelled her to withdraw
the endorsement of "the Castle." Somewhat to his surprise, Lopez's
letter hits a vulnerable target, and the Duke sends five hundred
pounds.

Nemesis stalks Lopez in the form of the market for guano, which fails
to meet his expectations and requirements, and the steadfast refusal
of Mr. Wharton to send good money after bad. And so to the Tenway
Junction. Like so many others, he thought he could walk on water.

So maybe this is why Trollope has a virtual monopoly on the political
novel (and also the church novel). Scoundrels are more interesting.
But wait; are there scoundrels in politics? Of course there are. This
is where the biographer comes in with the life of Lyndon Johnson.
For better or worse, that story wasn't fiction. One wishes for a
latter-day Anthony Trollope to give us a story of such a towering
figure, unencumbered by the requirements of nonfiction.




THE OLD ORDER PASSETH

THE DUKE'S CHILDREN


Do I identify more with the Duke of Omnium, or with Lord
Silverbridge, as the Duke tells Isabelle Boncassen, "My boy's wife
shall be my daughter in very deed"? Would I be so close to tears
when he gives her his late wife's ring, if I had not known Glencora
through the previous five novels of the Palliser series? _The Duke's
Children_ stands up very well on its own, but its force is clearly
enhanced by its predecessors. While the characters from previous
novels may be received as old friends in new stages of their lives,
their children may be presented as various mixtures of their parents'
personalities. The reader greets the children in the process of
making the transition to adulthood with the pleasure of recognition
of the character traits of the parents.

Lady Glencora, Duchess of Omnium, has died in the interval between
_The Prime Minister_ and _The Duke's Children_, but her influence
persists. She has sanctioned the suit of Francis Tregear, an
impoverished commoner, for the hand of her daughter Lady Mary
without the Duke's knowledge. So here is a variation on the theme of
Glencora's love for the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald, which she never
pretended to give up after her arranged marriage to Plantagenet
Palliser. We find her daughter Lady Mary perhaps less reckless but
even more persistent, and successful, in her chosen love. Tregear has
apparently gotten over his previous love for Lady Mabel Grex, whom
the Duke favors for his son's wife, and Tregear shows himself to be a
more worthy individual than the dissolute Burgo.

Lord Silverbridge sows his wild oats as one would expect of
Glencora's son, but like Prince Hal, he grows appropriately into
recognition of his responsibilities. The reader sees, before the Duke
brings himself to acknowledge it, that Silverbridge makes a wise
choice in his selection of the American Isabelle Boncassen as the
object of his affections.

Gerald, the younger son, plays a lesser role but manages to repent of
some relatively minor offenses: he manages to continue with college
studies, and his gambling debts do not compare in magnitude to those
of his older and more richly endowed brother.

New blood is brought into the family, new faces appear in the story.
The woman who brings a bit of spice is Lady Mabel Grex. She has loved
her childhood friend, Francis Tregear, but she decided that since
they were both penniless, each had better marry for money. (Shades
of Lady Laura Standish!) Tregear goes on to better things, as bees
flit from flower to flower, but Lady Mabel never loses her love.
She reveals herself when she confides to her older companion Miss
Cassewary that Lord Silverbridge would have proposed to her if
she had given him any encouragement, but "I spared him;--out of
sheer downright Christian charity! I said to myself, 'Love your
neighbours.' 'Don't be selfish.' 'Do unto him as you would he should
do unto you,'--that is, think of his welfare. Though I had him in my
net, I let him go. Shall I go to heaven for doing that?"

Isabel Boncassen, her successor in the Duchess of Omnium sweepstakes,
faces different challenges from those that confront Lady Mabel.
Frankly in love with Silverbridge, her disadvantage is one not
readily appreciated on this side of the Atlantic: she is American. As
Lady Mabel is revealed in the above passage, so we see Isabel as she
walks with Silverbridge among the old graves at Matching and hears
him tell her how Sir Guy ran away with half a dozen heiresses.

   "Nobody should have run away with me. I have no idea of going on
   such a journey except on terms of equality,--just step and step
   alike." Then she took hold of his arm and put out one foot. "Are
   you ready?"

The action of the story is all carried out by the young people. They
gamble and lose, they fall in love, they run for office, they scheme
and dally, they sin and reform. But the story is really about the one
person who doesn't do anything: the Duke of Omnium. Grieved by the
sudden loss of his wife and forced to deal with issues she would have
addressed--basically, the children--he is forced to learn that where
the children are concerned, even the Duke is far from omnipotent. One
who had stated that he would prefer the House of Commons to the House
of Lords, he is found defending the order and telling his children
of their obligation to marry within their rank. He instructs Miss
Boncassen on the opportunity that the poorest man in England has to
rise by merit to the highest office in the land, and he has long
conversations with Isabel on the advantages of a decimal coinage
system, but it never occurs to him that her wit and beauty should
outweigh the rank of Lady Mabel Grex as qualifications for becoming
his son's wife.

Lest the reader miss the irony, Trollope spells it out in telling the
reader that in his heart of hearts the Duke kept his own family and
his own self entirely apart from his grand theories. "That one and
the same man should have been in one part of himself so unlike the
other part,--that he should have one set of opinions so contrary to
another set,--poor Isabel Boncassen did not understand."

The Duke must decide whether to give his blessing to two marriages to
which he has been unalterably opposed. And his guide and counselor in
these issues is his late wife's best friend, Mrs. Phineas Finn, the
former Madame Max Goesler. Stubborn and taciturn, he is not an easy
pupil. And she must first overcome his anger when he discovers that
she had not come immediately to him when Lady Mary told her of her
engagement to Mr. Tregear. Of course his late wife had first sinned
in this way, but Marie Goesler Finn is the scapegoat for Glencora
just as Alice Vavasor had been when Glencora insisted on walking in
the priory ruins on a cold night, despite Alice's objections, and
caught cold. Mrs. Finn refuses to be shunned by the Duke, becomes his
confidante, and she continues in her role as the only character in
the entire Palliser series who is always right. Married to Phineas
Finn, who had once refused her own proposal of marriage to him, we
see very little of their interaction in married life. But in her role
as best friend to Glencora, we saw her as a voice of reason when
Glencora was flighty, and later as one who would rouse the phlegmatic
Duke to deal appropriately with Silverbridge's and Lady Mary's
choices.

This interview occurs near the midway point of the novel, and with
this the reader can guess that in the end the Duke will permit the
marriage and even ask Mr. Tregear what his Christian name is. But
this is a political novel. Back to business. After all, entire
chapters are devoted to the maneuvers by which Sir Timothy Beeswax
attempts to maintain his power with the Conservative government.
Again we see politics as it is. The moves are not too complex for a
Trollope novel, but they are too complex for a brief review. Suffice
it to say that no government lasts forever, and the Duke is obliged
to deal with political adversity. It isn't easy for him; but it
is not for nothing that the Duke is one of Trollope's favorite
creations.

A pleasant book. England moves on. A segment of the Liberal
Party finds itself obliged to become more liberal than had been
anticipated. The Palliser series comes to an end, and the readers
(especially those of us who have developed a sentimental attachment
to this seemingly aloof family) are entertained.




RUINS, RUIN, AND RUINED

THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN


I've never cared very much for junkyard photography. By this I mean
rusty plows, abandoned automobiles, houses falling in, storefronts
with broken glass. Of course ruins always have a certain appeal; the
remains of an old well can be seen beside a trail leading down toward
the river from my house. Who knows what happened around that old
site? But rust and ruin have a limited appeal. Anthony Trollope
encountered the ruins of an old country house on a visit to Drumsna,
Ireland, in 1843, while working for the Post Office. As recorded
in his autobiography, "It was one of the most melancholy spots I
ever visited . . . and while I was still among the ruined walls
and decayed beams I fabricated the plot of _The Macdermots of
Ballycloran_." The story that resulted from this visit might do very
well to pass away a dull afternoon riding through the country; but
I found the leisurely pace of the six hundred page novel tedious.
Ruins, ruin, and ruined.

This was Trollope's first novel. He was twenty-eight years old, and
he had been in Ireland five years, traveling through the countryside
as a clerk to a postal surveyor. One of the primary rules for writers
is to write about what one knows about, and he did that. But he would
have never survived as an author on forty-six more such novels. Over
the next decade he was to write two more rather indifferent novels
and then begin _The Warden_, the first of the Barsetshire novels
and predecessor to _Barchester Towers_, his best known work. It's
one thing for a writer to have the requisite skills; it's another
thing--whether by chance or design--to hit upon a subject or a
character that will "take off." Writers are sometimes surprised by
what the public likes and what it doesn't. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
looked upon Sherlock Holmes as a distraction from his higher calling
as a writer of historical novels, until he realized that Holmes was
his meal ticket. Few readers know anything about his historical
novels. And for Trollope, the worlds of _Barchester Towers_ and the
Pallisers secured his place in English literature.

But back to the dreary world of the Macdermots. First, be warned that
their story, which doesn't start very well, doesn't end well, either,
as a visitor to the ruins of their country house might suspect. Larry
Macdermot, reigning patriarch, is on the verge of losing his house,
his property and his mind. His daughter Feemy is seduced by the
English revenue agent. Larry's son Thady, the central focus of
the story, has a violent encounter with Feemy's lover when she is
reluctant to elope with him. It's an unhappy time for the clan.

It wasn't a happy time for Ireland, either, and the great potato
famine hadn't even started yet. The English of that day were not very
interested in reading about the details of daily life of the people
whom they were oppressing. Trollope, on the other hand, was a young
man just beginning to achieve some success and self-confidence in his
voluntary exile to serve among these impoverished people. He used his
skills to portray them with accuracy and even with sympathy, even
though he was a loyal son of England and man of his times and felt
no obligation to accord them any more than token respect. Describing
Father Cullen, he writes, "He felt towards Keegan all the abhorrence
which a very bigoted and ignorant Roman Catholic could feel towards a
Protestant convert." An accurate account, perhaps, but could such a
frank sentence be written today?

The plot is well laid out, and the story is well told, but the
reader is required to plow through the Irish dialect--"'Yer honer
won't be afther taking an innocent boy like me,' began Tim, 'that
knows nothing at all at all about it.'" This is fair enough--the
reader knows he's reading about a different country in a different
century--but it does take a bit of adjustment.

Trollope loved sporting scenes, usually fox hunting, and in this one
we have a horse race scene, described in the words of the spectators
much like the scene at Ascot Opening Day in _My Fair Lady_: "There
they go--Hurroo! They're off. Faix, there's Playful at her tricks
already--by dad she'll be over the ropes!"

The pace of the book is leisurely, a common feature of Victorian
novels. On the morning after a wedding, the reader is wondering
whether any mischief came to Captain Ussher, and whether he survived
the night after "the boys" had threatened to put him under the sod.
But such concerns must be suspended for an account of how several
of the characters felt about things. After four and a half pages
of Thady's reflections, he happens to meet Ussher in the road, and
the reader surmises that Ussher was not killed. We can see where
minimalist fiction came from.

Another source of tedium is that the three Macdermots have hardly
any redeeming features--a sleazy lot, with whom it is difficult to
sympathize.

But one does find evidence of Trollope's facility to entertain. He
excels in introductory summaries of his characters. About Feemy,
whose mother and grandmother had died early, we are told:

   Whatever her feelings were,--and for her mother they were
   strong,--the real effect of this was, that she was freed from the
   restraint and constant scolding of two stupid women at a very
   early age; consequently she was left alone with her father and her
   brother, neither of whom were at all fitting guides for so wayward
   a pupil. . . . Her father had become almost like the tables and
   chairs in the parlour, only much less useful and more difficult to
   move.

The trial scene near the end of the book is well done; Trollope
excelled in trial scenes, particularly in _Orley Farm_ and _Phineas
Redux_. When he introduces Mr. Allewinde, he shows us his frustration
in attempting to examine Pat Brady, a reluctant witness whose literal
responses remind today's reader of "Who's on First?"

The most successful comic interlude is that of the duel between Jonas
Brown and Counsellor Webb, two of the three magistrates who hear the
case of Thady Macdermot and differ on the question of his guilt. When
he receives a response to his challenge, Mr. Brown's two sons comfort
him by telling him not to worry about his legs because Webb will
fire high. "The shoulder's the spot," unless he takes him on the
head--"which wouldn't be so pleasant," and he'd rather take his
chances with a chap that fired low. The other brother disagrees.

   "The low shot's the death-shot. Why, man, if you did catch a ball
   in the head, you'd get over it--if it was in the mouth, or cheek,
   or neck, or anywhere but the temple; but your body's all over
   tender bits. May heaven always keep lead out of my bowels--I'd
   sooner have it in my brains."

As luck would have it, Brown catches a ball in the seat of his pants,
causing a bloody and inconvenient wound about an eighth of an inch
deep.

This is the closest thing to a happy ending in the book. This
reviewer's recommendation: Read the review. Skip the book.




THE IRISH AS OTHERS SEE THEM

THE KELLYS AND THE O'KELLYS


If you live in an age of political incorrectness, you may as well
take advantage of it. So Anthony Trollope might have told himself,
had he enjoyed the advantage of looking into the future to our
present age of political correctness. _The Kellys and the O'Kellys_
would not survive the scrutiny of present standards. "Faix, I b'lieve
his chief failing at present's fur sthrong dhrink!" Transcription of
the Irish forms of speech warns the present day reader to be wary;
this is something that may be unfair to the Irish. Uncle Remus fell
victim to such concerns and disappeared from view in 1986 when Disney
removed _Song of the South_ from circulation, and the glimpses of the
subservient blacks that we have in older films indicate that those
who use language in a distinctive way can be vulnerable to being
presented in a demeaning fashion.

Of course these were not the concerns of a fledgling nineteenth
century English writer who had spent five years in Ireland with the
postal service. One would suspect that the intended target audience
resided in England, not in Ireland. (This, his second novel, did
not sell well anywhere.) Features of Irish life are described to
inform the reading public in England, and those who did read it were
surely entertained as well. The description of an Irish kitchen is
accompanied, in the Folio Edition, by a full-page pen-and-ink drawing
which features a pig, two chickens, and two ragged old men sitting on
the floor, all of whom are described in detail.

Here we see Trollope discovering his comic gift. The tone of the
story is that of a cartoon comedy, Looney Tunes perhaps, with
rascally villains and seemingly inept heroes who seem destined to be
taken in by dastardly schemers. Lord Cashel, for instance, is shown
in the role of the wicked lord of the manor who only dimly suspects
how unlikely it is that any of his plots and plans will succeed. He
seizes an opportunity to refuse to allow one of the heroes of the
story, Lord Ballindine (Frank O'Kelly), to see Fanny Wyndham, the
object of his affection, who happens to be Lord Cashel's ward. Lord
Cashel has other plans for Fanny, who has come into an inheritance
that would wipe out the debts incurred by Lord Cashel's prodigal
son Lord Kilcullen. Fanny must marry his son! He is only slightly
bothered by Fanny's spirited vow to see her lover Frank O'Kelly
anyway, but despite his concern about her determination, he remains
confident in his own powers. As his plot unravels, one expects the
standard melodramatic line, "Curses! Foiled again!"

The most evil villain, though, is Barry Lynch, limited by his
sister's existence to only half of his late father's estate. He
daydreams about how his worries would all be washed away if his
sister should only be in some way detached from her worldly cares.
The English reader might view with detached amusement the schemes of
a profligate drunken young Irish lord who is staggered to learn that
his sister's acute illness might not be fatal, after all, and that
she might rise again to displace him.

There can be no sympathy for the dehumanized arch villain of this
dark comedy, described as having no residual feelings of human
kindness. Surely he can bribe the doctor to see to it that she
succumbs. And the reader can only smile as he calculates further what
payment he must offer, and then how he can get out of paying it.

On the other side of the moral ledger, the two heroes of the
story--Martin Kelly and Frank O'Kelly--are shown as young men
with good hearts. Martin is a young farmer who rents from several
landlords, including Lord Ballindine (Frank O'Kelly). At one point in
the story Lord Ballindine, a recovering prodigal in his own right,
is in need of three hundred pounds and thinks that his renter Martin
Kelly would be able to lend it to him. Martin hesitates, saying that
he has the money but had been thinking of using it in another way,
which would clear the way for him to marry Anty Lynch, sister of the
infamous Barry. Frank backs off, saying that he had forgotten about
Martin's "matrimonial speculation," and he advises him that though he
needs the cash, Martin had better keep it. But Martin says that his
mother could let him have the money on the security of the house, in
order that his Lordship should not be short of cash.

Thank goodness these two young Irishmen have good hearts; they need
them for redemption. Both of them make no bones about their plans to
marry for money. Though each maintains that he really loves the lady
of his choice, they both freely admit that it was the money that
first attracted them. Would Trollope have granted such a blot on the
escutcheon of one of his young English heroes?

Trollope's previous work, which was also his debut novel, told of the
fall of an old Irish family, _The Macdermots of Ballycloran_, with
little levity to relieve it. _The Kellys and the O'Kellys_, on the
other hand, is a comic novel. One may wonder whether Trollope is
laughing with the Irish or at them. The general impression is one of
affection, with a sharp eye for entertaining foibles. We must follow
a knotty skein of debts and obligations in a discussion of how Jerry
Blake got a pair of breeches to wear for Lord Ballindine's hunt. The
leather had to be purchased in Tuam, and an assistant tailor had to
leave his mother's wake and stay up all night sewing. The tailor,
however, had a long-standing debt for his garden, and the landlord
was a distant relation of Jerry Blake. So the long and tangled circle
is closed, and Jerry gets his breeches.

Lord Cashel appears as an earl whose cardinal virtues were negative
ones. He had learned that silence is sometimes mistaken for wisdom;
he had avoided intemperance, and he had not done too many stupid
things. He had avoided adultery, and since his marriage, he had not
seduced any of his neighbors' daughters. He was therefore "considered
a moral man."

Lady Selina is the first of Trollope's high-born old maids, too proud
to marry--unless someone asks her. Other examples were to include
Miss Sarah Marrable in _The Vicar of Bullhampton_ and Lady Amelia
De Courcy in _Dr. Thorne_. The rest of the family at Grey Abbey was
"dull, solemn, slow, and respectable," but Lady Selina, daughter of
the earl, exceeded them all. The "specific gravity of Lady Selina
could not be calculated. It was beyond the power of figures, even in
algebraic denominations, to describe her moral weight."

Cares can be put aside when one comes upon one of Trollope's
fox-hunting episodes. All is given up to the pleasure of the chase,
and of its anticipation, and of its recollection. Indeed one of the
markers of the successful huntsman is that his experience and his
horsemanship allow him to be a witness to the end of the fox so that
he can recount the details afterward. Character is revealed in the
field. In this case, the Protestant clergyman Reverend Armstrong
(whose only parishioner is Mrs. O'Kelly) is one of those who knows
every road and which way the wind is blowing, and how unlikely it is
that the fox would run against it. He shows himself to be a master
huntsman. Like experienced golfers who "putt for dough" while
the young men "drive for show," Mr. Armstrong spares his horse,
takes short-cuts, and is always at the scene of the kill before the
hard-riding gallants come galloping up a minute or two late.

Barry Lynch, on the other hand, cuts his horse in front of the hounds
as they approach a small stone wall, fatally injuring one of them.
Frank O'Kelly is obliged to send him home in disgrace.

(The bloody end to the fox hunt is no longer to be seen within the
restriction of English laws. The sport was banned in England in 2004.
Hunting enthusiasts, however, claim that the number of foxes killed
each year has actually increased since the ban.)

Lessons in the conduct of human affairs are to be found in Trollope's
work, another feature that _The Kellys and the O'Kellys_ shares with
some of his later and better-known works. For instance, doctors,
lawyers, and others who are paid to give advice learn sooner or later
that one can only advise; one cannot coerce. Professionals will
sometimes tell the recipient that they have given their best advice;
and it is up to them to decide whether to take it. We find the young
lawyer Mr. Daly resorting to this ploy as he finds that Barry Lynch
is disappointed not to have prospects for a more lucrative settlement
in a deal with Martin Kelly: "I've now given you my best advice; if
your mind's not yet made up, perhaps you'll have the goodness to let
me hear from you when it is?"

The story is a symmetrical one in which each of the two young heroes
finds his reward, virtue emerges triumphant, and the wicked are
vanquished. It's a warm-hearted romp in which young Anthony Trollope
showed that he had the tools to keep readers entertained for years.
My guess is that an Irishman can enjoy it as much as an Englishman.




A TALE OF NO CITY

LA VENDÉE


False starts are usually forgotten in the early phases of an
athlete's development. Young boys and girls may try their hand
at several different sports and then gravitate toward the best
opportunities for "showcasing their talents." Writers presumably
conduct their own trials and errors, too, with the misbegotten
products left buried in desk drawers, if not destroyed. Anthony
Trollope's false start, _La Vendée_, a historical romance, was
published, but it's fair to say that it has not been remembered. It
was his third novel, following two Irish novels, _The Macdermots of
Ballycloran_ and _The Kellys and the O'Kellys_, and it was followed
four years later by the first of his Barsetshire novels, _The
Warden_, which was a great success. By then Trollope knew where his
strength lay; he followed with _Barchester Towers_ and thereafter
he stuck to the world (mostly England) of his own day. He did not
attempt any more historical novels.

The worst thing about _La Vendée_ is the dialogue. Here's a
conversation between husband and wife as he prepares to leave for
war:

   "I know, Victorine," said he, when they were alone together in the
   evening, when not even his own dear sister Marie was there to mar
   the sacred sweetness of their conference, "I know that I am doing
   right, and that gives me strength to leave you, and our darling
   child."

He goes on for another paragraph or two.

Except for the stilted, wordy dialogue, the story is not so bad.
It follows a lost cause, that of the citizens of La Vendée, an
agricultural region in the west of France that my wife and I drove
through on our way from Normandy to Bordeaux several years ago. These
faithful servants of the king opposed the republican forces of the
French Revolution, and they were annihilated. We follow the men
and women of the doomed faction: Jacques Cathelineau, the humble
postilion who is elected first military leader of the royalists,
and who is loved by the noble and lovely Agatha Larochejaquelin;
Agatha's brother Henri, who succeeds Cathelineau as general of the
royalist forces, and who loves Marie de Lescure; and Marie's brother
Charles and his wife Victorine. That makes three couples. There is
also a little comic relief of sorts with Jacques Chapeau, Henri
Larochejacquelin's servant, who woos Annot Stein, daughter of the
blacksmith Michael Stein. A saucy wench, Annot teases Jacques by
praising Cathelineau the general.

There is also Adolphe Denot, Henri's proud friend who loves Adolphe's
sister Agatha and is rejected in a dramatic proposal scene, so
prolonged that "Agatha began to fear that at this rate the interview
would have no end. If Adolphe remained with his arm on the marble
slab, and his head on one side, making sentimental speeches till
she should give him encouragement to fall at her feet, it certainly
would not be ended by bedtime." Adolphe is a strange case. Stung by
Agatha's refusal, he goes forth to battle determined to die, but he
disgraces himself by failing to support M. de Lescure in storming a
breach in the wall. He then disappears, switches sides, and leads
the republican forces into battle. Finally he reappears as the "Mad
Captain," leading the royalist forces in suicidal charges.

The battle scenes are well described, detained only by a few lengthy
speeches by the heroes as they swing their swords.

Fictional characters mingle with the historical ones, and even
Robespierre appears in two consecutive chapters unto himself. The
upper classes of England were horrified by the French Revolution, and
the author's judgment of Robespierre is an example:

   Honesty, moral conduct, industry, constancy of purpose, temperance
   in power, courage, and love of country: these virtues all belonged
   to Robespierre; . . . Why, instead of the Messiah of freedom,
   which he believed himself to be, has his name become a byword, a
   reproach, and an enormity? Because he wanted faith! He believed in
   nothing but himself, and the reasoning faculty with which he felt
   himself to be endowed. He thought himself perfect in his own human
   nature, and wishing to make others perfect as he was, he fell
   into the lowest abyss of crime and misery in which a poor human
   creature ever wallowed. He seems almost to have been sent into
   the world to prove the inefficacy of human reason to effect human
   happiness.

We see Robespierre directly only in these two chapters toward the
end of the book. Trollope was not above passing judgment on his
characters, but I don't recall another exclamation like, "Because
he wanted faith!" These two didactic chapters are not necessary to
the story line, but the horrors of the French Revolution are hardly
amenable to understatement. Though they would be the first to go in
any abridgement, they do help put the whole story into historical
perspective.

Trollope never visited La Vendée. His story is based primarily on
the memoirs of Madame de la Rochejacquelin, who appears in the book
with the name of her first husband, M. de Lescure. She subsequently
married the younger brother of Henri de Larochejacquelin and bore him
eight children before he was killed in a second Vendean revolt in
1815. Among the fictional characters were Marie Larochejacquelin and
Adolphe Denot. How would Trollope end his story of this disaster? He
created a happy interlude, and he made the best of it.

Dickens was more comfortable with the French Revolution in _A Tale
of Two Cities_, written ten years later when he was at the peak of
his powers. Its dialogue was almost as stilted, and Dickens was no
stranger to a bit of purple prose. But his energy and passion allowed
him to carry it off. (And it is reported to be the all-time best
seller of books written originally in English.) Such a story was not
Anthony Trollope's cup of tea, particularly when he was a novice
still searching for his métier. Perhaps this clumsy attempt at
historical fiction helps us appreciate the facility with which he
later portrayed contemporary English folk. If there is a rule that
allows us to discard one of an author's efforts before passing
judgment on his work, let this be it for Trollope. Let us pass on to
Barsetshire.




THE OFFICE

THE THREE CLERKS


_The Three Clerks_ is an inside book, written about the Civil Service
by one who had himself begun his Postal Service career as a clerk. It
holds up to gentle fun its little ways, its principles of management,
and the ingrained habits of thought held by its faithful servants.
(The present day reader may conclude that bureaucracies don't change
much.) Office politics, infighting, and intrigues provide grist for
the author's mill, and he makes good use of it. The story deals with
three young Postal Service clerks and the family of a widow with
three fair young daughters. Here, too, the author has something to
work on: Will they pair off? If so, how? And how will the pairings
turn out? And what of the young men and their careers in the Service?
Who will advance, who will waste his talents? How will they deal with
Temptation?

Henry Norman appears first, the second son of a gentleman of small
property, one who plods through his duties and his courtship. Alaric
Tudor was raised in Brussels, became an orphan, and finds himself at
a desk adjacent to Henry Norman, with whom he subsequently shares
lodgings. Alaric is street smart, knows how to advance himself, and
opts for expediency over principle. Charley Tudor, son of a clergyman
and a young cousin of Alaric, proves himself susceptible to the
temptations offered by street life in London.

And the widow in the cottage near Hampton Court? Her late husband was
a cousin of Harry Norman's father, so naturally Mrs. Woodward invites
young Harry and his friends to visit on weekends.

Although the reader is entertained by the portrayal of the
Departments of Internal Navigation and Weights and Measures, the book
hangs mainly on the plot, and the story is basically that of the six
young people. Harry falls in love with the eldest sister Gertrude,
but Alaric wins her away from him and earns his sustained hatred.
Harry subsequently settles for the second sister Linda, who initially
thought she was in love with Alaric, who was false with her as well
as with Harry. In the course of the story the youngest sister Katie
grows up from thirteen to seventeen and falls in love with Charley,
who saves her life by pulling her from the water.

Three brides for three friends: perhaps this wasn't so unusual in
Victorian times when meetings, much less friendships, among eligible
young people weren't always so easy to obtain. But then the results:
the first two couplings are plausible enough, but Katie, the
youngest, becomes chronically ill with unrequited love, and although
the reader is reassured that the doctors who listen to her chest
through wooden tubes find no evidence of consumption, the anxious
reader fears that the author will let her die. Trollope became known
as a skeptic of Shakespeare's dictum: "Men will die and worms will
eat them, but not of love."

We are reminded how Australia was populated as Alaric takes his
family there for a fresh start after serving six months in jail for
betraying the trust of a young woman for whom he was named trustee.
And we see how Victorians did their insider trading, as Alaric is
persuaded by the villain of the story, Undy Scott, to buy shares
in mines that he is evaluating for the Department of Weights and
Measures.

And Trollope indulges in certain liberties. He satirizes the
publishing world with Charley Tudor's writing serial novels, and here
we find Mrs. Woodward reading _Crinoline and Macassar_ aloud to the
young people: "The lovely Crinoline was sitting alone at a lattice
window on a summer morning, and as she sat she sang with melancholy
cadence the first part of the now celebrated song which had then
lately appeared. . . ."

Thirteen pages of Chapter XXVIII are devoted entirely to an
impassioned defense of the Civil Service, particularly of the
young men who work there. This chapter is absent from my small
leather-bound edition published in 1878 but is restored in the
Trollope Society edition of 1992, which follows the text of the first
edition, published in 1858. The chapter is irrelevant to the story;
it does, however, reveal where the author is coming from. He is
coming from the Civil Service, which was his ticket to self-respect
and financial independence.

Finally, the first three pages of Chapter XLV, "The Criminal
Population is Disposed of," are given to a comparison of this novel's
villain, Undecimus Scott, with Bill Sikes. Was Charles Dickens
flattered that his villain of _Oliver Twist_ was so honored by his
colleague Anthony Trollope, who apologized in the text that he could
not give Undy Scott so "decent an end" as that given to Bill Sikes?

It must be added that Trollope considered _The Three Clerks_ to be
his best work yet, better than _The Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_.
Contemporary critics agreed with him, including Robert and Elizabeth
Barrett Browning. What were they thinking? Perhaps Trollope
overestimated his portrayal of Charley Tudor, who may well have been
a self-portrait of the hobbledehoy who aspired to write novels but
found female companionship in a social class beneath his own--indeed,
having to withstand an attack in his office by the mother of a young
woman who considered herself to be ill used.

Today's reader may well wonder why _The Three Clerks_ was ever rated
higher than _The Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_. Posterity has
certainly not concurred. In the case of Trollope's novels, religion,
like politics, has trumped bureaucracy.

The book, however, primarily tells the story of six young people.
I must confess that I found myself tiring of them before the author
did.




THE PROUD YOUNG LOVERS

THE BERTRAMS


"For the first fortnight she did not leave the house." This sentence,
in Chapter XXXVII of _The Bertrams_ by Anthony Trollope, epitomizes
the difficulty for the present day reader in understanding a
Victorian novel. Things have changed a great deal since then, but
surely the place of women is fundamental. Did not leave her house!

Lady Harcourt was in great distress. She had left her husband (she
had virtually fled), and he had the legal right to apprehend her and
force her to return to his home. Divorce was not an option for her.
The action of the book takes place in 1845-1848. Only in 1857 (a year
before the book was written) did the Matrimonial Causes Act give
women limited access to divorce. Under this act the husband only had
to prove his wife's adultery to obtain a divorce, but a woman had
not only to prove her husband's having committed adultery; she also
had to prove incest, bigamy, cruelty, or desertion. And so she was
legally and permanently bound to a husband who owned their home. The
law regarded a married couple as one person; the husband had a legal
obligation to protect his wife; she was bound to obey him. Personal
property brought to the marriage by the wife then belonged to the
husband, even after a divorce if one could be obtained. Her income
belonged completely to her husband. A man's home was his castle, and
the wife was part of the deal.

One has to understand these givens in order to follow the
implications of the story. The wedding of Caroline Waddington to Sir
Henry Harcourt created a significant problem for the central lovers
of the story, Miss Waddington and George Bertram. As the enormity
of her mistake became apparent to her, Caroline (now Lady Harcourt)
realized that there was no good way out. These days, she would do as
a senior friend of mine, a professed atheist, said he would do if,
to his surprise, he should find himself standing at the Pearly Gates
after his death. "I would say, 'Gentlemen, it appears that I have
made a horrible mistake.'" And then she would get a divorce and marry
her true love with no questions asked. But her options were few and
unattractive: She could flee abroad, as Lady Laura Standish did with
her father, to escape her crazed husband, in Trollope's _Phineas
Finn_. She could (if the husband would permit it) live openly with
her lover, as did George Eliot. But just as Hollywood movies follow
an apparently tacit code of audience acceptability, so Trollope was
unwilling to send his central figures to Europe to live together,
as Glencora Palliser had contemplated doing with her lover Burgo
Fitzgerald in _Can You Forgive Her?_ (Glencora couldn't bring herself
to do this, and she learned to love her husband Plantagenet Palliser,
after a certain acceptable fashion.) Lady Harcourt's husband could
die of illness or injury, or someone could murder him, or he could
commit suicide. Trollope was not scrupulous about revealing the
outcome in advance. The reader is warned, and suicide is chosen.
(This was also the means of exit and retribution for Ferdinand Lopez
in _The Prime Minister_ and of Augustus Melmotte in _The Way We Live
Now_.)

Trollope did not consider himself a feminist; he professed a
conservative view of society. But he was a realist who described the
world as he found it. And his findings speak for themselves. The
constraints placed upon women turn up again and again, in almost
every novel he wrote.

Some of the action takes place in the Middle East, and this glimpse
of the experience of touring there a century and a half ago provides
a virtual visit to Jerusalem as it was then: a walled city with
no suburbs, appearing as "a fortress of cards built craftily on a
table," where one enters and suddenly realizes "that you are beyond
the region of passports."

And the description of the environs provides an uncensored and
not necessarily tactful view of "all the absurdity" of the "dark
unfurnished gloomy cave in which the Syrian Christians worship, so
dark that the eye cannot at first discover its only ornament--a small
ill-made figure of the crucified Redeemer."

The author would probably be the object of a fatwah today for his
description of the Moslem washerwomen as "ape-like" and the Jewish
washerwomen as "glorious specimens of feminine creation."

Alexandria--"that most detestable of cities"--does not fare well. Nor
do the pyramids, though they must be visited. "But let no man, and,
above all, no woman, assume that the excursion will be in any way
pleasurable. . . . And let this also be remembered, that nothing is
to be gained by entering the pyramid except dirt, noise, stench,
vermin, abuse, and want of air."

A twenty-first century editor might cringe at Trollope's assertion
that "as a rule, a Mahomedan hates a Christian. . . . But in Egypt we
have caused ourselves to be better respected: we thrash the Arabs and
pay them, and therefore they are very glad to see us anywhere."

And yet in the next four pages Trollope gives us as vivid a picture
of the performance of whirling dervishes as we are likely to find.

But the lowly place of women in society was an obvious part of the
landscape, and the travelers' observations were only window dressing;
the business of the novel has to do primarily with the relationship
between George Herbert and Caroline Waddington, and secondarily,
between Arthur Wilkinson and Adela Gauntlet. George Herbert is a
proud young man, and Miss Waddington is a proud young woman. David
Skilton's pen-and-ink drawing opposite page 110 in the Folio Society
edition of 1993 tells it all: With the walled city of Jerusalem
represented in the background, George sits on the barren ground
looking away, unhappily, to his right. Miss Waddington, parasol
over her head to protect her from the sun, stands looking away in
the opposite direction. He has just told her of his newly formed
resolution to become a clergyman, and she has poured cold water
on his enthusiasm, reminding him that he is eligible for a noble
position that would be preferable to a country parsonage.

When he protests that a vicar's career can be noble, she replies, "I
judge by what I see. They are generally fond of eating, very cautious
about their money, untidy in their own houses, and apt to go to sleep
after dinner."

These two young people, both with strong personalities, are clearly
in love with each other. He gives up his idea of being a clergyman;
he decides to study law. He proposes, and she accepts. He presses for
an early wedding date; she demurs, saying that they must wait until
he has been called to the bar, which will take two or three years.
She is afraid that a small income would fray their love for each
other. Neither will compromise. The engagement is broken, and she
marries his friend, a rising star in the legal and political world.

Behind all this is the possible legacy of his rich uncle. George,
however, refuses to humor his uncle for the sake of becoming his
heir.

Such lovers' stories occur all the time. Family relationships still
matter, and they still require cultivation. But as the inner thinking
of each of the lovers was revealed in great detail throughout the
story, I found myself protesting that these weren't real people like
any the author had known. They were characters set up in a plot, and
the turns of the story were just that: turns for the sake of the
story, not turns that a real person would make.

Trollope summarizes the story of the progressively colder nature of
their engagement with this retrospective view: "Each was too proud to
make the first concession to the other, and therefore no concession
was made by either."

No one can read this sentence and wonder what the book is about. But
the reader may feel that it's all a fable. This is where the story
starts, and the details are just filled in.

Perhaps the author's style accounted for my reaction: Raymond Carver
or Ernest Hemingway might have presented the same story in a more
convincing fashion, leaving out all the details of the thinking and
giving us only a few scraps of dialogue to explain the action. In
this instance, I failed to overcome being accustomed to the fast pace
of "the way we live now," and I could not immerse myself in the more
leisurely pace of the nineteenth century world. As I followed their
thoughts through each turn of the story, I became so impatient with
the stubbornness of George Herbert and Caroline Waddington that I
lost my sympathy for them. It's hard to be a good fan when your team
is losing.

Little bright spots appear throughout the book. The dialogue between
Caroline, as Lady Harcourt, and her husband strikes a note of
detachment reminiscent of the dialogue in Noel Coward's _Private
Lives_. One can almost hear Carol Lawrence saying Lady Harcourt's
lines in response to her husband's question:

   "I hope you are happy, Caroline?" said Sir Henry, as he gently
   squeezed the hand that was so gently laid upon his arm.

   "Happy! Oh yes--I am happy. I don't believe, you know, in a great
   deal of very ecstatic happiness. I never did."

Trollope shamelessly introduces some welcome comic relief in the form
of a deaf lady and her ear trumpet when Miss Todd, an outspoken woman
who travels in society, takes her young charge Adela Gauntlet on a
social call to one of the grand dames of Littlebath (obviously a
pseudonym for Bath). Miss Todd proposes that they take turns of five
minutes each in talking to her and then leave after three turns.

Miss Todd is a slightly older Miss Dunstable from _Dr. Thorne_.
Having enough money to speak her mind, she does so with relish, as in
her defense of playing cards in a conversation with a clergyman of
Littlebath:

   "What are old women like us to do? We haven't eyes to read at
   night, even if we had minds fit for it. We can't always be saying
   our prayers. We have nothing to talk about except scandal. It's
   better than drinking; and we should come to that if we hadn't
   cards."

A carriage ride is one of Trollope's favorite settings for intimate
conversation, with the horse sometimes getting the worst of it, as in
Chapter XXI of _Framley Parsonage_, "Why Puck, the Pony, Was Beaten."
In this story, it is Dumpling who catches a few impatient words as
Arthur Wilkinson, the timid and browbeaten parson, speaks his mind
(partially) to Adela Gauntlet, almost but not quite proposing. She
patiently waits for him to grow up a bit. Dumpling bears the brunt of
Wilkinson's timidity.

George's father, Sir Lionel Bertram, squanders his paternal capital
by sponging on his son for money. He fails to insert himself into
his brother's will, and he fails in two successive attempts to marry
money: "That utterance of the verbiage of love is a disagreeable task
for a gentleman of his years. He had tried it, and found it very
disagreeable. He would save himself a repetition of the nuisance and
write to her."

But back to the central story of Caroline Waddington: Chapter XXXVI,
"A Matrimonial Dialogue," closes the marriage between her and Lord
Harcourt. It is a classic Trollopian serious interview, in which Lady
Harcourt routs her proud husband. She tells him that she did not
invite Mr. Herbert to their house because she loved him so much that
she was afraid to meet him. "As she said this she still looked into
his face fearlessly--we may almost say boldly; so much so that Sir
Henry's eyes almost quailed before hers. On this she had at any rate
resolved, that she would never quail before him."

When Bertram writes an angry letter to Caroline, Trollope inserts
instruction about writing such letters which could be included among
the little lessons of life to be gleaned from reading his novels:
"Sit down and write your letter; write it with all the venom in your
power . . . and, as a matter of course, burn it before breakfast the
next morning." He goes on to extol pleasant letters, concluding his
advice for letter writing: "But, above all things, see that it be
good-humored."

A modern novel would omit Trollope's last chapter, and he himself
issues an apology for it: "Methinks it is almost unnecessary to write
this last chapter. The story, as I have had to tell it, is all told.
The object has been made plain--or, if not, can certainly not be made
plainer in these last six or seven pages. . . . But, nevertheless,
custom, and the desire of making an end of the undertaken work, and
in some sort completing it, compel me to this concluding chapter."
Things work themselves out within the conventions of the day. A
guiltless ending such as might be implied today could not be allowed,
and the lovers whose course we have followed with a bit of impatience
must accept the scraps of happiness that their world could accept.

I love Trollope's good-humored novels; the grim ones, like _He Knew
He was Right_ and parts of this one, are a bit like unpleasant
letters. _The Bertrams_ has enough good humor to carry us through.
The proud young lovers, however, are hard to love.




COPING WITH STARVATION

CASTLE RICHMOND


People of Irish descent, I recently learned, comprise thirteen
percent of the population of the county where I live, matched only
by those of German descent, also thirteen percent. (Other leading
ancestry groups are English, ten percent; black, six percent; and
Mexican, five percent.) Irish are also the most numerous ancestry
group in the counties where my Arkansas children live; and in the
county where I grew up, they are the most numerous white ancestry
group. (Irish are six percent, blacks forty-six percent.)

That I was surprised to learn this probably indicates that I haven't
been paying attention. My wife's grandfather came directly from
County Cavan, in Ireland; and the family of one of my sons-in-law
came from Ireland. Perhaps Irish names aren't as obvious as some
of the German names. And of course the English got a head start in
Virginia and New England. The big reason for the Irish numbers is the
Irish potato famine, which began in 1845, when an estimated one and a
half million people died and one million emigrated.

Anthony Trollope said that before he decided on "Castle Richmond" as
the title for the book, he considered a title which would mention
the famine. Such a title would have been more descriptive, though
it might perhaps have discouraged a number of readers, including
me. This would have been unfortunate, because in stumbling into the
unknown territory of one of his lesser known novels, I found myself
immersed in the most powerful chapter I have found in Trollope. One
would have to survey Holocaust and other war stories for chapters
of similar impact. Young Herbert Fitzgerald sets out to ride across
the countryside to Desmond Court, the home of his fiancée, to
determine whether their marriage is to take place, and in so doing
he encounters a rainstorm, forcing him to seek shelter. He enters a
cabin without knocking; he even rides his horse inside, which, the
author assures us, was customary there. The interior is so dark he
at first cannot tell whether anyone is at home. The floor is sod,
the walls are bare, and there is only a very little furniture, very
plain. As his eyes become accustomed to the dark, he sees a woman
sitting cross-legged on the floor with a baby in her arms. He later
discovers the body of a four-year-old daughter in the corner.

   In those days there was a form of face which came upon the
   sufferers when their state of misery was far advanced, and which
   was a sure sign that their last stage of misery was nearly run.
   The mouth would fall and seem to hang, the lips at the two ends of
   the mouth would be dragged down, and the lower parts of the cheeks
   would fall as though they had been dragged and pulled. There were
   no signs of acute agony when this phasis of countenance was to be
   seen, none of the horrid symptoms of gnawing hunger by which one
   generally supposes that famine is accompanied. The look is one of
   apathy, desolation, and death. When custom had made these signs
   easily legible, the poor doomed wretch was known with certainty.

Sir William Osler could hardly have written a more informative
description of the clinical signs of starvation in _The Principles
and Practice of Medicine_. Trollope knew the signs; he had gone to
Ireland in 1841 as a clerk to a postal surveyor, traveling about the
country under orders from the surveyors. He was promoted to surveyor
fifteen years later, and he did not return to England until 1859, the
year he began _Castle Richmond_.

Mike, the starving woman's husband, had become a cripple through
rheumatism and could not do the public work on the roads. This would
have qualified him and his family for the poorhouse, but he may not
have known this. He had found someone who would hire him to do a
little work in return for a little food, and he had stolen from his
employer a small amount of "Indian corn-flour"--the yellow meal made
from corn sent from America--but it had failed to sustain her and the
children.

Although Herbert tried to send help, no one was in a hurry to answer
the call. "But had they flown to the spot on the wings of love, it
would not have sufficed to prolong her life one day. Her doom had
been spoken before Herbert had entered the cabin."

Trollope indulges in a little Victorian eloquence to conclude his
story, which otherwise could be a case history. What would Dickens
have done with such a story? The poor woman would have been borne to
Heaven in the arms of angels. And if this had been a chapter in a
book by Dickens, we might all know this story from the Irish Potato
Famine.

The book isn't really about the potato famine. It just took place
at the time of the famine. The story is one of those stories of a
question of birth, which are so common in the novels from the period.
In this case, we find Sir Thomas Fitzgerald of Castle Richmond being
blackmailed by Mr. Matthew Mollett, who tells him that he was Lady
Fitzgerald's first husband, and that he was not dead, as he had been
assumed to be, when she married Sir Thomas. This would mean that
her marriage to Sir Thomas is null and void, and that Sir Thomas's
children are illegitimate–-and that his son Herbert will not inherit
the estate, which would then fall to a cousin, Owen Fitzgerald. All
this leaves Sir Thomas in a state of nervous collapse, from which he
does not recover.

We also have the story of a young woman, Lady Clara Desmond, who
proceeds, in the fullness of time, from one engagement to another. As
a young girl she pledged herself to Owen Fitzgerald, but her mother,
the Countess of Desmond, reminded her that she must marry money, and
she later accepted the proposal of Herbert Fitzgerald. And then, when
the news of Lady Fitzgerald's first husband becomes known, young Lady
Clara is seen by her mother to be left holding the bag with a second
affianced lover, now become poor. Owen is presented as the mercurial
Irishman whom women love: romantic and generous, fun-loving and
extravagant--qualities we also see in Trollope's most well-known
Irish figure, Phineas Finn. Herbert, on the other hand, is slow and
methodical, serious and conscientious, reminiscent of Plantagenet
Palliser. Owen makes the extravagant and rather naive offer to
let Herbert have Castle Richmond and all its property if he will
surrender the love of Clara. Herbert, of course, cannot understand
this and refuses.

So how will all this be resolved? Very conveniently, as it turns out.
A family secret is discovered. What about this and so many other
stories of birth secrets, with the resolution of the plot in the
revelation of some unknown bit of family history--as when Buttercup
announces in the final act of _HMS Pinafore_ that, as a nursemaid,
she switched babies years ago? Was this just a convenient plot
device, or was it a reflection of reality?

Trollope used variations of this theme in several of his novels.
George Roden, in _Marion Fay_, is found to be the eldest son of an
Italian duke. _Is He Popenjoy?_ is all about whether an unprincipled
English Marquis, living in Italy, was legitimately married to an
Italian duchessa and whether their son was Lord Popenjoy.

Esther Summerson, in Charles Dickens's _Bleak House_, does not know
who her real mother is until late in the story. Oscar Wilde's _The
Importance of Being Earnest_ revolves about two babies in large
handbags who were unwittingly swapped at a railway station. When this
is announced in the last act, Jack throws himself on Miss Prism with
a cry of "Mother!"

One actual case involved the "Tichbourne claimant," who in 1875
returned from Australia and claimed to be the rightful heir to a
family fortune; the courts ruled against him. Surely this story
itself could provide material for a doctoral dissertation; lacking
such research, however, one would suppose that such events occurred
infrequently and stirred imaginations each time, prompting fictional
and comic variations on the theme.

Among the insights into Irish life are the sketches of Protestant and
Catholics, preachers and priests. We find Father Bernard being petted
by his sister-in-law and niece at Mick O'Dwyer's public house, where
the women offer him another cup of tea, a hot muffin, or "a morsel of
buttered toast" if he will only say the word.

Protestants and Catholics are obliged to work together in public
assistance efforts to aid famine victims, but when it is suggested to
the Protestant parson that Father Barney may be right in a certain
matter, he categorically denies it. "He's altogether wrong. I never
knew one of them right in my life yet in anything. How can they be
right?"

On the other hand, the Catholic bias appears when Father Columb is
told that men will work anywhere to keep from starving. He only
replies, "Some men will," implying that Protestants would work
anywhere because of their devotion to the flesh, but that Roman
Catholics are under the dominion of the Spirit and would perish
first.

The story moves toward its conclusion in London, where Herbert has
gone to study law after leaving Castle Richmond. Here we see two
lawyers at work. The first is Mr. Prendergast, the family attorney,
who receives a letter revealing the family secret. Mr. Prendergast
anticipates Sherlock Holmes in his powers of observation as he
enters the house and searches for his quarry: "But the armchair was
placed idly away from any accommodation for work, and had, as Mr.
Prendergast thought, been recently filled by some idle person."

We also encounter the barrister, Mr. Die, still working hard at age
seventy. Men who retire at age sixty, the author tells us, are those
who have always been idle. "It is my opinion that nothing seasons
the mind for endurance like hard work. Port wine should perhaps be
added."

But back to the Irish famine: When one learns that during its four
worst years, the English landlords in Ireland exported more food, in
the form of beef, wheat, and other grains, than the country imported,
one begins to understand the reasons for deep and strong feelings
about the English in Ireland. From his travels in southwest Ireland
from 1841 to 1859, Trollope surely knew and understood the Irish
from the ground up. His fictional account bears as much authority
as a journalistic one would have, and it is reinforced in the Folio
Society edition with a pen-and-ink drawing opposite page 185 showing
a woman dressed in rags, on her knees, surrounded by four small
children, pulling at someone's cloak as she begs. She is more
attractive in the drawing than in the description--"squat, uncouth,
and in no way attractive to the eye."

This begging scene is rural, not on a city street. The woman who
is begging is not a nameless beggar; she knows Mister Herbert and
Clara by face and name. Other accounts in the book--dealing with
the deliberations of the ad hoc council to establish policies about
distribution of such food as is available to those without food,
managing a gang of men given make-work duties leveling a hill for
a roadway, and the details of a recipe for making bread from bad
flour--all bear witness to a human tragedy that brought thousands of
its victims to America.

_Castle Richmond_ is a good story; it starts slowly, but it moves
along, and it proceeds with dispatch in the final chapters. Trollope
has given us some sobering glimpses of people, ancestors to many
Americans, starving in time of famine; otherwise we are diverted by
entertaining views and stories. It's unfortunate that a book so well
written is doomed to the oblivion of being just one of forty-seven
novels by the same author.




THE LADY FACES THEM DOWN

ORLEY FARM


I can see Barbara Stanwyck playing Lady Mason in a film noir version
of _Orley Farm_. Oh, there was no murder--only a bit of forgery. But
remember, forgery could be punished with hanging in England only
a few years before _Orley Farm_ was written. The story is a bit
complicated: Lady Mason forged a codicil to her late husband's will,
leaving a small portion of his land holdings to their only child,
taking this small home place away from his older son by a previous
marriage.

Now we know that in England at that time all inheritance was to go
to the eldest son as a matter of course, unless other provision
was made. And we in this age are accustomed to the "pre-nup,"
the prenuptial agreement designed to deal with the anxieties of
prospective heirs when an aged parent takes a wife--especially if the
wife be of childbearing age.

In our world, therefore, few would have much difficulty in accepting
the propriety of a small portion of a large estate being left to a
younger son, when the elder son is well provided for. Nor, we learn,
did a jury of her peers find any problem with this arrangement. Lady
Mason, who had been a loyal, faithful, and attractive wife to old Sir
Joseph, was acquitted of the crime of forgery, and she continued to
live in the home place and raise their son to the age of majority
when he might assume control of it.

We only learn the truth about the forgery about halfway through the
book, some twenty years after the crime and acquittal. And then we
find ourselves sympathizing with the guilty woman as she fights
through a second trial.

The older son, who was now the young Sir Joseph, lived on the
extensive Yorkshire holdings, under the rule of a wife too stingy to
put adequate food on the table, either for her lord or for their
guests when they should have any. And he nursed his grudge against
the widow, whom he considered to have cheated him of his rightful
inheritance.

Some of Trollope's most effective humor is sometimes inserted into
an unlikely place. The first chapters, the ones that set the scene,
are often so long, detailed, and tedious that they have almost
disappeared in today's writing. One has to read opening chapters
carefully, however, and sometimes reread them, in order to understand
the setting. This is made easier in the case of the Masons of Groby
Park, the large holding in Yorkshire, as Trollope continues with his
introduction of the characters:

   He was severe to his children, and was not loved by them; but
   nevertheless they were dear to him, and he endeavored to do his
   duty by them. The wife of his bosom was not a pleasant woman, but
   nevertheless he did his duty by her; that is, he neither deserted
   her, nor beat her, nor locked her up. I am not sure that he would
   not have been justified in doing one of these three things,
   or even all the three; for Mrs. Mason of Groby Park was not a
   pleasant woman.

The old quarrel resurfaces when an old tenant is dispossessed by Lady
Mason's son, now old enough to begin managing the home place and
aspiring to farm it in a scientific, though expensive, fashion.

With energy and perseverance the tenant discovers another paper
signed by old Sir Joseph on the same day as the codicil was dated,
and he finds a witness to the signature, Bridget Bolster, who will
testify that she only witnessed the signing of one document.

How can Lady Mason defend herself against this attack? We see that
her primary motive is to shield her proud young son from disgrace,
and in this effort she deploys all the resources available to her. A
small but not unattractive woman (think of Barbara Stanwyck in this
role), she consults the barrister, Mr. Furnival, who defended her in
the first trial, and she wraps him around her finger so effectively
that Mrs. Furnival is driven by jealousy to leave home in one of the
great comic episodes of the book.

Mr. Furnival sees that unusual skill will be required to defend
Lady Mason successfully, and she consents to his employment of
that famous defense attorney, Mr. Chaffanbrass, and another clever
defense attorney, Mr. Solomon Aram. Lucius, convinced of his mother's
innocence, is offended by the retaining of these sharp attorneys, and
he objects that a simple portrayal of the truth of the matter will
be more than sufficient. But his mother, whom we often see sitting
alone in her room brooding over these matters (we can only conclude
from this and other novels of the period that people spent more
time sitting and brooding than is done now) quietly declines her
son's advice and, much to his frustration, excludes him from the
decision-making process. Here the reader begins to suspect that since
she knows what she really did, she realizes she had better have some
sharp legal assistance.

She also cultivates the friendship of a noble neighbor, Sir Peregrine
Orme, father of her son Lucius's friend young Peregrine Orme. Sir
Peregrine is an old man, but he responds to her presence in his
house by falling in love with her. He rashly makes her an offer
of marriage, which is opposed by his son, her son, and a brother
nobleman, all of whom attempt to dissuade him.

Lady Mason had hoped to obtain maximum support from Mr. Furnival
and Sir Peregrine without being forced to choose between these two
champions. She accepts Sir Peregrine's proposal, but it becomes
apparent that she is sacrificing the sympathy of Mr. Furnival and
everyone else. So here we have the crisis of the whole story, just
at the start of Book Two, in which she confesses her guilt to Sir
Peregrine and subsequently to his daughter-in-law, who has also
become her great friend. So the reader learns that she did indeed
forge the signature to the will twenty years earlier. Sir Peregrine
cancels the engagement, but both he and his daughter-in-law maintain
their friendship, support, and the secret.

John Everett Millais drew the forty illustrations for the book, and
the cover of the Dover Publications edition shows Lady Mason in
court. Her companion Mrs. Orme sits with head down and veil in place.
But Lady Mason has lifted her veil and raised her eyes. She will face
them down. "She was perfect mistress of herself, and as she looked
round the court, not with defiant gaze, but with eyes half raised,
and a look of modest but yet conscious intelligence, those around her
hardly dared to think that she could be guilty."

Trollope shows us the infatuation of two older men with Lady
Mason in great detail. Mr. Furnival, who has a wife (dowdy) and a
daughter (clever, like he is) and a position in the London legal
establishment, cannot consider a compromising liaison, but he enjoys
the company of Lady Mason and schemes to meet her. He begins to
perceive rather early the strong probability that she is actually
guilty, but he has a strong desire to defend her successfully. Sir
Peregrine Orme is an older man and a widower, and as she remains in
his house as a guest, he begins to ask, "Why should I not?"

We are not denied the drama of the courtroom, and here we see the
renowned Mr. Chaffanbrass taking a witness apart. Mr. Chaffanbrass
is a recurrent player in several Trollope novels--most notably in
_Phineas Redux_, when he undertakes the defense of Phineas Finn,
who is accused of murder. Again we see this wily attorney as a role
player in the adversarial system of justice: "To him it was a matter
of course that Lady Mason should be guilty. Had she not been guilty,
he, Mr. Chaffanbrass would not have been required. Mr. Chaffanbrass
well understood that the defense of injured innocence was no part of
his mission."

The subplots and ancillary characters fill out the space requirements
of a proper Victorian novel and are generally done well. Sophia
Furnival is a more interesting character than her friend Madeline
Stavely, who is practically perfect in every way. In Mr. Furnival's
closing speech to the court we finally see the brilliance of his
work, and we see that Sophia comes by her wit naturally, since it's
apparent that she doesn't inherit it from her mother. Sophia doesn't
do much better than Lady Mason does in attempting to handle two
admirers.

Felix Graham, a young lawyer who falls in love with Madeline Stavely,
finally begins to come through as understandable, but only partially.
The story of his earlier attachment to Mary Snow as a protégé whom he
had intended to train to become his bride seems a bit far-fetched;
perhaps it was not so far-fetched at the time. In any event, this
little story is never wrapped up. We see Felix being pressed for more
money by Mary's drunken father, by her keeper Mrs. Thomas, and by the
apothecary who increases the price of a partnership for Mary's new
lover, Albert Fitzallen. Felix has attempted to transfer Mary to Mr.
Fitzallen, which appears to be agreeable to all parties, but the
negotiations are left in limbo.

Trollope treats us to another fox hunt. A great lover of the chase,
he was always on firm ground here. Thrown off almost in passing is a
little comic masterpiece, the depiction of two fox hunting sisters:
"But when the time for riding did come, when the hounds were really
running--when other young ladies had begun to go home--then the Miss
Tristams were always there;--there or thereabouts, as their admirers
would warmly boast."

Julia Tristam plays a pivotal role in the major subplot as she makes
a difficult jump; Felix Graham and his friend Augustus Stavely, who
have been following her in an effort to participate in the best of
the hunt, attempt to follow, and Felix does not make it, falling off
his horse and finding that he cannot raise his arm and can hardly
breathe--an accurate portrayal of the symptoms of a broken collarbone
and fractured ribs. "Both Peregrine and Miss Tristam looked back.
'There's nothing wrong I hope,' said the lady; and then she rode on."

This injury results in Felix's confinement in the Stavely house,
where he and Madeline Stavely fall in love.

_Barchester Towers_ and Mrs. Proudie stand as evidence that
Trollope's greatest gift was comic, and we find some humor in _Orley
Farm_, even though a courtroom case doesn't allow for much levity.
Mrs. Furnival's quarrel with her husband supplies comic relief, and
Mr. Kantwise's sale of a metal table and chairs to Mr. Dockwrath and
to Squire Mason is appropriately memorialized in Millais's drawing
of Mr. Kantwise standing on the metal table: "There is nothing like
iron, Sir; nothing."

To attempt to place a value on _Orley Farm_: it is good enough to
be fairly compared to _Bleak House_, generally regarded as one of
Dicken's masterpieces, and one that has been successfully presented
as a television series. Nothing in _Orley Farm_ matches the opening
paragraphs of _Bleak House_, in which the description of the rain and
mud of London sends us to turn up the heat, even if the room is warm.
Dickens manages the pace of _Bleak House_ very well, with the tempo
galloping toward a conclusion in the last hundred pages or so.
But Lady Mason is a more interesting woman than Lady Dedlock. Mr.
Tulkinghorn is a lawyer of great power and mystery in _Bleak House_,
but Mr. Furnival is shown in greater depth, and in his concluding
speech to the court we see him at the peak of his powers. The
spontaneous combustion that Dickens invokes to carry off Mr. Krook
is so improbable that one doubts if even any of his readers believed
it; but the proceedings of _Orley Farm_, if not so violent, are
so true to life that the events might have been lifted from the
newspapers.

The major plot is a carefully constructed story of crime and
punishment; the reader is led to follow the uncertainty and the
sympathy with which the community views a woman accused of a crime
that only a few decades earlier could have sent her to the gallows.
In presenting this story Trollope has shown his skill in presenting
female characters--primarily Lady Mason, but also Sophia Furnival.
Our humanity is shown sometimes with sympathy, sometimes with irony,
sometimes with condemnation--but always as it is. Too bad we never
got to see Barbara Stanwyck play the title role. Who would have
played Sophia Furnival?




LEAR REVISITED

THE STRUGGLES OF BROWN, JONES, AND ROBINSON
By One of the Firm


Graduate students in business administration routinely bury
themselves in case studies, which have become a standard hurdle on
the way to attaining an MBA. In doing so, they learn to insist on
reliable data. However, should the students in the Stanford Graduate
School of Business find themselves analyzing the failure of the
London mercantile firm of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, they would
surely hope to have more objective information than that found in the
account of George Robinson, one of the three partners, as given in
_The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson, by One of the Firm_.
The reader begins to suspect early on that the firm failed at least
in part because of expensive and misleading advertising promoted by
Robinson, who himself never concedes as much. The dealings of the
firm were hardly transparent, even among the three partners; and the
senior partner, Mr. Brown, kept the books to himself. Meanwhile the
other partner, Mr. Jones, was taking funds from the till without
letting Mr. Robinson know.

Among the curious features of genius is its uneven nature. After
searching unsuccessfully for his métier with a few novels about
Ireland, a historical novel of the French Revolution, and a
play, Trollope found his way with _The Warden_ and _Barchester
Towers,_ which may be his best known and most loved works. Still
experimenting, however, he used his personal experience in the civil
service to write _The Three Clerks_, a critical success at the time
but not well known today. And then he continued his portrayal of
the world of mundane office work by venturing into a picture of the
entrepreneurial spirit as shown by _Brown, Jones, and Robinson_. He
broke off from it after two weeks and came back to it four years
later, but the result was an attempt to satirize the business world.
It failed, however, to match his success with the Church, the landed
gentry, and the political world of the ruling class.

True, one of his most acclaimed works, _The Way We Live Now_, dealt
with the business world; but it did so in a rough rather than a
gentle way, in a later period of his life when he had begun to
develop somewhat more jaundiced views of society as it had evolved.
The satire of _Brown, Jones, and Robinson_ is too clever by half.
George Robinson is the young pup who defends himself after the
bankruptcy of the firm with an unrepentant statement of his faith in
advertising, and he presents himself as the unreliable narrator with
a self-serving view of his stewardship. Demonstrating the creative
imagination that led him to ruin, he compares his senior partner
to King Lear. "Think what it must be to be papa to a Goneril and a
Regan--without the Cordelia. I have always looked on Mrs. Jones as a
regular Goneril; and as for the Regan, why it seems to me that Miss
Brown is likely to be Miss Regan to the end of the chapter."

Sarah Jane, the elder sister and the "Goneril," marries Mr. Jones;
and Robinson himself aspires to the hand of Maryanne, the "Regan" who
joins her sister in turning on their father and attempting to secure
his small fortune for themselves. Robinson's dedication to the
doctrines of Credit and Advertising, rather than to those of Capital,
leads him to run through that part of the four thousand pounds that
Brown provided to start their haberdashery business. Brown and Jones
stand agog as Robinson hires four men in armour to ride draft horses
through the streets announcing the opening of Magenta House. And Mr.
Brown cannot understand why Robinson should advertise four hundred
dozen white cotton hose. "We haven't got 'em. . . . I did want to do
a genuine trade in stockings."

"And so you shall, sir. But how will you begin unless you attract
your customers?" Robinson retorts, and he goes on to advertise
"English-sewn Worcester gloves, made of French kid," which actually
came from the wholesale houses in St. Paul's churchyard.

The inevitable downfall of the overextended firm can surely provide
a number of cautionary tales for future students of the success and
failure of businesses, but these lessons are lost on George Robinson,
who reacts by transferring his devotion from Maryanne Brown, who
abandons him in the end, to the goddess of Commerce. "Oh sweet
Commerce, teach me thy lessons! Let me ever buy in the cheapest
market and sell in the dearest."

What is it that made the foibles of the Church so humorous in
Trollope's hands, while the schemes of the business world merely led
to a ho-hum reaction at its cupidity and stupidity? Is it that the
men of the cloth retained a few cloaks of honor and respectability
yet to be stripped away, while the businessmen may never have had any
such cloaks? In any event, the reading public and the critics helped
Trollope to find his way, which was not along the way of Commerce and
Advertising.




BRINGING GOOD BEER TO DEVON

RACHEL RAY


Bad beer is being brewed in East Devon. This is cider country, where
apple trees grow and "men drink cider by the gallon." The bad beer
comes from the firm of Messrs. Bungall and Tappitt, which is managed
by the latter after the death of the former. Thus Anthony Trollope
has given us a novel about beer.

But of course it's not primarily about beer. _Rachel Ray_ is mainly
a love story with plot lines familiar to readers of Trollope. The
heir to the late Mr. Bungall's interest in the brewery, Luke Rowan,
comes to town to assert his interests, meets a friend of the Tappitt
sisters, Rachel Ray, and falls in love with her. Rachel is a rather
typical Trollope heroine--spirited and bright, dwelling in an humble
cottage with her timid widowed mother and a domineering older sister,
also a widow. Rachel is attracted to Luke when he sits alone with
her on a churchyard stile and gazes at the clouds, but she consents
only by a silent nod to his proposal of marriage that comes soon
after. Once having given her silent nod, however, she vows lifelong
faithfulness, even though her mercurial fiancé may desert her.

Luke Rowan is no paragon. His faults are declared to the reader in
a rather desultory fashion, showing him to be only slightly more
interesting than a stock representation of a young lover, which he
really is. It is enough to raise the reader's concern that Rachel
may be doomed to a fate similar to that of Lily Dale, the tragic,
faithful heroine of _The Small House at Allington_.

The story of Cinderella is retold with a few modifications, as
the three Tappitt sisters invite Rachel, not unanimously, to a
little party for the Rowans, which soon comes to be regarded as a
ball. Rachel is persuaded to attend the ball only after the fairy
godmother, in the form of Mrs. Butler Cornbury, invites Rachel to
accompany her in her coach. Mrs. Tappitt is scandalized that Luke
selects Rachel as his dancing partner of choice, and Cinderella is so
overcome by it all that she persuades her fairy godmother to take her
home two hours early. But to the amazement of all, the prince makes a
visit to the humble cottage to see Rachel the next day.

So here we have the love story. Now back to the beer:

   It was a sour and muddy stream that flowed from their vats;
   a beverage disagreeable to the palate, and very cold and
   uncomfortable to the stomach. Who drank it I could never learn.
   It was to be found at no respectable inn. . . . Nevertheless the
   brewery of Messrs. Bungall and Tappitt was kept going, and the
   large ugly square brick house in which the Tappitt family lived
   was warm and comfortable. There is something in the very name of
   beer that makes money.

Mr. Tappitt's determination to brew bad beer is reinforced by
the appearance of Luke Rowan, who aspires to participate in the
management of the brewery and brew good beer. But Mr. Tappitt knows
that would require capital investment. The brewery has been managing
to make money under his direction, and he wants neither to concede
any of his power nor to risk the profitability of the business with
newfangled ideas. This divergence of views comes to a climax when
Rowan offers to join the firm as an active partner, to allow Tappit
to retire with an annual pension, or to sell his share of the
business to Tappitt and then build his own competing brewery. Mr.
Tappitt's response is to brandish a poker, and at the conclusion of
this dramatic encounter Rowan departs, declaring that the matter will
be turned over to his lawyer.

Having been accepted by Rachel, he now leaves town, and Rachel is
left to the pernicious influence of community opinion, which is
against the young man in his apparent effort to unseat a longstanding
citizen of the community, even though he does brew bad beer. Rachel
is influenced by her mother, who is in turn influenced by her
spiritual advisor, the vicar Mr. Comfort, who in turn is influenced
by community opinion conveyed by a disaffected colleague. And so
Rachel's letter in response to her fiancé's first letter is so
much less than passionate that she fears she has terminated their
engagement.

So how will the matter be resolved? Here we see a second issue: a
political contest. Politics fascinated Trollope, and he even entered
an election himself. In this instance Tappitt supports a Jew from out
of town, Mr. Hart, against young Butler Cornbury, eldest son of the
neighboring squire. The author revels in the details of the campaign:
slurs against the Jew by his opponents who probably know better, the
raising of money, and the buying of votes. Luke Rowan reappears in
town after having purchased property from Rachel's mother for the
apparent purpose of building his own brewery. And Luke enters the
political contest, even though he is not an elector in Baslehurst,
supporting Butler Cornbury with fiery speeches. Luke is found to be a
radical--that is, "he desires, expects, works for, and believes in,
the gradual progress of the people," and he "will own no inferiority
to the manhood of another."

The outcome of the election is determined by one vote. Cornbury is
the winner, but Tappitt dreams of revenge. He is invited to a
dinner of Hart supporters and chairs their meeting. He meets the
unscrupulous lawyer Mr. Sharpit there and asks him to take his case
against Mr. Rowan because his own lawyer Mr. Honyman has recommended
capitulation and retirement.

But Mr. Tappitt has been ill, and his wife, who wants him to retire
so she and her daughters can enjoy the delights of Torquay, has
threatened to have him committed "under fitting restraint" if he goes
to the meeting. This is the red pepper program: "There may be those
who think that a wife goes too far in threatening a husband with a
commission of lunacy, and frightening him with a prospect of various
fatal diseases; but the dose must be adapted to the constitution, and
the palate that is accustomed to large quantities of red pepper must
have quantities larger than usual whenever some special culinary
effect is to be achieved."

Tappitt comes home from the dinner drunk, and his wife finds him
vulnerable the next morning. She refuses to let him out of bed until
he agrees to invite Honeyman the lawyer back to the brewery, thus
achieving a compromise that allows Mr. Tappitt to sell out and
retire.

So everything works out. The author has also used our story to
indulge his fondness for church affairs. Rachel's widowed sister has
been attracted to the less formal side of the Church of England, and
in particular to a rather unsavory clerical representative of this
school of thought, one Mr. Prong, whose pride in his sermons exceeds
the results. But in the end Rachel's sister Dorothea shrugs off Mr.
Prong, who denies any interest in Dorothea's money but is unwilling
to forgo the husband's legal right to her money.

It's all a good story. We share the author's fun with the radicals,
the politics, the churchmen, the fairy godmother, and particularly
with Mr. Tappitt. Rachel's romance works itself out, but perhaps more
to the point, the men of Baslehurst will get better beer.




"HE COMETH NOT; I AM AWEARY"

MISS MACKENZIE


Garish images are the ones that stick. _Miss Mackenzie_ is a
beautiful story of a deserving young woman who finally achieves love
and fortune after years of service to the poor and the sick and the
dying, but the image that sticks in the mind is that of Rev. Jeremiah
Maguire, who was possessed "of the most terrible squint in his right
eye which ever disfigured a face that in all other respects was
fitted for an Apollo." In this case, as was usually the case in
Trollope's novels, the physical deformity was a ready clue to the
individual's character. Rev. Maguire ranks as one of the more
iniquitous of the sinners in the ranks of Trollope's clergymen. It
may not have been so bad that he tried to marry Margaret Mackenzie
for her money, but he did so with a devious scheme to establish
his own church and use the pew rents as security for the money that
he would say he was giving but would then take back as payment of
a loan. And when he learned that he had no chance of winning her
for himself, he embarrassed her by writing several "Lion and Lamb"
articles for a religious newspaper, saying that she was being cheated
of her inheritance by the man whom she wished to marry. He doesn't
match the villainy of Joseph Emilius, the preacher who only had a
"slight defect in his left eye" and a "hooky nose," and who murdered
Lizzie Eustace's protector Mr. Bonteen in _The Eustace Diamonds_;
it is apparent, however, that not all Trollope's clergymen went to
heaven.

But back to Miss Mackenzie: if one of the great pleasures in life
is watching someone start out with a pleasant set of gifts and then
develop a few more to become a joyous credit to the human race, then
the literary proxy is reading about such a one. We are introduced to
Miss Mackenzie as a Cinderella-type woman (Trollope had a weakness
for Cinderellas) who devotes herself to the care of her brother for
fifteen years until he dies. She is a generous but self-abasing
humble woman, but we see that she can stand up for herself. Finally
she appears to gain some conception of her own worth.

There has been some money in the family, but we see it slipping away
due to unfortunate business decisions, and none of it appears to be
destined for poor Margaret, who has little to show for the years of
her young womanhood. But then she is named the beneficiary of her
late brother's will! Suddenly she is a woman of independent means, if
not indeed wealthy.

And now we see her deal with the friends, relatives, and suitors who
flock to her. Her sense of self worth is hardly enhanced as she fends
them off, comprehending pretty quickly that they are interested in
her money, not so much in her. She longs to have a life. She's only
thirty-six. Her "time for withering" has not yet arrived. But she
feels that she should not live for herself alone, and there are
numerous opportunities for doing good deeds. The death of her brother
has left her sister-in-law with a house full of children, and
Margaret selects one of them, a fourteen year old girl, to live with
her. She will leave London, where the neighborhood just down the
streets to the Thames from the Strand is pretty dull, and she will
go to Littlebath and take lodgings in the Paragon. (Bath and the
Crescent, as in _The Bertrams_).

A gloomy story to this point, but it is told with the distant ironic
tone that tells the reader that this is a comedy. Margaret visits The
Cedars, home of her cousins the Balls, but finding them "very dull,"
she determines to proceed with the Littlebath plan.

Margaret enters Littlebath society slowly and timidly. We are shown
that Littlebath is home to saints and sinners. The sinners go the
assembly rooms; the saints go to church--not the high Church of
England, but the Low Church. Margaret finds herself too timid to
attempt to be a sinner at the assembly rooms; it is easier to go
along with the women to tea at the home of a preacher to whom she
has been given a letter of introduction. Here she finds a company
of benighted souls in thrall to Mrs. Stumfold, wife of the great
preacher. Like Mrs. Proudie of the Barsetshire series, Mrs. Stumfold
brooks no disorder in the ranks, and we see Margaret stand up
for herself when Mrs. Stumfold calls on her to inquire as to her
intentions in regard to Mr. Maguire, of the squinting eye, who has
been seen paying conspicuous attention to Miss Mackenzie. Short
on self-esteem at this point, Margaret is shown to rank high in
self-assertiveness. When Mrs. Stumfold tells her that another lady
has a prior claim on Mr. Maguire (Mrs. Stumfold has been indulging
in a bit of match-making), she insults Miss Mackenzie, informing her
that another lady has been before her. "What would you think if you
were interfered with, though, perhaps, as you had not your fortune in
early life, you may never have known what that was?"

At this, Margaret terminates the interview, sending her to any friend
of hers who is behaving badly for the purpose of telling him so, and
then telling Mrs. Stumfold that she will hear nothing more about it.

Margaret shakes off three suitors, unworthy souls who merit
rejection, though she is so lacking in self-confidence that she gives
serious consideration to two of them. Mr. Maguire--the clergyman
with the wandering squinting eye--catches her by surprise with
his proposal, and she asks for two weeks to think it over. A big
mistake--it raises false hopes in Mr. Maguire. She is called away
because of her brother's illness before giving the ambitious curate
an answer, and she enters the orbit of her cousin John Ball, a
widower who had bored her by talking about nothing but money.

The author never refers to John Ball as the hero of the story, and
indeed he is not unblemished. But he turns out to be Miss Mackenzie's
hero, barely making the cut. He has a house full of children of his
own, and though a barrister by profession, he hardly practices law.
He is the Victorian equivalent of a day trader, going to town every
day to follow the market prices and manage his investments, which
seem to yield him barely enough to feed his family. He discusses
his investments with his mother every night. When he proposes to
Margaret, neither she nor the reader is sure whether it is for love
or for money, but whatever, she accepts.

And then Trollope pulls a rabbit out of the hat. In doing research
on disposition of the will that had seemed to leave Margaret her
fortune, the lawyer determines that the bequest had already been
deeded to the Ball family and was therefore not available to be left
to Margaret. So now John Ball has it all and Margaret has nothing.
And when Mr. Maguire appears and claims that Margaret is his fiancée,
John fails the test. He says nothing when it is time for him to
reassure Margaret that he believes her, and she immediately returns
to the miserable lodgings on the Thames in London. And during the
long deliberations about confirming whose money it really is, he says
nothing to her. She considers herself bound to him even though he may
no longer want her, having the money and not having to bother about
the girl. She is still pretty low on the self-esteem scale.

All this makes for an entertaining story. The family history and
the mystery of the will are complex enough to keep the reader on
the hook. A high-born cousin steps in late in the game to help Miss
Mackenzie think a bit more of herself. Mrs. Mackenzie, wife to
another cousin who lives far away in Scotland, comes to London for a
while and tells Margaret how the cow ate the cabbage. She tells her
she is sure that Miss Mackenzie will become Lady Margaret by marrying
John Ball, morose though he may be. Her instrument is a muslin
flecked with black to replace the mourning that Margaret had been
wearing in memory of her brother and then her uncle. A "make-belief
mourning bonnet" is tossed in, and these are to be worn to the Negro
Soldiers' Orphan Bazaar, at which John Ball sees her in something
other than all-black mourning, and both of them get the hint that
all need not be dark. This is a little set-piece in which two old
favorites appear to play cameo roles: Lady Glencora Palliser, who
steps out of the Palliser series, and Lady Hartletop, known to
readers of the Barsetshire series as Griselda Grantly.

Lady Hartletop is not referred to by her Christian name, because
the name Griselda is already in use in reference to Miss Mackenzie.
("'But you must positively bring Grieselda,' said Lady Glencora
Palliser.") Readers of Trollope's day were more aware than those
of today that Griselda figured in several folk tales, including
Boccaccio's _Decameron_ and Chaucer's "The Clerk's Tale" in_ The
Canterbury Tales_, as the personification of patience and obedience.
In the former version, a Marquis marries Griselda and tells her that
their first two children must be put to death, and then he tells her
that he has received papal dispensation to divorce her. She is put
away for years, brought back only to witness the wedding of the
divorced Marquis. In this ceremony she is told that it is all a joke,
and she is restored to her place as wife and mother of the children,
who were never killed after all. Some joke; one wonders if her sense
of humor is up to it.

Earlier in the book Margaret is referred to as Mariana in the moated
grange, who waits vainly for her lover in Tennyson's poem "Mariana":

   _She only said, 'The night is dreary,
     He cometh not,' she said;
   She said, 'I am aweary, aweary,
     I would that I were dead!'_

Another image comes to mind in reading _Miss Mackenzie_: that of
Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp who revolutionized
nursing with her service to the English troops in the Crimea. This
revolution was probably still a work in progress when Trollope wrote
_Miss Mackenzie_, describing her resolution to be a hospital nurse as
a fall-back option if none of her matrimonial plans worked out. She
cared for one brother for fifteen years, and when her brother Tom was
on his deathbed, she assumed the role again.

   There are women who seem to have an absolute pleasure in fixing
   themselves for business by the bedside of a sick man. They
   generally commence their operations by laying aside all fictitious
   feminine charms, and by arraying themselves with a rigid,
   unconventional unenticing propriety. Though they are still
   gentle--perhaps more gentle than ever in their movements--there is
   a decision in all they do very unlike their usual mode of action.

_Miss Mackenzie_ is an excellent novel. The story moves well in the
framework of a Victorian inheritance situation; Miss Mackenzie and
John Ball appear as less than perfect but likeable and even admirable
figures; those in the supporting cast play their roles well, and
through it all the author maintains his deft ironic touch. And for
better or worse, the enduring image is that of Rev. Maguire's squint.
"[S]he could not help looking into the horrors of his eye, and
thinking that innocent was not the word for him."




THE SCHOOL OF SELF-ASSERTIVENESS

THE BELTON ESTATE


Young people can't be trusted to sort things out for themselves.
Sometimes marriages must be arranged. Sometimes they must be
rearranged. In _The Belton Estate_, Clara Amedroz finds herself stuck
on high center, engaged for the second time to an immature young man,
Captain Frederic Aylmer, who is quite willing to marry her, but who
doesn't seem to have his heart in it. Although her cousin Will Belton
certainly does have his heart in his unrewarded love for Clara, the
stubborn child conceives it to be her duty to marry Captain Aylmer,
mainly because she has promised to do so for the second time. Enter
the Captain's mother, Lady Aylmer, whose view is that her feckless
son must marry money--of which Clara has none. And so Clara is
dislodged from high center.

Upon her father's death, Clara has limited options for a place to
reside. She has already defied her mother-in-law-elect by refusing to
renounce the friendship of a certain Mrs. Askerton, a woman with a
checkered past who is considered to be eminently unfit for polite
society. Frederic's plea that Clara be given a "second chance" with
an invitation to their home is initially refused.

But after "close debate" through Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, Lady
Aylmer recalculates her position, decides not to risk alienating her
only son, and assesses her chances: "Not so utterly had victory in
such contests deserted her hands, that she need fear to break a lance
with Miss Amedroz beneath her own roof, when the occasion was so
pressing."

Lady Aylmer's confidence in her own powers is not misplaced. Clara
arrives at Aylmer Hall naively expecting to see Lady Aylmer in the
hall, not having given sufficient thought to certain "weights and
measures":

   But Lady Aylmer was too accurately acquainted with the weights and
   measures of society for any such movement as that. Had her son
   brought Lady Emily to the house as his future bride, Lady Aylmer
   would probably have been in the hall when the arrival took place;
   and had Clara possessed ten thousand pounds of her own, she would
   probably have been met at the drawing-room door; but as she had
   neither money nor title--as she in fact brought with her no
   advantages of any sort--Lady Aylmer was found stitching a bit of
   worsted, as though she had expected no one to come to her.

Now it so happened that the faithful Will Belton conceived a rather
interesting way to express his love for Clara. The heir to the Belton
Estate, he had decided that since Clara was the daughter and only
remaining child of the late Squire Belton, and since the estate was
entailed to him as the eldest male of the family, though only a
cousin, he would relinquish the estate to Clara. He already had
a farm of his own and had a strong personal interest in Clara's
welfare. Clara had absolutely refused, but Frederic had told his
mother something of the offer, and this modified somewhat Lady
Aylmer's view of Clara--until Clara assured her that she would have
nothing to do with the property and would bring no property to her
marriage, at which time her Cinderella treatment resumed.

Two interviews take place between Lady Aylmer and Clara. The first
is preceded by some softening of Lady Aylmer's manner toward Clara.
Unexpectedly, Lady Aylmer selects for Clara a choice piece of hashed
fowl at lunch. And though she does not address Clara by her Christian
name, she does call her "my dear." And that afternoon Clara finds
herself alone with Lady Aylmer for their carriage ride. Frederic's
sister Belinda is unaccountably absent--"a little busy, my dear."
Lady Aylmer begins her maneuvers with a description of her son's
impecunious position, indicating that during her lifetime Frederic
will not have enough money to marry. Clara reiterates that she has
nothing of her own, but Lady Aylmer hints that there may be some
doubt about this.

Clara assures her that she will not accept the Belton estate. Lady
Aylmer advises her to put the matter into the hands of Mr. Green, who
was her late father's lawyer, but Clara assures her that no lawyer
is necessary. Silence. Finally Lady Aylmer ventures that a marriage
between Clara and her son cannot be considered--at least for many
years. When told by Clara that she will talk to Captain Aylmer about
it, Lady Aylmer concedes that he is his own master, but he is also
her son.

No more "tit-bits of hashed chicken specially picked out for her by
Lady Aylmer's own fork." No more "my dear." Cinderella again.

Captain Aylmer declines Clara's suggestion that he break the
engagement. But when asked to set a date, he is "almost aghast," and
he returns to London, thus indicating to the reader that he will be
no fit helpmate for plucky Clara.

With the matter in this state, and in Frederic's absence, Lady Aylmer
decides to bring out the weapon that she has been holding in reserve
for so long: Clara's refusal to accede to her command to renounce
Mrs. Askerton of the checkered past. The scene of battle is the
drawing-room, in the presence of Belinda, Frederic's sister.

This time the silence lasts for a half hour (How many New York
minutes are there in a Victorian half hour?) Finally Lady Aylmer
mentions the name of the notorious Mrs. Askerton.

Clara draws herself up for battle. "Belinda gave a little spring in
her chair, looked intently at her work, and went on stitching faster
than before." Clara parries each thrust, saying that what she knows
of Mrs. Askerton's past life is in confidence, so that she cannot
speak of it. Lady Aylmer says that they must speak of it. "Belinda
was stitching very hard, and would not even raise her eyes."

When pressed, Clara states that she was very foolish to come to
a house in which she is subjected to such questioning. And when
required to promise that the acquaintance not be renewed, she refers
to it as an "affectionate friendship" and vows that it will be
maintained with all her heart.

Then Clara gives her opponent an opening by observing that they may
differ on many subjects, and Lady Aylmer presses to the decisive
point, alluding to Clara's hold upon her "unfortunate son." Hereupon
Clara declares herself insulted, rises from her chair, and announces
that she will inform Captain Aylmer that their engagement is at
an end unless she can be reassured that she will never again be
subjected to such "unwarrantable insolence" from his mother. Exit
Clara.

And with this the course of events is determined; Captain Aylmer and
Will Belton play out their roles in the expected fashion. The rest of
the book is rather humdrum compared to the prolonged battle between
Lady Aylmer and Clara, which is one of the more entertaining of these
Trollope set pieces.

A prototype of such contests is the interview between Elizabeth
Bennett and Lady Catherine de Bourgh in Jane Austen's _Pride and
Prejudice_. In this classic encounter, Elizabeth defends herself with
the understated irony of an Austen heroine when Lady Catherine tells
her that the alliance between Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy will be a
disgrace and that her name will never even be mentioned by any of the
de Bourgh family.

   "These are heavy misfortunes," replied Elizabeth. "But the wife
   of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness
   necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the
   whole, have no cause to repine."

Trollope demonstrates his skill in presenting the female point of
view in his variations on the Cophetua theme, in which the king
marries a beggar maid whom he spies from the window of his castle.
Lady Lufton, in _Framley Parsonage_, is not the proud and unbending
opponent portrayed in Austen's Lady Catherine de Bourgh or in Lady
Aylmer of _The Belton Estate_.

Lucy Robarts and Clara Amedroz prove themselves to be worthy
heroines in the tradition of Elizabeth Bennett as they stand up for
themselves. Clara Amedroz's second move in her match with Lady Aylmer
is to parry a question with a question:

   "I believe it to be an undoubted fact that Mrs. Askerton
   is--is--is--not at all what she ought to be."

   "Which of us is what we ought to be?" said Clara.

Such scenes cry out for television portrayal. _Pride and Prejudice_
is, of course, abundantly portrayed, with Lady Catherine de Bourgh
sitting in splendor in her carriage. Wait till BBC asks me for a few
suggestions for new shows. The screenwriter would have a bit of work
to do with streamlining the plot, but the scenes between Clara and
Lady Aylmer are there for the taking.




LOVE CONQUERS ALL, IN THE NINTH INNING

NINA BALATKA
The Story of a Maiden of Prague


How could this short novel fail to delight? A familiar author; his
only book about Prague, a city of complexity and charm; and a short
novel of only 186 pages, a fourth or a fifth of the usual Trollope
novel. So why did I find myself having to force myself to pick it
up? It is well written. The heroine is a well rounded Trollope girl,
though she is given overmuch to proclaiming that she will stick to
her lover no matter what, as many of Trollope's girls do. Perhaps
therein lies the seed of dread with which the reader turns its pages.
The situation is all foretold in the first sentence of the book:
"Nina Balatka was a maiden of Prague, born of Christian parents, and
herself a Christian--but she loved a Jew; and this is her story."

Here we go again: the Montagus and the Capulets; star-crossed lovers;
nothing good can come of this. This sense of foreboding is built up
progressively, with references to the statue of St. John Nepomucene,
one of the thirty saints standing watch over the Charles Bridge. As
early as the second chapter we are told that this martyr was thrown
into the river because he would not betray the secrets of a queen's
confession, and that he now keeps the faithful safe from drowning
in the river. More and more insistent references to the fear and
attraction of the black water appear. Nobody wants Nina to marry
Anton; a devious plot is laid to trick Anton into thinking that she
has deceived him about a deed that belongs to Anton but is in the
possession of Nina's uncle. Even her faithful servant Souchey is
part of the plot, bewitched by Lotta Luxa, the uncle's serving girl.
Souchey thinks it's his Christian duty to prevent a marriage that
would imperil the soul of his mistress.

Up to the last moment the reader is convinced that this is a tragedy
working itself out, and that the dose will be short but bitter.
In suspense, the reader reads quickly to the conclusion. Without
spelling out the last pages, it can be said that reading the book
is liking watching a ball game in which the home team is hopelessly
behind for the whole game but mounts a last-gasp effort at the end.

It's a dark book. The motif of the dark waters of the Moldau
dominates all others. Nina herself is the brightest spot, forthright
and assertive in her love for Anton. Like many Trollope heroines, she
is not the most beautiful girl in her story; her rival Rebecca Loth
is admitted even by Nina's cousin and suitor, Ziska Zamenoy, to be
more striking and beautiful. Yet Nina continues to attract Ziska and
Anton even in poverty that is almost starvation. Her circumstances
allow little opportunity for humor; and the story pursues its course
with no comic relief.

Her lover Anton is a serious and humorless sort, successful as a
businessman and ultimately faithful in his love for Nina, though his
experience in the business world keeps him from believing fully that
Nina, a Christian, is not betraying him. And like so many Victorian
men, he insists on the obedience of his intended as a litmus test for
her worthiness.

Prague, with its segregated Jewish Quarter, affords an opportunity
for exploring the relationship between Jews and Christians. Ziska's
foray into the Jewish Quarter is the central dramatization of the
distance between them, as he unwittingly arrives there on a Jewish
holiday, when the women are dressed for a festival and the men are
at worship. Seeking Anton, he is conducted into the synagogue:

   The door was very low and narrow, and seemed to be choked by men
   with short white surplices, but nevertheless he found himself
   inside, jammed among a crowd of Jews; and a sound of many voices,
   going together in a singsong wail or dirge, met his ears. His
   first impulse was to take off his hat, but that was immediately
   replaced upon his head, he knew not by whom; and then he observed
   that all within the building were covered. His guide did not
   follow him, but whispered to someone what it was that the stranger
   required.

In dreamlike fashion, Ziska is led through the crowd to Anton, who
offers to accompany him outside if the business is important. A
serious interview ensues, in which Ziska pursues his family's
treacherous plot to disrupt the engagement. Here the Jews are
presented as a people of dignity and courtesy, long-suffering and
patient. Wary of their Christian oppressors, they proceed with
caution. In much the same fashion that Shakespeare portrays the Jews
in _The Merchant of Venice_, they are presented with sympathy, even
though the usages of the time permit derogatory allusions as a matter
of course.

In circumstances such as these, what chance does love have, coming up
as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the ninth inning? Love does have a
good at-bat, but the reader is left with the feeling that there will
have to be a lot more weddings and a lot more funerals before these
issues are resolved.




MORE THAN SOAP OPERA, MORE THAN FAIRY TALE

THE CLAVERINGS


This is straight from the noontime soaps. Harry Clavering, the
sometimes sheep-like "hero" of _The Claverings_, rises to challenge
his cousin Sir Hugh Clavering, standing toe-to-toe in a hostile
verbal encounter, and the younger man (Harry) defies his banishment
from his cousin's house. There is some talk of horsewhipping, and
Harry walks out, with a cautious look over his shoulder. No violence.
We're English (which sometimes helps). But it is soap opera. _The
Claverings_ is basically about Harry Clavering and the two women he
loves. He proposes to Julia Brabazon and is refused; she marries
a wealthy nobleman; Harry falls in love with Florence Burton, the
daughter of a hard-working civil engineer; Julia becomes a wealthy
widow and reappears. What will Harry do?

It's not so simple. Florence and her family are not to be discounted.
Her brother Theodore, committed to building railways and digging
tunnels, speaks his piece in Chapter XXVI, "The Man who dusted his
Boots with his Handkerchief." (Remember that Mr. Puddicombe, arbiter
of proper behavior to his friend Dr. Wortle in _Dr. Wortle's School_,
advised his friend, "When I am taking a walk through the fields and
get one of my feet deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour
to bear it as well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me
rather than make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as
though nothing had happened. The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged
and scraped, is more palpably dirt than the honest mud.") One of the
great questions that arose in the Victorian world was how to identify
a gentleman, and although Trollope doesn't spell it out in so many
words, it may be taken from this description, and from the drawings
of this scene in two different editions, that dusting one's boots is
a cardinal sign that one is not a gentleman.

But, gentleman or not, Theodore Burton is one of the two in the story
who prove themselves to be men of worth. When Harry is dithering
about which woman he will marry (both Lady Ongar and Florence Burton
appear willing to accept him), Theodore Burton, who has employed
Harry in the engineering office, writes him a letter acknowledging
Harry's absence from the office and urging him to come for an
interview. After the formalities, Burton comes directly to the point:
"Come, Harry, let me tell you all at once like an honest man. I hate
subterfuges and secrets. A report has reached the old people at
home--not Florence, mind--that you are untrue to Florence, and are
passing your time with that lady who is the sister of your cousin's
wife." He goes on to urge him to return to Florence and to the Burton
family fold. "And this from the man who had dusted his boots with his
pocket handkerchief, and whom Harry had regarded as being on that
account hardly fit to be his friend!"

The other humble man who proves his worth is Mr. Samuel Saul, the
curate for Harry's father Mr. Clavering, a clergyman not given to
work of any sort. Mr. Saul is introduced as a serious, conscientious
young man who basically does all the work. (This is a mark against
any claim that Mr. Saul may have to being a gentlemen. Gentlemen
don't work.) Mrs. Clavering later reflects that her son Harry "would
never excel greatly in any drudgery that would be necessary for the
making of money."

But the humble Mr. Saul aspires to the hand of Harry's sister Fanny.
No one in Fanny's family--her father the rector, her mother, or her
brother Harry--could even consider such a thing; but Fanny, who
initially acknowledges the impossibility of his suit, eventually does
begin to consider it, and to consider that the only thing keeping
them from being married is that his income as a curate is woefully
inadequate. And Fanny rejects any suggestion that Mr. Saul is not a
gentleman.

His initial proposal introduces us to him. Trollope specialized in
proposals; there seem to be at least two or three in every book. And
this one, which occurs in the rain, makes the reader thankful for a
warm dry spot where he can only read about the rain. He persists with
his statement of purpose in spite of the downpour, and she splashes
herself as she forbids him to speak further. "She had her own ideas
as to what was loveable in men, and the eager curate, splashing
through the rain by her side, by no means came up to her standard of
excellence."

But Mr. Saul's powers were not to be underestimated. He later makes
another attempt, in which the author dissects Mr. Saul's victory.
Fanny does not declare that she does not love him. Mr. Saul's
gamesmanship requires a bit of leisurely explanation:

   At this moment she forgot that in order to put herself on
   perfectly firm ground, she should have gone back to the first
   hypothesis, and assured him that she did not feel any such regard
   for him. Mr. Saul, whose intellect was more acute, took advantage
   of her here, and chose to believe that that matter of her
   affection was now conceded to him. He knew what he was doing well,
   and is open to a charge of some jesuitry. "Mr. Saul," said Fanny,
   with grave prudence, "it cannot be right for people to marry when
   they have nothing to live upon." When she had shown him so plainly
   that she had no other piece left on the board to play than this,
   the game may be said to have been won on his side.

Mr. Saul continued to play his hand bravely in his interview with
Mr. Clavering, whose strongest card was that Mr. Saul, though a
gentleman, was not in his class. And of course the nuances of class
were to be of no avail in England in coming decades. Some would
persist, but many of these nuances, which were relied upon by those
such as Mr. Clavering, who did not work, would fall to the energy of
such men as Mr. Burton and Mr. Saul, who did work. In this case, Mr.
Clavering bravely declared that Mr. Saul would have to give up his
pretensions for Fanny's hand, or leave the parish--which would have
left Mr. Clavering without the services of someone to do his work for
him. And Mr. Saul called his bluff, declaring that he would leave the
parish rather than renounce his claim for Fanny's hand.

As it turned out, all parties stood their ground, and Fanny assumed
the role of "a broken-hearted young lady." But this is fairy tale
as well as soap opera, and all tears are wiped away in a series of
events that open up the position of rector of the parish to the
steadfast Mr. Saul, thus removing the last excuse the family had for
opposing the union--somewhat to the sacrifice of "cakes and ale in
the parish," to Mr. Clavering's regret.

Other less worthy persons claim the reader's attention, two of whom,
Archie Clavering and Captain Boodle, provide a welcome bit of comic
relief when Mr. Boodle, habitué of the racecourses and "fast friend"
of Captain Archie Clavering, the ne'er do well brother of Sir Hugh
Clavering, advises Archie about how to advance his courtship of
Lady Ongar. Archie knows deep down that he has no chance. "In some
inexplicable manner he put himself into the scales and weighed
himself, and discovered his own weight with fair accuracy. And he put
her into the scales, and he found that she was much the heavier of
the two." But Boodle knows too much about horses to allow his friend
to shortchange himself in his suit, comparing courtship to riding a
trained mare: "I always choose that she shall know that I'm there."
Use the spurs if you have to.

Needless to say, Archie's sense of his own weight is a more accurate
predictor than Boodle's advice; but Archie and Captain Boodle
also attempt to invoke the assistance of Lady Ongar's friend
Sophie Gordeloupe, who routs them both. Madame Gordeloupe was a
"Franco-Pole," who "spoke English with great fluency, but every word
uttered declared her not to be English." In Trollope's English world,
she was the classic devious foreigner. Some said that she was a
Russian spy. "How could any decent English man or woman wish for the
friendship of such a creature as that?"

Archie makes the first visit to the Russian spy, who quickly strips
him of the twenty pounds he had tucked into his glove and ridicules
him for offering such a paltry sum, demanding fifty pounds as a
starter. "Yes, fifty--for another beginning. What; seven thousands of
pounds per annum, and make difficulty for fifty pounds! You have a
handy way with your glove. Will you come with fifty pounds tomorrow?"

After Archie's second visit succeeds only in Sophie's relieving him
of fifty more pounds, Boodle is pressed into service for a third
attempt. When Sophie asks him if Boodle is an English name, he
replies, "Altogether English, I believe. Our Boodles come out of
Warwickshire; small property near Leamington--doosed small, I'm
sorry to say." When he utterly fails in his embassy, he feels "quite
entitled to twit her with the payment she had taken," and asks about
his friend's seventy pounds that she has taken. More ridicule. Boodle
is routed. Madame Gordeloupe finds that longer speeches in a tongue
not her own are more effective:

   "Suppose you go to your friend and tell him from me that he have
   chose a very bad Mercury in his affairs of love--the worst Mercury
   I ever see. Perhaps the Warwickshire Mercuries are not very good.
   Can you tell me, Captain Booddle, how they make love down in
   Warwickshire?"

The women are strong. Julia Ongar plays her hand well. After
terminating her love affair with young Harry Clavering because
neither of them has any money, she goes in search of bigger game.
"Julia had now lived past her one short spell of poetry, had written
her one sonnet, and was prepared for the business of the world." She
goes on to win the prize of her widow's bountiful settlement, but
she then finds that she is accepted neither by the gentry nor by the
servants at Ongar Park when she goes to occupy her new residence.
And on learning that she has a losing hand to play against Florence
Burton, she plays it with reasonable dignity. She is not, however,
above a bit of revenge at the last, taunting Harry that Florence must
be very beautiful. Not so beautiful, he says, but very clever.

"Ah--I understand. She reads a great deal, and that sort of thing.
Yes; that is very nice. But I shouldn't have thought that that
would have taken you. You used not to care much for talent and
learning--not in women I mean."

Florence, for her part, is steadfast in her love and prepares to give
it up when she senses that she has lost; but the leading lady often
has the most stereotyped part to play. Florence's sister-in-law,
Cecilia Burton, plays her supporting role well, taking the initiative
in confronting Harry when he wavers, and doing it without informing
her husband, who might forbid her to do so. The title of Chapter
XXVII emphasizes her initiative: "What Cecilia Burton did for her
Sister-in-law." And what she did is explained a bit after her effort:
"Even Cecilia, with all her partiality for Harry, felt that he was
not worth the struggle; but it was for her now to estimate him at the
price that Florence might put upon him--not at her own price."

Harry Clavering's reflections on his situation bear the markings of
authenticity. Trollope had met his new American friend, Kate Field,
about three years earlier, and it is tempting to attribute these
comments about how a man can love two women at the same time to his
not-entirely-paternal interest in Kate.

Sir Hugh Clavering's death at sea permits the fairy tale ending.
Fairy tale, yes; and soap opera plot, yes; but the nuances of
Victorian society are exposed with such wit that _The Claverings_
is lifted well above the soap opera mark. It stands as one of my
favorites of Trollope's novels, one that could readily be recommended
to the reader who is not quite familiar with the author's name.




SEVERAL DEGREES OF STUBBORN

LINDA TRESSEL


Be advised and read no further, any to whom it is important that the
ending of the book not be known before it is read. _Linda Tressel_
(1867) is one of Trollope's dark books--_Sir Harry Hotspur_ is
another--in which the heroine does not fare well after being thwarted
in trying to have a life on her own terms.

That a young woman should insist on such conditions in the nineteenth
century would mark this as a work that could be used as a feminist
text today; and perhaps it would be so used if it were a little less
melodramatic--and if anyone knew anything about it.

Linda is a young woman who shows spunk and determination, but
she falls victim to the stubborn steadfastness of purpose of her
Aunt Charlotte, shown to be a religious zealot of the evangelical
Protestant variety, and Aunt Charlotte's lodger, Peter Steinmarc, a
Nuremberger of the slow-witted stubborn sort. Both are so extreme in
their positions that they might be taken for caricatures were they
not shown in such convincing detail.

The story is that of a motherless child who is taken under the wing
of her Aunt Charlotte, a devout woman who "goes far beyond the
ordinary amenities of Lutheran teaching." When Linda attains the age
of twenty, she learns that Peter Steinmarc has offered to make her
his wife. The reader is told that he has previously proposed many
times to Charlotte Staubach, who declined the honor and reminded
Peter that he would become owner of the house now in Linda's name,
if he should become Linda's husband. On being told of his marital
intentions by her Aunt Charlotte, Linda immediately refuses, but she
becomes "very wretched." A few details tell why:

   She told herself that sooner or later her aunt would conquer her,
   that sooner or later that mean-faced old man, with his snuffy
   fingers, and his few straggling hairs brushed over his bald pate,
   with his big shoes spreading here and there because of his corns,
   and his ugly, loose, square, snuffy coat, and his old hat which he
   had worn so long that she never liked to touch it, would become
   her husband, and that it would be her duty to look after his wine,
   and his old shoes, and his old hat, and to have her own little
   possessions doled out to her by his penuriousness.

This then is the story, and it plays out with the added complication
of Linda's being in love with the young man who lives across the
little river behind her house. He is in and out of jail because
of his political radicalism, but Linda knows little of this. They
attempt an elopement, but it fails when young Ludovic is apprehended
by the police at the Augsburg station when their train arrives. Linda
had the pluck to run away with Ludovic, and in the end she has the
pluck to run away on her own, but though she confronts her aunt
several times, she never can bring herself to face her and refute
her. When Aunt Charlotte plays the prayer card, Linda never refuses
to kneel and listen to the degrading and humiliating prayers offered
on her behalf.

The feminist agenda was one that the conservative Trollope never
subscribed to, but his stories were too true to life to conceal
women's problems. Perhaps his stories got away from him, and the
women's stories told themselves. In this one, poor Linda finds
herself totally powerless under the domination of her aunt, as no
man would be. The world appears to be conspiring to keep her from
breaking out of her aunt's smothering sphere. When she leaves the
house to go consult an old friend of her late father's, Herr Molk
tells her that she should submit herself to her elders and her
betters.

Trollope made little secret of his religious tastes--traditional
Anglicanism, of the high church sort, but not papist. And he had no
patience with any evidence of fanaticism in religion. "But there are
women of the class to which Madame Staubach belonged who think that
the acerbities of religion are intended altogether for their own sex.
That men ought to be grateful to them who will deny?" Poor Linda's
final escape is too late to save her; she makes her way to her
uncle's house in Cologne, where her Aunt Grüner, a Catholic, tells
her that her Aunt Charlotte's mistreatment of her comes of her
religion.

   "We think differently, my dear. Thank God, we have got somebody to
   tell us what we ought to do and what we ought not to do." Linda
   was not strong enough to argue the question, or to remind her aunt
   that this somebody, too, might possibly be wrong.

Linda's progressive downhill and melodramatic course makes for a
rather grim story. Mercifully, it is a short one. The descriptions of
Aunt Charlotte and of Peter Steinmarc leave little room for subtlety.
However, Aunt Charlotte's breastplate of righteousness was not
entirely without a few little chinks, as we see in her last encounter
with Linda's wild lover. Trollope's description, I fear, will bring
few feminists to his side:

   He could get in and out of the roofs of houses, and could carry
   away with him a young maiden. These are deeds which always excite
   a certain degree of admiration in the female heart, and Madame
   Staubach, though she was a Baptist, was still a female. When,
   therefore, she found herself in the presence of Ludovic, she could
   not treat him with the indignant scorn with which she would have
   received him had he intruded upon her premises before her fears of
   him had been excited.

Like _Nina Balatka_, _Linda Tressel_ was published as an anonymous
work; only later did Trollope declare himself as the author. It has
been stated that he wanted to prove that he could write a different
kind of novel, set in Europe. _Linda Tressel_ was clearly an effort
to take his writing in a different direction. Though it was not a
commercial success, it can hardly be dismissed. The story moves
inexorably to a tragic ending for the heroine; the author stays on
task with the progression of the story, but it is seasoned with bits
of irony. The reader begins to suspect that there is heavy weather
ahead as the storm clouds gather over the picturesque little red
house in Nuremberg; perhaps it is the impact of the inevitable deluge
that is so depressing.




THE DOWNSIDE OF CHIVALRY

HE KNEW HE WAS RIGHT


Novels rarely have subtitles; Anthony Trollope certainly didn't
bother with them. But _He Knew He Was Right_ is a sitting duck for
a frivolous little subtitle. How about _But He Was Wrong_? Or maybe
_But She Knew He Was Wrong_? Or perhaps, _But She Wouldn't Pretend
That He Was Right_? But of course any subtitle would have been
redundant. The five-word title tells it all. Of course he wasn't
right. But he was stubborn. And she was stubborn. And in this case,
it was a case of terminal stubbornness.

The problem with _He Knew He Was Right_ is that the man who knows
he is right, Louis Trevelyan, fails to overcome his terminal
stubbornness. Or perhaps we should refer to it as a paranoid
personality disorder--or maybe as the prevailing diagnosis of the
time: madness. Whatever we call it, it isn't pretty, and the story of
his progressive delusion is not a pleasant one. Interesting, yes. So
is _Crime and Punishment_. But both stories tell how someone happened
to think and do the wrong thing, and these are unpleasant subjects.
Both books dilute the dose with little subplots that add humor and
diversion. But the main story line is still the main story line.
Louis Trevelyan, a young husband, is annoyed by the daily visits
to his wife by her godfather, Colonel Osborne, a bachelor with a
reputation for pursuing beautiful young married women. He objects,
she resents the objection, and both husband and wife shoot past the
point of negotiation with their first discussion of the subject. Both
are stubborn, things go downhill from there, and in the end Louis
Trevelyan goes mad and suffers the consequences.

Trevelyan was set up by circumstances, and to understand some of
these circumstances, we must take note of the laws of England at that
time. English common law stated that in marriage, two became one,
and that one was the husband in the eyes of the law. The husband was
indeed the lord and master. In regard to children, John Stuart Mill
wrote of the wife's subordination in marriage, "They are by law his
children . . . . No one act can she do towards or in relation to
them, except by delegation from him."

This was part of the system of coverture, in which a married woman
surrendered her legal existence, which was suspended during her
marriage, "or at least incorporated or consolidated into that of
her husband, under whose wing, protection, and cover, she performs
everything." [1] The efforts of Victorian feminists, who considered
this to be "marital slavery," led to the Married Woman's Property
Act of 1882, twenty years after this book was written; but even this
was only a partial solution. It was not until 1923 that grounds for
divorce were made the same for both sexes, and divorce remained
expensive until Legal Aid became available in 1949.

   [Footnote 1: Sir William Blackstone's _Commentaries on the Laws of
   England_, 1765-1769]

With this as the law of the land, one can begin to see that a young
husband, new to the demands of marriage, might feel that his very
manhood required that he exercise his authority. (There is a downside
to chivalry.)

And on the other side of the equation, we are told that Emily has
been brought up away from England, in the Mandarin Islands, where she
has developed an independent spirit. Friends of both parties urged
them to soften their positions, but both felt that their honor was
insulted, and that they could not retreat or compromise.

Today's reader observes pretty quickly in this disaster that such an
impasse is less likely to occur these days because women have more
rights. And though Trollope never officially endorsed the rights
of women, he allowed Emily, and other women in other novels, to be
compelling in their arguments. Emily voices these early in our story:

   "It is a very poor thing to be a woman," she said to her sister.

   "It is perhaps better than being a dog," said Nora; "but, of
   course, we can't compare ourselves to men."

   "It would be better to be a dog. One wouldn't be made to suffer
   so much. When a puppy is taken away from its mother, she is bad
   enough for a few days, but she gets over it in a week . . . . It
   is very hard for a woman to know what to do," continued Emily,
   "but if she is to marry, I think she had better marry a fool.
   After all, a fool generally knows that he is a fool, and will
   trust someone, though he may not trust his wife."

"Humankind cannot bear very much reality," and we are mercifully
diverted by the subplots, which occupy approximately fifty-four of
the ninety-nine chapters of the 823-page book (one of Trollope's
longest).

Miss Jemima Stanbury occupies a position of similar prominence among
the subplots as she enjoyed in the city of Exeter. This is stated
in a single sentence (of some length): "It is to be hoped that
no readers of these pages will be so un-English as to be unable
to appreciate the difference between county society and town
society--the society, that is, of a provincial town, or so ignorant
as not to know also that there may be persons so privileged, that
although they live distinctly within a provincial town, there is
accorded to them, as though by brevet rank, all the merit of living
in the county." And Miss Stanbury was universally regarded as
"county" rather than "town." "There was not a tradesman in Exeter
who was not aware of it, and who did not touch his hat to her
accordingly."

Miss Stanbury was rich. She had been engaged to a young banker, Mr.
Brooke Burgess, who had jilted her, subsequently died, and left to
her "every shilling that he possessed." And she, in her own romantic
way, was determined that her inheritance should be hers only for life
and that at her death it should revert to the Burgess family and not
stay in her own family.

This is the formidable woman who paid for the education of Hugh
Stanbury, Louis Trevelyan's best friend, and then cut him off from
all support because he abandoned the study of law to write for the
"penny press." She then wrote to Hugh's mother asking her to send her
younger daughter Dorothy to live with her. "I shall expect her to be
regular at meals, to be constant in going to church, and not to read
modern novels."

The great problem for Miss Stanbury arose when her beloved niece
Dorothy fell in love with and agreed to marry young Brooke Burgess,
nephew of Miss Stanbury's late lover. But young Brooke was to inherit
the Burgess wealth that Miss Stanbury intended to return to the
Burgesses. And if he should marry her niece, it would diminish her
posthumous triumph in returning the wealth. So he must not marry her
niece. Her niece must marry Mr. Gibson, a young clergyman of Exeter.

Happy endings are permitted in the subplots, and the young people
have their way. That is, most of them do. Miss Stanbury comes
around with a late night change of heart and grants her blessing to
Dorothy's marrying Mr. Burgess. Mr. Gibson receives his just reward.
He is claimed by two sisters of the parish, one of whom so terrifies
him that he reneges on his engagement to her, escaping her long
kitchen knife when a kinsman is summoned to take it away from her,
and Mr. Gibson then takes the younger of the two lovely sisters.

There is yet another subplot involving the Rowleys and the Stanburys.
Hugh Stanbury, best friend of the unfortunate and stubborn Louis
Trevelyan and rejected beneficiary of his Aunt Stanbury, is in love
with Nora Rowley, beautiful sister of the also unfortunate and also
stubborn Emily Trevelyan. But Nora's parents have their hearts set
on her accepting the proposal of one Mr. Glascock, soon to be Lord
Peterborough on the death of his father. A handsome and pleasant
young man, his proposal comes only after the beautiful Nora has
lost her heart to radical young Hugh Stanbury, and Mr. Glascock is
refused. We then have the opportunity to follow Mr. Glascock on his
journey to Naples to see his dying father, in the course of which
he happens to travel with, by great coincidence, Louis Trevelyan
himself, and two young Spalding sisters from America. This gives the
young Trevelyan, separated from his wife, an opportunity to describe
another variety of wives, the American ones, who are "exigeant--and
then they are so hard. They want the weakness that a woman ought to
have."

We see a good bit more of the Spalding family in Florence, where Mr.
Glascock decides that the elder sister Caroline is his favorite, and
after a suitable diversion to other subplots, the reader learns that
they have become engaged, Caroline having demonstrated her wit with
her response to his question about American "institutions:"

   "Everything is an institution. Having iced water to drink in every
   room of the house is an institution. Having hospitals in every
   town is an institution. Travelling altogether in one class of
   railway cars is an institution. Saying "sir", is an institution.
   Teaching all the children mathematics is an institution. Plenty of
   food is an institution. Getting drunk is an institution in a great
   many towns. Lecturing is an institution. There are plenty of them,
   and some are very good--but you wouldn't like it."

Mr. Trollope must have had some unpleasant experiences with one or
more American women who served as his model for Caroline Spalding's
friend Wallachia Petrie, "the Republican Browning," a "poetess" and
a feminist and an outspoken opponent of "European" ways. Inveighing
against the "courtiers" of "Europe," Miss Petrie vows that "the
courtier shall be cut down together with the withered grasses and
thrown into the oven, and there shall be an end of them."

We may hope that the future Lord Peterborough will not be obliged to
listen to such speeches at Monkhams, his ancestral home.

But all is not diversion with subplots. The main business at hand is
the progressive madness of Louis Trevelyan, who has his young son
snatched by his private detective Bozzle (a well-meaning agent who
eventually allows his wife to convince him that his own suspicion
is correct, and that Trevelyan is mad) and carries him off to Italy.
There he becomes progressively weaker, failing to eat, and Emily
comes to rescue her son and provide hospice care for her husband. Was
he mad? The author answers that he was "neither mad nor sane--not
mad, so that all power over his own actions need be taken from him;
nor sane, so that he must be held to be accountable for his words and
thoughts."

The case of Louis Trevelyan is a tough one. The author, noted for his
realistic portrayal of the world, makes a convincing case. And one
must remember that Trollope was, after all, a story teller; and the
story of a man who went mad because his wife would not accept his
authority--because she would not recognize his position as master of
his house, where his word was law--was a story worth telling. The
subplots and the comedy and the realism are all background, but the
strange story is the event in the foreground. The story may have
taken its author further than he had intended to go. His own comment
on the novel in his autobiography has been often quoted and is worth
reviewing:

   I do not know that in any literary effort I ever fell more
   completely short of my own intention than in this story. It was
   my purpose to create sympathy for the unfortunate man who, while
   endeavouring to do his duty to all around him, should be led
   constantly astray by his unwillingness to submit his own judgment
   to the opinion of others. The man is made to be unfortunate
   enough, and the evil which he does is apparent. So far I did not
   fail, but the sympathy has not been created yet. I look upon the
   story as being nearly altogether bad. It is in part redeemed by
   certain scenes in the house and vicinity of an old maid in Exeter.
   But a novel which in its main parts is bad cannot, in truth, be
   redeemed by the vitality of subordinate characters.

It may well be that Louis and Emily Trevelyan got away from their
creator, just as their quarrel took on a life of its own and got
out of the control of its two participants. Even with an author who
prided himself on discipline in his writing, the pen can sometimes
take off with a will of its own. Though the author professed to be
displeased with the result, most critics have viewed the result
with more favor, and I am inclined to agree with them. As to the
strangeness of the story, the more one sees of life, how can anyone
say that anything cannot happen? The storyteller's job is to take
strange stories and make entertaining stories out of them. When I was
in training, one of my chief residents had a comment that he used for
strange cases: "You see that sometimes."

He knew he was right, but he was wrong.




THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER

THE VICAR OF BULLHAMPTON


On the day that I finished reading Trollope's _The Vicar of
Bullhampton_, the following appeared in an email from a friend: An
Irish daughter had not been home for over 5 years. Upon her return,
her father cussed her: "Where have you been all this time, you
ingrate!" The girl, crying, replied, "Dad . . . I became a
prostitute." "What! Out of here, you shameless harlot! . . ." "OK,
Dad--as you wish. I just came back to give Mom this fur coat and you
this new Mercedes Benz. . . ." "Now what was it you said you had
become?" "A prostitute, Dad" "Oh, you scared me half to death, girl.
I thought you said a Protestant."

This is one of the major plot lines of _The Vicar of Bullhampton_,
though not its conclusion. Plots are standard and repetitive. The
success of the work relies less on the plot than on its window
dressing. Trollope's Carry Brattle has been gone from home, and
everyone knows what she has become but delicacy forbids use of the
word "whore." Her father forbids her return. Will she come back? How
will she be received? This theme apparently was a daring innovation
in the mainstream Victorian novel; Mary Magdalene rarely appeared in
the printed pages of the nineteenth century.

Sensational as this story line was, the novel appears to move rather
slowly. All plot lines revolve around Mister Fenwick, the vicar. He
and his wife encourage their house guest, Mary Lowther, to accept the
suit of Mr. Fenwick's best friend, Harry Gilmore. She doesn't love
him; she refuses him and shortly after falls in love with her cousin
Walter Marrable. She accepts his proposal, but they jointly agree to
call it off when his prospects in life are ruined by his father's
reckless wasting of Walter's inheritance. Against her better judgment
she accepts Mr. Gilmore. Then Walter's prospects for an inheritance
improve. So she breaks her engagement to Mr. Gilmore and resumes that
with Captain Marrable. Like Alice Vavasor in _Can You Forgive Her?_
she becomes a double jilt, and she is roundly criticized by many for
such grievous behavior.

Perhaps the most entertaining of the story lines is a church issue
reminiscent of the Barsetshire novels. Mister Fenwick is insulted by
the great landowner of the county, The Marquis of Trowbridge, and he
succeeds in repaying the Marquis with more insults. Here Trollope's
familiarity with church sensitivities brings us the Marquis's
revenge: he allows a Methodist chapel (not a regular Wesleyan
Methodist chapel, but a Primitive Methodist chapel) to be built
across the road from the vicarage, where its ugly red bricks and loud
discordant bells are a recurring nuisance to the vicar and his wife.

But then: the vicar decides to consider the chapel to be his hair
shirt, and he obtains the promise of his wife (who will never open
her front door to look at the chapel) not to mention it to him again.
The vicar considers the matter closed; but his wife's sister visits
with her husband, a distinguished barrister, who volunteers to
investigate the matter. He discovers that the land on which the
chapel is being built is glebe land! (Glebe land is that which
belongs to the vicar for his personal farming or gardening.) And here
the vicar refuses to shed his hair shirt.

His clerical mind allows him to demonstrate his virtue by tolerating
the chapel, though his poor wife may be obliged to endure the sight
and sounds of it without being allowed to complain to him. But the
perpetrator of the chapel is not to be spared, and the vicar writes a
stinging letter to the marquis, in which he explains the use of very
strong words:

   He showed the letter to his wife.

   "Isn't malice a very strong word?" she said.

   "I hope so," answered the vicar.

The pace of the gentle life in Victorian England was surely a
leisurely one. This pace is reflected in the whole page that is given
to the thoughts of the Marquis of Trowbridge when he receives the
insulting letter from Mr. Fenwick; and his reflections are further
supplemented by the author's reminding us, if it were not already
evident, that the Marquis is an old fool:

   His lordship's mind was one utterly incapable of sifting
   evidence--unable even to understand evidence when it came to him.
   He was not a bad man. He desired nothing that was not his own, and
   remitted much that was. He feared God, honoured the Queen, and
   loved his country. He was not self-indulgent. He did his duties as
   he knew them. But he was an arrogant old fool, who could not keep
   himself from mischief--who could only be kept from mischief by the
   aid of some such master as his son.

Trollope can be more pithy, as when he describes the Marquis's
reception and reaction to the letter from the vicar: "His
intelligence worked slowly, whereas his wrath worked quickly."

The vicar subsequently feels himself cheated of his revenge after
the Marquis's son Lord St. George succeeds in "pouring oil on the
waters." But others pursue the matter for him, and in the end the
chapel is pulled down.

The vicar is actually rather well portrayed and could stand with his
clerical brethren of Barsetshire if he were given six novels in which
we could follow his career. He shows himself to be a naive clergyman
who thinks he can intervene in the problems of a pretty, banished
prostitute without incurring any risk to his reputation. He urges the
miller Jacob Brattle to accept his daughter, ignoring the father's
refusal to speak to him about Carry. He visits Carry's brother
George, urging him and his wife to take her in, facing the wife's
wrath after George advises him not to raise the issue with her. He
visits Carry's brother-in-law Mr. Jay the ironmonger with similar
lack of success. He visits Carry at the small town inn where she is
staying and pays for her lodging. Just when the reader begins to
wonder whether, in the words of the song in _The Music Man_, "Hester
will win just one more A," the vicar's wife Janet finally persuades
him to lower his profile in the matter, but he never seems to
understand the damage of gossip.

His instincts are shown to be correct in his championing of Sam
Brattle, who is accused of murder but subsequently exonerated, and
of Carry Brattle, who returns home and finally regains her father's
affection. Carry's return is after setting out on foot, exposing
herself to the elements in desperation, half expecting to die of
exposure as did Lady Dedlock in Dickens's _Bleak House_, and as
Gerald Crich would do in D. H. Lawrence's _Women in Love_. Did such
a recurrent fictional device reflect an occasional practice of the
times?

Trollope is a chatty author. Had he been as reticent as twentieth
century practitioners of minimalist fiction, we might not have
had spelled out for our curiosity a definition of a gentleman, a
recurrent source of fascination for Trollope. Miss Marrable is the
author's agent who ponders the matter, concluding that money does not
entitle a millionaire to be considered a gentleman. Attorneys don't
make the cut by virtue of their profession. A son of a gentleman,
however, could maintain his rank by earning his living as a
clergyman, a barrister, a soldier, or a sailor. Physicians were not
absolutely excluded from the ranks of the gentlemen, but a physician
could never participate in the privileges accorded to the Law
and the Church. There might be some doubt about the engineering
profession, but any man who allowed himself to touch trade or
commerce automatically excluded himself. Such men might be ever so
respectable, "but brewers, bankers and merchants were not gentlemen,
and the world, according to Miss Marrable's theory, was going astray,
because people were forgetting their landmarks."

And it goes without mentioning that for Walter Marrable, the option
of going to work to make money is never considered. His only recourse
is to return to the army.

Obvious generalizations as to class have gone out of style. But
Victorian England was a land of class and caste, as shown in this
allusion to a hired hand in the mill: "His companion in the mill did
not come near them, knowing, as the poor do know on such occasions,
there was something going on which would lead them to prefer that he
should be absent."

There's also a murder mystery. It occupies several chapters, but
at the end it is dismissed with only the limited knowledge of the
details told by Carry Brattle and her brother Sam, both witnesses at
the trial.

The story of the Mary Magdalene, though innovative, is, after all,
sentimental; the love story, perhaps considered essential to sell the
book to the public, is tedious; the murder mystery is perfunctory;
but I wouldn't miss the story of the Methodist chapel.




A TERMINAL AFFECTION

SIR HARRY HOTSPUR OF HUMBLETHWAITE


The beleaguered father of the twenty-first century might at first
look with some longing to the mores of the nineteenth century and
to _Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite_, in a time and place when
a father's word was law, and a faithful daughter would not marry
without her father's consent. It was not so simple, though, and
that's what the book is about. The plot anticipates that of Henry
James's _Washington Square_, written about ten years later about a
family in New York.

Trollope presents the story in a short novel of 172 pages, which
means there are no subplots. However, the reader is not shortchanged
by any lack of reflections by and about the characters as each turn
of the story unfolds. Whereas James regards his participants in a
rather detached fashion, as a puppet master who pulls the strings and
watches the unfortunate movements that may result, and with relative
economy of words, Trollope regards his characters with as much
affection as they deserve, spending paragraphs detailing all aspects
of the situation as they may appear to each of them all along the
way.

The daughter of a wealthy baronet falls in love with her cousin who
is a spendthrift and unworthy of her. We must follow the ground rules
of Victorian society--cousins may marry, and a father must decide
whether to approve of his daughter's intended husband and is indeed
obliged to investigate his character. In this case, we learn that
the mortal sin committed by the suitor is that he cheated at cards.
Remember T. S. Eliot's line about Macavity the Mystery Cat: "He's
outwardly respectable. (They say he cheats at cards.)"

For our later generation, Trollope is a patient instructor: We are
reminded that an Englishman's home is his castle. "Nothing on earth
should induce Sir Harry to see his cousin anywhere on his own
premises."

In a society in which inheritance could be all important, the lover
of the fox hunt was beginning to suspect that the laws of inheritance
were not universally applicable: "And good blood too will have its
effect--physical for the most part--and will produce bottom, lasting
courage, that capacity of carrying on through the mud to which Sir
Harry was wont to allude; but good blood will bring no man back to
honesty."

He gives lessons in the art of negotiation: "Lady Elizabeth had
not been instructed to propose a meeting. She had been told rather
to avoid it if at all possible. But, like some other undiplomatic
ambassadors, in her desire to be civil, she ran at once to the
extremity of the permitted concession."

A serious interview ensues when George Hotspur plucks up his courage
to ask Sir Harry for Emily Hotspur's hand. Two and a half pages of
dialogue follow, during which George pleads his losing case well,
leaving Sir Harry to decide: "He sat silent for full five minutes
before he spoke again, and then he gave judgment as follows: 'You
will go away without seeing her tomorrow.'" Trollope follows the
narrative to a point further on, at which, "The process of parental
yielding had already commenced."

Ever the patient instructor, he here teaches:

   On all such occasions interviews are bad. The teller of this story
   ventures to take the opportunity of recommending parents in such
   cases always to refuse interviews, not only between the young lady
   and the lover who is to be excluded, but also between themselves
   and the lover. The vacillating tone--even when the resolve to
   suppress vacillation has been most determined--is perceived and
   understood.

Not always a dispassionate instructor, the compassionate narrator
at one point has tender words for the doomed maiden: "Then he knelt
down and prayed . . . that he might be as a brand saved from the
burning. . . . Alas, dearest, no; not so could it be done! Not at thy
instance, though thy prayers be as pure as the songs of angels."

The story is built with several materials familiar to Trollope
readers: the faithful young woman who can never love another,
whatever becomes of the love of her life; the father concerned with
the integrity of his estate in generations to come; and the young man
who never intends to work and would readily marry for money. Whereas,
however, in other novels it all comes out all right (_Ayala's Angel_,
for instance, is a comedy from first to last in which numerous young
girls succeed in following their hearts without having to pine away)
in this story the chips fall where they may, so the ending is a bit
of a downer.

By all accounts Trollope considered himself rather a conservative
citizen. But whether consciously or not, he holds up a number of
Victorian conventions to the test of _reductio ad absurdum_ and shows
their absurdity to a later generation, whatever his contemporary
readers may have thought. No feminist, he showed the disadvantaged
state of women in novel after novel. And although Father may often
know best, his stubborn attempt to prove it might include the risk of
disastrous consequences, as shown in _Sir Harry Hotspur_.




THE HEIR AND THE BASTARD

RALPH THE HEIR


There are two Ralph Newtons in Anthony Trollope's _Ralph the Heir_.
One is nephew to the Squire of Newton Priory and is his heir. The
other is his illegitimate son. So: why should the title not be _Ralph
the Bastard_? First: this is a Victorian novel; such a title would
have been unacceptable to Victorian society. Second: even though the
squire's son shows himself to be more worthy than his cousin, the
central figure in the story really is Ralph the heir. Trollope merely
says that heroes of pure virtue and villains of unalloyed vice are
rare.

This is what it is about: There was a complicated inheritance
issue--not contested, just complicated. I had to draw a little
diagram to get it straight, and I then had to refer to it time after
time:

                 Ralph Newton,
                the old Squire
                        |
            +-----------+-----------+
            |                       |
      Ralph Newton            Gregory Newton
       The Parson               The Squire
            |                       |
      +-----+-------+               |
      |             |               |
   Ralph         Gregory          Ralph
   The Heir     The Parson     Not the heir

Gregory Newton the Squire, in his youth and before he became the
Squire, traveled in Europe and fathered a child (whom he named Ralph,
after his father); the mother died before their planned marriage.
Outraged at his son's indiscretion, the old Squire then entailed
the family estate to the second generation; that is, his son could
inherit the estate and use it for life, but he did not have "power of
appointment" (a phrase I learned when tracing my father's many trusts
to their intended conclusions). That is, he could not pass it on.
Unless the first born (Gregory the squire, who had fathered the
illegitimate son) should marry and have a legitimate son, the family
estate would go to the first born son of his brother Ralph Newton the
parson. (We're talking about three Ralphs and two Gregorys in three
generations here.) It so happened that Parson Ralph's first born son,
Ralph the heir, was a playboy who acquired more debts than he could
pay, and he wound up with two choices: marry for money, taking Polly
Neefit, daughter of his tailor, who had loaned money to Ralph and
would forgive his debts and give him enough money (twenty thousand
pounds) to pay his debts and more; or "go to the Jews," that is, put
up his birthright as security for a loan to pay his debts.

When Gregory the father of the illegitimate son heard of this (he
had now become squire after the death of his father), he saw an
opportunity to take the place of the Jews and basically buy the
birthright of Ralph the heir, so that he could then pass it on to his
own son, Ralph the bastard.

In considering Trollope's _John Caldigate_, I wondered at the way
in which inheritance issues could yield such complicated plots.
Obviously there were contested inheritances; today, even without
primogeniture, children of a deceased parent often have bitter
disputes over the rights to seemingly minor treasures of much greater
sentimental than monetary value--not to mention disputes over
significant property and money. But did it ever get this complicated?
Who knows?

So much for the inheritance issue. There are complicated boy-girl
issues also. Ralph the heir becomes the ward of Sir Thomas Underwood,
a distinguished but now idle barrister. Sir Thomas has two
daughters--Patience, the elder, plain and intelligent; and Clarissa,
a beauty. He also has an orphan niece, nineteen years old and "the
most lovely young woman he had ever seen," Mary Bonner. So as it
starts out: Gregory the parson, brother of Ralph the heir, is in love
with Clarissa; Clarissa is in love with Ralph the heir; Ralph the
heir kisses Clarissa and tells her he loves her, but when he realizes
he needs money he is persuaded by his tailor Mr. Neefit to propose to
his daughter Polly. When Mary arrives on the scene he vows to propose
to her; Mary keeps her own counsel, but Ralph "not the heir" falls
seriously in love with her. Patience may have had some preference of
her own but not the looks to express or pursue it.

This tangle of alliances and preferences is a bit like a murder
mystery: can the reader guess who will wind up with whom? And
in truth, the novel basically stands on its plot. Trollope is
sufficiently realistic to show that Ralph never really reforms. One
of the most interesting women is Polly Neefit, who is urged by her
father the breeches-maker to accept Ralph the heir, after Ralph is
persuaded by him to propose. She refuses him twice, first because she
doesn't think he loves her, and then, after being somewhat mollified
on that score, because he doesn't respect her father and although she
could have any one of twenty young men, she has only one father.

Her first refusal is a classic Trollopian dialogue. He swears he
can love her, but after a lengthy recitation of probabilities, she
concludes: "I ain't come to breaking my heart for you yet, Mr.
Newton."

Trollope handles the boy-girl scenes very well. But his forte is
politics. He had run for a seat in Parliament once himself, and he
had become sufficiently disillusioned to paint the political scene
in some raw ways. Here we find Sir Thomas Underwood, who has retired
from professional and public life to write the definitive biography
of Sir Francis Bacon (but never actually takes pen to paper),
deciding to try to re-enter Parliament via the rotten borough of
Percycross, on the Conservative ticket. It so happens that one of
the other contestants for one of the two Percycross seats is Ontario
Moggs, a young radical rebel who preaches the virtues of labor unions
and strikes, and who is also an ardent suitor for the hand of Polly
Neefit. We follow Ontario to the Cheshire Cheese, the public house
where he delivers impassioned orations; and we follow Sir Thomas in
his reluctant efforts to canvass the electorate. Sir Thomas and his
running mate, the incumbent Conservative candidate, win the election,
but there is a petition--a demand for a recount and an investigation
into possible improprieties in the election.

In the definitive moment of this story, Sir Thomas learns that his
reluctant expenditures for campaign costs were only the first of
the demands to be made on his purse. After apparently winning the
election, he is persuaded by Mr. Pabsby, the Wesleyan preacher,
to make a contribution for a new Wesleyan chapel. (Mr. Pabsby has
been shown to us as having a "soft, greasy voice,--a voice made of
pretence, politeness, and saliva.") But then Sir Thomas learns from
his "supporters" that the election will probably be contested, and
that he will need the loyalty of his supporters if he is to prevail.
The list of requirements--personal donations for all the schools and
all the churches, as well as fifty pounds for the old women of the
borough at Christmas--goes on and on. Poor Sir Thomas. To make a long
story short, he refuses any further favors, the petition overturns
his election, and the investigation discloses that Percycross is
such a corrupt borough that it has lost all its representation in
Parliament.

Trollope occasionally indulged in dispensing little lessons in the
facts of life. Early in the story Sir Thomas goes to Portsmouth to
meet his newly orphaned nineteen-year-old niece, whom he has never
seen. He has declared that he will serve as her guardian, and as he
waits to meet her, he is apprehensive. And now as he observes all the
men taking turns to offer her favors, he learns about "priority of
service":

   There are certain favours in life which are very charming,--but
   very unjust to others, and which we may perhaps lump under the
   name of priority of service. Money will hardly buy it. When money
   does buy it, there is no injustice. When priority of service is
   had, like a coach-and-four, by the man who can afford to pay for
   it, industry, which is the source of wealth, receives its fitting
   reward. . . . But priority of service is perhaps more readily
   accorded to feminine beauty, and especially to unprotected
   feminine beauty, than to any other form of claim. Whether or no
   this is ever felt as a grievance, ladies who are not beautiful may
   perhaps be able to say.

Walt Disney's film makers understood this in producing _Mary
Poppins_, for whom "boxes and trunks seemed to extricate themselves."
But even today one can hardly disagree with Trollope that "priority
of service is perhaps more readily accorded to feminine beauty" than
to any other claim.

It is difficult to dislike a genial friend. And Trollope rewards his
readers with his genial approach to his fictional world. In this
story Ralph "not the heir" suffers a major reversal of fortune when
his father dies before completing the schemes that would have enabled
Ralph, the illegitimate son, to inherit the estate and his father's
additional fortune. Ralph "not the heir" had resisted ambitions to
inherit the family estate. But he had requested permission to propose
to the beautiful Mary Bonner when he anticipated some validation
of his status. And now it seemed that he would be a "nameless" man
without property or hopes of marriage to the woman he loved. At home,
his butler continues to be solicitous for his employer's feelings.
And the reader feels that the author of his distress has some
compassion for the victim. So he does. But the realistic author also
adds the butler's observation after finally leaving his young master:
"I don't suppose it do come to much mostly when folks go wrong."

But the geniality of the story is shown as the author cruises
confidently to his conclusion of the complicated affair, pulling the
strings to the satisfaction of as many as possible. Ralph the heir
finally receives a reward through the agency of Lady Eardham, mother
of three eligible and more or less young daughters. Lady Eardham
receives a letter from Polly Neefit's father telling her that Ralph
is engaged to marry his daughter Polly. Of course she knows that Mr.
Neefit is bluffing, but she shows the letter to Ralph so that he
will know she has it. She invites Ralph to call on her the following
morning, and when he does, he is toast:

   Of course there was nothing done. During the whole interview
   Lady Eardham continued to press Neefit's letter under her hand
   upon the table, as though it was of all documents the most
   precious. . . . And, though she spoke no such word, she certainly
   gave Ralph to understand that by this letter he, Ralph Newton, was
   in some mysterious manner so connected with the secrets, and the
   interests, and the sanctity of the Eardham family, that, whether
   such connection might be for weal or woe, the Newtons and the
   Eardhams could never altogether free themselves from the link.

Her husband approves her work. The daughters certainly do not object.
"The girls, who knew that they had no fortunes, expected that
everything should be done for them, at least during the period of
their natural harvest." And Augusta Eardham, the first fruit of this
harvest, accepted her lot in life with equanimity. And it worked out
all right.

   Bickerings there might be, but they would be bickerings without
   effect; and Ralph Newton, of Newton, would probably so live
   with this wife of his bosom, that they, too, might lie at last
   pleasantly together in the family vault, with the record of their
   homely virtues visible to the survivors of the parish on the same
   tombstone.

This passage comes thirteen pages before the end of the novel. Had I
been the editor, I should have insisted that this coda be placed at
the very end.




A HARD CASE

THE GOLDEN LION OF GRANPERE


Michel Voss is a hard case. His second wife's niece, Marie, and his
son (by his first wife) George want to marry each other. Marie has
lived in the Voss household since becoming an orphan at age fifteen,
and now at age twenty she is quietly running the family inn, the Lion
d'Or at Granpere. But Michel thinks his son, about twenty-five years
of age, should prove himself in the world before marrying. "I won't
have it, George," he declares, and his word is law. And thereby hangs
the tale.

Trollope loved the hard cases. Perhaps none was harder than Louis
Trevelyan, whose terminal stubbornness was celebrated in _He Knew
He was Right_. _The Last Chronicle of Barset_ revolves around the
celebrated stubbornness of Josiah Crawley, the perpetual curate who
walked miles through the mud to face down Bishop Proudie and his wife
in a triumphant confrontation. Linda Tressel, in the novel bearing
her name, falls victim to her Aunt Charlotte, a religious zealot who
insists on a marriage that Linda refuses. Mr. Whittlestaff, in _An
Old Man's Love_, resisted giving up his young fiancée to her young
lover for long enough to make a short novel out of it. And there
are others--strong characters whose steadfastness of purpose forces
everyone else to bend or face a long struggle.

We are told that Michel Voss might have agreed to his son's marriage
to his niece if he had been consulted beforehand. As it was, when
he hears of it, he immediately determines that it is improper.
Considering it his duty to make arrangements for his niece's
welfare, he arranges what he thinks to be a suitable match with a
prospering--though a bit effeminate--young man who calls at the inn
while trading in textiles. M. Urmand suffers in comparison to George
in Marie's eyes; to her he is simply a "rich trader," while George is
a "real man."

Marie's relation to Michel, the master of the inn, is an interesting
one. She supervises all that takes place at the supper table in
the inn, "standing now close behind her uncle with both her hands
upon his head; and she would often stand so after the supper was
commenced, only moving to attend upon him, or to supplement the
services of Peter and the maidservant when she perceived that they
were becoming for a time inadequate to their duties." When urged by
her uncle to sit at table next to Urmand, the anointed suitor, her
only response is to gently pull his ears.

This is one of the short novels Trollope set in Europe in an effort
to break away from the template of his portrayals of English life.
_The Golden Lion_ is in Alsace-Lorraine, and in this memorable image
of Marie, Trollope has epitomized the Continental culture, so foreign
to the English. Can one imagine a young English woman standing behind
her uncle with her hands on his head while supervising his table?

Michel is the character of interest. The others play their parts,
with events propelled in large part because of lack of communication.
When Marie learns that George is still serious about his love for
her, she brings herself to vow that she will never marry M. Urmand;
but it apparently does not occur to her that she can marry George
without his father's permission. As for Michel himself, he appears
to have painted himself into a corner. The Church will certainly be
of no assistance to him. The Catholic priest is summoned to consult.
"This was very distasteful to Michel Voss, because he was himself
a Protestant, and, having lived all his life with a Protestant son
and two Roman Catholic women in the house, he had come to feel that
Father Gondin's religion was a religion for the weaker sex." He was
not troubled by doctrinal differences, nor was he too particular
about what betrothal meant. "He hardly knew himself how far that
betrothal was a binding ceremony. But he felt strongly that he had
committed himself to the marriage; that it did not become him to
allow that his son had been right; and also that if Marie would
only marry the man, she would find herself quite happy in her new
home." Indeed, all Marie's senior advisors--her aunt, her uncle, the
priest--fail to give her credit for having a mind, or rights, of her
own. After a short time of marriage to her betrothed, she would be
perfectly happy with her new domestic arrangements and forget all
about the love of her youth.

Trollope does allow the postal service to play its role. When Marie
decides to break it off with Urmand, she does so by writing him a
letter, and not telling her uncle about it until the letter is safely
on its way.

In the end, it's all worked out by the men. The matter is finally
settled when M. Urmand comes to the Golden Lion to settle things, is
avoided by Marie, and spends his time playing billiards alone. George
is also on hand, and he manages to have some long tramps in the
fields with his father, mostly discussing business affairs. Michel
enjoys the walks with his son, and a satisfactory resolution ensues.

The story is paced with a light and masterful touch. A climactic
scene between Marie and Urmand is followed by stepping away from
Marie's little room to a long range view in the first line of the
next chapter: "The people of Colmar think Colmar to be a considerable
place, and far be it from us to hint that it is not so. It is--or was
in the days when Alsace was French--the chief town of the department
of the Haut Rhine." It is in this perspective that Michel rests from
his decision-making labors to return to his genius for making plans,
announcing his plan for a picnic the next day. It's too cold for a
picnic, but all go. Urmand is shown to be a friend of the family,
speeches are made, and toasts are drunk. All is well.

_The Golden Lion of Granpere_ is a short, straightforward little love
story. It gets deeply enough into the details of running a rural inn
in Alsace Lorraine to be entertaining. As is usual with Trollope,
a number of lengthy paragraphs give the reader no excuse for not
knowing exactly what each character is, or is not, thinking. Trollope
the traveler learned enough about Europe for a few little short
novels. Perhaps they afforded him the breaks he needed between the
three-volume English blockbusters.




HOW TO BECOME A LADY

LADY ANNA


One doesn't discuss titles and honors much these days. We may even
pretend that they don't matter much, and that in these days of
democracy and equality we have no ambition for such frills. My wife
and I recently spent half a day with a friend of two of our friends,
and we were told before the meeting that he was the "Right Honorable"
and had recently been made a Knight Companion in the New Zealand
Order of Merit after a distinguished political career. Of course this
was nothing that I would have mentioned to him; he dismissed very
quickly even a comment of recognition I made on seeing his portrait
over his staircase. But the title is out there, and I will be hard
pressed to report our visit to any of our friends without making some
offhand reference to the "Right Honorable."

We tend to smile at the emphasis placed on hereditary and acquired
titles in Victorian England. They still exist, however, and the
reader can hardly dismiss as completely dated the central role that
the issue of a hereditary title plays in Anthony Trollope's _Lady
Anna_. As the title of the novel indicates, the heroine is not just
"Anna Murray"; she is "Lady Anna," and the story moves about the
efforts of her mother to establish the legitimacy of the title. The
plot is an ingenious, if improbable, one:

The unscrupulous Earl Lovel has married a commoner, but shortly after
the marriage he informs her that he has previously married a woman
in Italy, and that their marriage is not valid. This means that she
is not his Countess, and their unborn child will not be legitimate.
Needless to say, she does not take this well, and she spends the
rest of her life fighting for her title and for that of her daughter.
In almost fairy tale fashion, an humble tailor helps her in her
struggle, providing encouragement and significant loans of money. In
the fullness of time the tailor's young son and the Countess's young
daughter move from being childhood friends to sweethearts, and they
vow to marry each other. The tailor's son, Daniel Thwaite, becomes a
radical advocate of equality for all and abolition of nobility.

The countess becomes obsessed with the defense of her title, and so
vehemently does she oppose her daughter's preference for a commoner
that she threatens violence and forcibly keeps her daughter
sequestered from the young radical.

The late cunning Earl had so arranged his affairs that though his
land and title would devolve upon his nephew, his immense wealth was
in personal property--stocks and other investments that would go to
the Countess and Lady Anna if his previous marriage to an Italian
wife were not verified.

A young Earl Lovel appears, heir to the title and perhaps to the late
Earl's wealth; whatever had happened in Italy is a great mystery, and
the lawyers for the Countess and for the Lovel family fail to find
any evidence that they consider strong enough to convince an English
jury that an Italian woman should hold an English title. Facing a
lengthy dispute, the lawyers for both sides of the family decide
among themselves (!) that a compromise should be reached, and that it
could best be accomplished by a marriage between the two sides of the
family: the young Earl and Lady Anna.

The young Earl is agreeable to this, and he woos and proposes to
Anna. All involved parties, most notably Lady Anna's mother, urge the
match; but Anna and Daniel the tailor resist all these efforts.

In the presence of such fairy tale elements, the American reader
might expect that the author's sympathies would lie with the young
lovers, and their fate would constitute either a pathetic failure,
or a true fairy tale ending with justice emerging triumphant, with
a rousing authorial chorus. But the warring parties are a bit more
complex. Daniel Thwaite is initially presented as "a thoughtful man
who had read many books." But we are also told that Daniel Thwaite
was a man of a certain power. "Men are persuasive, and imperious
withal, who are unconscious that they use burning words to others,
whose words to them are never even warm. So it was with this man."

And though Trollope had a predilection for the woman who has but one
heart to give and never looks back, and though Lady Anna is stated to
be one of this sorority--"She had given her heart to Daniel Thwaite,
and she had but one heart to give"--it is at least granted to Lady
Anna to have some daydreams: "She already began to have feelings
about the family to which she had been a stranger before she had
come among the Lovels. And if it really would make him happy, this
Phoebus, how glorious would that be!"

Trollope was never one to use the blue pencil over passages that
spelled out how his characters felt. Not for him the implications and
brevity of a later day. We see Daniel Thwaite not as a pure young
idealist, but as one with a flip side:

   Sir William Patterson had given him credit for some honesty, but
   even he had not perceived,--had no opportunity of perceiving,--the
   staunch uprightness which was, as it were, a backbone to the man
   in all his doings. He was ambitious, discontented, sullen, and
   tyrannical. . . . Gentlemen, so called, were to him as savages,
   which had to be cleared away in order that that perfection
   might come at last which the course of nature was to produce in
   obedience to the ordinances of the Creator.

Development of this story provides no reassurance that Anna will
escape from her troubles; after all, a significant mortality risk
does accompany certain Victorian novels. As it turns out, her rescue
does require a bit of stage business with the desperate countess
attempting to use a pistol properly. But the story does evolve with
credible development of character: Anna is indeed tempted to throw
over her original lover and opt for the life of ease among the
nobility. And the author does tell us, in one of his authorial
asides, that if the countess and the lawyers had played their cards
more skillfully, they might have persuaded Anna to give up Daniel
Thwaite if they had given him his due for integrity and virtue
instead of trying to persuade Anna of his greed for her money.
However, their efforts to blacken him in her eyes only increased her
determination to stick by the humble tailor no matter what.

Thwaite is shown to be corrupted to the extent that he will listen
to Sir William Patterson, the Solicitor General, the lawyer for the
Lovel family, when he explains things to him at the end. Sir William
is shown to be the _deus ex machina_ who had also persuaded the Lovel
family that there should be some accommodation with the Countess and
her daughter Lady Anna. It is true that he had advocated a marriage
of convenience, but as this became less likely, he still arranged a
compromise between the Lovels and the Countess in court, conceding
that the widowed countess's marriage was a legal and binding one. And
he did this over the objections of members of the family--chiefly
"Uncle Charles," the rector of Yoxham.

And so the "great decider of all things" comes to Daniel in the end
and congratulates him on his success, and we find that Daniel likes
and respects Sir William, though he attempts to maintain his total
opposition to nobility in general and the Lovels in particular.
This conversation is presented with skill and humor as the author
takes the reader into his confidence, revealing what the story is
all about. Here are Sir William's comments on the great theory of
equality: "The energetic, the talented, the honest, and the unselfish
will always be moving towards an aristocratic side of society,
because their virtues will beget esteem, and esteem will beget
wealth,--and wealth gives power for good offices."

The eloquence of the urbane lawyer is not lost on Daniel Thwaite.
The reader comes to believe that Anna and Daniel have responded to
circumstances and modified their views of the world somewhat. Not
so the Countess. Determined to do anything to make a wealthy and
respectable Lady of her daughter, the Countess disgraces herself and
disappears.

One of the byproducts of the story is another of Trollope's portraits
of the warts and all of the clergy, in the person of the rector of
Yoxham, who never wavers in his opposition to the legitimacy of Lady
Anna. This results in an entertaining example of how certain words
could and could not be used in Victorian print:

   "---- Sir William!" muttered the rector between his teeth, as he
   turned away in his disgust. What had been the first word of that
   minatory speech Lord Lovel did not clearly hear. He had been
   brought up as a boy by his uncle, and had never known his uncle
   to offend by swearing. No one in Yoxham would have believed
   it possible that the parson of the parish should have done
   so. . . . But his nephew in his heart of hearts believed that the
   rector of Yoxham had damned the Solicitor-General.

_Lady Anna_ is a fairy tale, as are many of the best stories. One can
hardly do much better than to use a good fairy tale as a framework
for entertainment, if the elements of originality are grafted onto
the framework. In this case genial humor in the face of looming
tragedy, and credible character development, allow the appreciative
reader to go along for the ride, and the moments of pleasure justify
the occasional tedium along the way.




TERRITORY FOLKS SHOULD STICK TOGETHER

HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL


It was sheer coincidence that I happened to be reading Trollope's
only Christmas novel--_Harry Heathcote of Gangoil_--on Christmas
day. A Christmas story had been requested for the _Graphic_, and the
resulting novel, which was Trollope's shortest, appeared in the 1873
Christmas issue of the magazine. To mark it as a Christmas story, it
duly began, "Just a fortnight before Christmas, 1871, a young man,
twenty-four years of age, returned home to his dinner about eight
o'clock in the evening."

The author had just returned from a year's visit to his son, who was
a sheep herder in Australia, and the character of Harry Heathcote
was acknowledged to be based on his son. Australia was England's Wild
West, and this story is a Western, with its issues resolved by a
no-holds-barred fight between the good guys and the bad guys.

"Territory folks should stick together,/Territory folks should
all be pals," is the teaching of the square dancers in Rodgers and
Hammerstein's _Oklahoma_, but Harry Heathcote has not learned this
bit of wisdom when he becomes suspicious that his neighbor Mr.
Medlicot might even be involved in starting the fires that threaten
his sheep, their pastures, and the fences that enclose the paddocks
where they graze. Mr. Medlicot is a free-selector, one who purchases
a relatively small piece of land and farms it, in this case raising
sugar cane on 200 acres. Harry Heathcote, on the other hand, runs
his sheep over a vast area, some 120,000 acres--"almost an English
county"--but he doesn't own the land. He rents it from the English
Crown, at so much per sheep, and he fears the encroachment on his
acreage by the free-selectors.

Arson was a capital offense in Australia at this time, and Harry
Heathcote pushes himself to exhaustion in the summer heat, riding out
at night to look for mischief. His brusque manners have not won him
many friends, and some disgruntled ranch workers are indeed setting
fires. In the heat of the struggle he does finally learn that it
helps to have a friend or two. Mr. Medlicot provides assistance,
incurring a broken collar bone in the ensuing melee, and the alliance
of English aristocrats is cemented by the betrothal of Mr. Medlicot
to Harry Heathcote's sister-in-law.

The bad guys are sent packing, Harry learns a lesson, and the lovers
join hands. "'That's what I call a happy Christmas,' said Harry, as
the party finally parted for the night." Zane Grey could hardly have
scripted it better.

Trollope appeared to relish his versatility as a story teller, and
though he is often identified with the English settings of the
Barsetshire and Palliser series, his travels and his novels ranged
all over the world. He used his first hand knowledge of Australia
to good advantage in _Harry Heathcote_, his only novel to be set
entirely in this English colony. It's a short, well-constructed
story, and after working through the introductory chapters, the
reader is rewarded with a quickly told romance, a rousing bush fight,
and a happy ending, all wrapped up as a Christmas story.




THE WAY THEY LIVED THEN

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW


   It seemed that there was but one virtue in the world, commercial
   enterprise--and that Melmotte was its prophet.

Sometimes a fictional character can take on a life of his own during
the writing of a story, and even after publication, capturing the
imagination of the author and thereafter of the public. Sherlock
Holmes, Scrooge and Tiny Tim, Hamlet, and Uncle Tom have all become
iconic in our popular culture. [2] I doubt that any of Trollope's
characters make any of the "Top 100" lists; that's part of the
Trollope problem: he's just not that well known. But if he were, who
would make the list? Mrs. Proudie, Obadiah Slope, Lady Glencora,
Mr. Crawley, Plantagenet Palliser perhaps--all these are from the
Palliser and Barsetshire collections. And from the other novels--the
"singletons"--Augustus Melmotte would certainly take his place. In
this century he would be assisted by the strong portrayal by David
Suchet in the 2003 BBC production, in which he is described as "this
huge monster, Melmotte, sitting like a fat spider, drawing all the
other characters into his great scheme."

   [Footnote 2: Lucy Pollard-Gott, who has launched a website
   fictional100.com, lists her top ten: Hamlet, Odysseus, Don
   Quixote, Eve, Genji, Oedipus, Don Juan, Chia Pia-Yu, Sherlock
   Holmes, and Arjuna.]

_The Way We Live Now_ has been described as a work of bitterness and
disillusionment, but the tone of the book is not one of bitterness.
It is certainly satirical; but one could believe that the character
of Melmotte stepped in and ran away with the story, just as he swept
through London society in 1873 (the year it was written--remember
"_Now_" in the title). One would be hard pressed to say that _The Way
We Live Now_ heralded a precipitous darkening of Trollope's view of
the world. He did continue to explore the folly of mankind in the
novels that followed--_The Prime Minister_, with the appearance of
Ferdinand Lopez, an ambitious, unscrupulous foreigner like Melmotte;
_Is He Popenjoy?_ featuring the arch villain the Marquis of
Brotherton; _The American Senator_; _The Duke's Children_; and _John
Caldigate_. The more Trollope experienced the world, the more targets
for his satirical pen appeared.

_The Way We Live Now_ is replete with such targets. Likeable
characters are lacking. Two exceptions are Mr. Brehgert, the Jew who
tolerates the frank anti-Semitism of Victorian England with saintly
perseverance; and John Crumb, "the dealer in meal and pollard at
Bungay," who loves Ruby Ruggles and thrashes the useless young Sir
Felix Carbury when he assaults her. (Pollard is a fine protein-rich
feed supplement for farm animals; it is a byproduct from the milling
of wheat for flour.)

Melmotte is introduced as a foreign element that intrudes on English
society in the fourth chapter, in which we learn that he is the giver
of a great ball. Having just arrived in London from Paris about
two years earlier, he admitted that his wife was a foreigner--"an
admission that was necessary as she spoke very little English."
Though Augustus Melmotte, Esq., spoke his "native" language fluently,
he had "an accent which betrayed at least a long expatriation." His
daughter Marie "spoke English well, but as a foreigner," and had been
born "out of England"--perhaps in New York or Paris.

Only a foreigner could have done what Melmotte did. It is likely
that Trollope, who amused himself and us with his observations of
the English "as they lived then," did not think that a native-born
Englishman could have disrupted society in such a way. This foreigner
came in with an ambivalent attitude toward the English. He thought
they were gullible enough to buy his schemes, but an essential
part of his ambition was his desire to obtain a position of great
prominence in English society. He would buy a country place,
Pickering, from Adolphus Longstaffe, the squire of Caversham in
Suffolk, and he would remodel it so that he could be a country
gentleman. He would get himself elected to the House of Commons. He
would obtain a noble title--perhaps a baronetcy. His daughter would
marry Lord Nidderdale. His wealth and his connections would bring all
these things.

The traditional English life that Trollope so revered was crumbling.
Adolphus Longstaffe cannot afford to maintain the social schedule
that his wife and children enjoy, and the sale of family property
offers an expedient solution. Sir Roger Carbury strives to maintain
his country place, but he finds himself powerless to marry and carry
on his family line. He has set his heart on marrying his cousin Hetta
Carbury when she comes of age, but the young girl has little interest
in marrying an older man. Hetta's mother, Lady Carbury, attempts to
charm editors and other writers into praising and publishing her
books so that she can save herself and her worthless son, Sir Felix
Carbury, from financial ruin.

Which of these can the reader like? None of the above. And there
are more. Paul Montague is a young man who has had to leave Oxford
because of some unfortunate rows, and he has spent three years in
California, losing his fortune in unsuccessful business ventures and
becoming engaged to a woman who may or may not have shot her husband
in Oregon. He thinks he can escape her by returning to England, but
she pursues him. Like Pinocchio, he falls into bad company (the
Beargarden Club in London). Hetta Carbury (to whom Sir Roger has
unsuccessfully proposed marriage) falls in love with the young man,
little more than a hobbledehoy who consistently gets in over his
head, whatever the venture. Yet it is Paul who is the only one to
attempt to ask questions at the board meetings of the South Central
Pacific and Mexican Railway, and he is the first to discover that
Melmotte had been diverting its funds to such personal uses as
rebuilding the Longstaffe house in the country.

Such is The Way We Live Now. The country is going to the dogs, led by
a foreign Pied Piper with a strange accent. Here is his introductory
description:

   Mr. Melmotte was a big man with large whiskers, rough hair, and
   with an expression of mental power on a harsh vulgar face. He was
   certainly a man to repel you by his presence unless attracted
   to him expenditure, powerful in his doings, successful in his
   business, and the world around him therefore was not repelled.

It appears that had not Melmotte appeared, someone in London would
have invented him. As it happened, his great project was actually
invented by Hamilton K. Fisker, the young American who had met Paul
Montague in California and made a partnership with him. It was Fisker
who concocted the idea of the South Central Pacific and Mexican
Railway and sold the idea to Melmotte. The presentation was brief.
Melmotte and Fisker understood each other. The documents referred not
at all to future profits to the railway or to its benefit to society;
they emphasized rather the appeal of such stock to the "speculating
world."

Melmotte undertook the chairmanship of the Board of Directors in
England, and he very quickly found willing buyers of shares, hopes,
and dreams. Like Professor Harold Hill in _The Music Man_, "When he
dances, the piper pays him." But when he makes his speech to his
directors, it is one that would not do for BBC. In its production,
David Suchet is Melmotte larger than life, full of vitality,
projecting himself with a powerful personality. Trollope's text
would not have been such good theater; in it we see a man who is not
eloquent, mostly looking at his plate. His eager audience, however,
cheers him "to the echo."

The way we live now is portrayed not as a society that is sold a bill
of goods by a huckster, but as one that carried the huckster out over
his head even further than he might have ventured on his own. "It can
hardly be said of him that he had intended to play so high a game,
but the game that he had intended to play had become thus high of its
own accord. A man cannot always restrain his own doings and keep them
within the limits which he had himself planned for them."

Fisker is the little tugboat that nudges the mighty Melmotte out into
the deep. "He had sprung out of some Californian gully, was perhaps
ignorant of his own father and mother, and had tumbled up in the
world on the strength of his own audacity. But, such as he was, he
had sufficed to give the necessary impetus for rolling Augustus
Melmotte onwards into almost unprecedented commercial greatness."

What Melmotte does understand is "credit." In attempting to browbeat
Paul Montague, Melmotte rages, "Gentlemen who don't know the nature
of credit, how strong it is--as the air--to buoy you up; how slight
it is--as a mere vapour--when roughly touched, can do an amount of
mischief of which they themselves don't in the least understand the
extent!"

Melmotte does of course come to grief, from having forged the
signature of Dolly Longstaffe, feckless son of Adolphus Longstaffe,
authorizing transfer of the title deed for the house to Melmotte.
He also forged his daughter's signature and his secretary Croll's
signature to a document giving him access to his daughter Marie's
money. Elected to Parliament at about this time, the rumors of
the forgery cause his stock prices to collapse. Melmotte's final
performance is to go drunk to the House, attempt a speech, fall to
the floor, go home and commit suicide with prussic acid.

Set against these affairs of such great pith and moment, the story
of Winifred Hurtle is a welcome relief. She was the American woman
(another foreigner in England) who pursued Paul Montague to England,
where she asserts her rights as an engaged woman, threatening legal
action if Paul should break their engagement, and presumably spending
several nights with him, according to a narrative a bit skimpy in
such details.

The memorable climax of the story is the suicide of Melmotte; but
Trollope lets the dark side die with the great financier. There are a
few marriages. And the share prices of the South Central Pacific and
Mexican Railway begin to rise again as Fisker gets back to work on
selling shares in America. What went up came down; and it came back
up a little.

We follow the fates of a large cast of characters. Perhaps we don't
see that much into the soul of Melmotte. His actions and words
speak for him. For once, Trollope doesn't take us into the head
of a character who plays such a pivotal role. But we follow the
meditations of Paul Montague, Hetta Carbury, and others in the usual
detail. Not such a likeable lot, but their stories hang together and
justify claims that this is among Trollope's greatest novels, if
not the greatest. It was Trollope's longest novel, and perhaps its
greatest accomplishment is that the reader is entertained by the
light touch that keeps such a dreary story of human stupidity from
being abandoned after a few chapters.




WHAT'S A POOR GIRL TO DO?

THE AMERICAN SENATOR


Elias Gotobed is the American senator in Trollope's novel of the
same name. And in the last chapter the author reveals that Larry
Twentyman, a rising young yeoman farmer, "has in truth been our
hero." But more memorable than either of these is Arabella Trefoil,
the husband hunter. Life was not easy for ambitious Victorian women.
Success might have been achieved, with great difficulty, in several
different endeavors, but the only path that really led a woman to a
high place in society was through birth or marriage. And to this end
Arabella aspired.

   She herself did not care much for pleasure. But she did care to
   be a great lady--one who would be allowed to swim out of rooms
   before others, one who could snub others, one who could show real
   diamonds when others wore paste, one who might be sure to be asked
   everywhere, even by the people who hated her. She rather liked
   being hated by women and did not want any man to be in love with
   her--except as far as might be sufficient for the purpose of
   marriage.

Her great sin is that she pursues Lord Rufford, a more eligible
catch, while still engaged to John Morton, squire of Bragton. And in
introducing her, the author does tell us, "She had had many lovers,
and had been engaged to not a few." No one pretends that Trollope was
an advocate of feminism. And she hardly emerges as a heroine. And yet
a sympathetic reader of the present day can see her as a victim of
her times. What, indeed, was a poor girl to do?

Poor, yes, but not without some family connections--enough to put her
on the bubble of society--enough, perhaps, to make her feel obliged
to reach for success. Her father was the younger brother of a duke.
Her other assets were strength and determination, beauty, wit, and
enough freedom from scruples to lead her into trouble. "As for caring
about him, Mamma," she had once said of a suitor, "of course I don't.
He is nasty and odious in every way. But I have got to do the best I
can, and what is the use of talking about such trash as that?"

If Arabella is the memorable character, her memorable scene is the
one in the postchaise after a hunt when she succeeds in drawing from
Lord Rufford a positive response that he loves her--but nothing more.
At this point she knows that he will go no further, but she resolves
to use what she has gained to try to bring him to the altar, fainting
helplessly upon his shoulder. As it happens, Lord Ruffton calls her
bluff and escapes. Can you blame a girl for trying?

What of the American senator? In Elias Gotobed we find the prototype
of the Ugly American, described in the novel that gave the
phrase to our political vocabulary, as pretentious, loud, and
ostentatious--changed, in some way, when they leave their native
land. Senator Gotobed's sins in England are a bit different. Loud,
yes. Lacking in tact, yes. Convinced of the superiority of American
ways, yes. But unlike the Ugly American in Vietnam, Mr. Gotobed was
not required to expose his bad manners to a third world country; his
opportunity was to go to the mother country and demonstrate how a
rebellious child behaved toward the parent.

We are introduced to Mr. Gotobed as he meets his host John Morton,
the absentee squire, and views Bragton Hall--"quite a pile," he
declares.

Mr. Gotobed is diligent in his research and amasses enough data to
prepare a lecture for the edification of the English public. He
accurately identifies some English ways, such as primogeniture,
voting restrictions, and inappropriate clerical wealth, which would
not much longer survive the scrutiny of the masses. One suspects that
Trollope was using this as another means of exposing these little
ways for the entertainment of his readers, and he was able to use a
broader brush for this purpose than he used in his own depictions of
these same institutions. As an American, I find Mr. Gotobed a rather
tiresome caricature of the nineteenth century American. But his
likeness resembles a number of others so closely that I fear I might
have found some of the real Americans of the time rather tiresome.

The virtues of the English way of life are not lost on Mr. Gotobed.
He concedes in his letters to his friend in the USA that the English
gentleman is indeed charming, even though idle; pleasant and able to
discuss almost any subject, even though he may know very little about
it; and hospitable. In addition to these gratuitous observations,
he does insert himself into the activities of the community by
supporting the cause of Mr. Dan Goarly, accused of poisoning Lord
Rufford's foxes.

And here we have the mystery of the red herrings. In an earlier
incarnation of the battle between fox hunters and those who
considered it a barbaric sport, the animal rights advocates sometimes
left red herrings in a fox's path, obscuring the scent so that the
hounds were unable to stay on the right trail. Hence our term that
applies to a diversion that takes one off the correct pathway to
solving a problem. And in this case it was worse. It was suspected
that the herrings were laced with strychnine to poison the hounds.
Mr. Gotobed, ardent in his opposition to the absurd sport of hunting
and killing foxes, defies the conventional wisdom of the village that
knows Goarly to be a scoundrel, because he thinks any sabotage of a
fox hunt is worthy of support. In this effort he fails.

An ardent devotee of fox hunting, Trollope often used the hunt as a
piece of the plot in his stories, and his descriptions of the sport
convey the authenticity of the literate sportsman. Each of my two
paperback editions of _The American Senator_ show hunt scenes on the
cover. And in this novel the hunt shows us Senator Gotobed in his
quixotic defense of sabotaging the sport, and Arabella Trefoil on the
hunt for Lord Rufford.

The world of the English gentry of which Trollope wrote was not such
a large one that prominent characters from other stories might not
sometimes make their appearance; and the faithful Trollope reader
will smile to get a glimpse of Lady Chiltern and the Duchess of
Omnium, old friends from the world of the Palliser series, as they
visit the home of the Duke of Mistletoe, Arabella Trefoil's uncle.

And one last bit of trivia: When Senator Gotobed presents his lecture
enumerating the follies of the English, he is shouted down and some
cry, "_Buncombe!_" Also spelled bunkum and sometimes shortened to
bunk, this term for nonsense traveled across the Atlantic as the
legacy of a congressman from North Carolina, whose district included
Buncombe County, after he felt obliged to "make a speech for
Buncombe" in Congress.

The main plot is complicated and a bit commonplace, introduced in the
first chapters that require the reader to go through with a marking
pencil to identify the players, their generations, and their family
relationships. The requisite dues having been paid, the reader may
then go on with the story, but one is still obliged to return to
these chapters for reference. Less patient generations of readers
have limited tolerance of such introductions, even though some of
the author's capsule comments can be quite quotable, as in this
observation in describing Lawrence Twentyman: "And his farming was
well done; for though he was, out-and-out, a gentleman-farmer,
he knew how to get the full worth in work done for the fourteen
shillings a week that he paid to his labourers--a deficiency in which
knowledge is the cause why gentlemen in general find farming so very
expensive an amusement."

If Lawrence Twentyman is the real hero of the story, he is a
frustrated hero, unsuccessful from start to end in his courtship
of Mary Masters, threatening to sell his farm and emigrate to New
Zealand when he fails to win her. He loses Mary, daughter of the
lawyer whose family has handled the Morton family business for
generations, to Reginald Morton, some fifteen years their senior and
heir to the property. Reginald's cousin, John Morton, is the squire
of Bragton until his untimely death of "gastric fever." (What was
"gastric fever?" Did he have typhoid fever? Or just a convenient
diagnosis in the "chapter of accidents" that a novelist must resort
to?) John is a victim of Arabella's scheming, introduced as her
fiancé in a match with no outward signs of affection. He is employed
in the foreign office, is assigned to the United States, is known by
his colleagues as "The Paragon," and is later assigned to Patagonia,
a remote outpost of the foreign service. John's grandmother dreams up
schemes that require closer attention to family feuds than the casual
reader will be willing to undertake; Reginald's great-aunt Lady
Ushant is the good gentlewoman who is Reginald's champion, and she
also befriends Mary Masters. Mary is constantly harassed by her
wicked stepmother who urges her to accept Larry Twentyman and avoid
the temptation to associate with the gentry. In particular, Mary is
urged not to go "Ushanting" by visiting kind Lady Ushant.

This is all well and good, and it's enough to keep the story going;
but it's pretty predictable Trollope fare. Arabella, the American
Senator, and the poisoned red herrings are the spice to the story.




LESSER BARCHESTER

IS HE POPENJOY?


_Is He Popenjoy?_ puts us in familiar Trollope territory: the
cathedral and close, and the manor house. We have a lord of the
manor, the Marquis of Brotherton, who exercises his rights with
such persistent rudeness that one is hard pressed to think of any
redeeming virtues; and from there the cast of characters is a
familiar one: his younger brother, Lord George, a lesser Plantagenet
Palliser, a dull fellow who marries a true heroine, Mary Lovelace,
and proves that he hardly deserves her when he allows himself to get
his fingers burned by his first lover, Adelaide Houghton, because
he can't figure out how to avoid it. Mary's father, the Dean of
Brotherton, is a lesser Archdeacon Grantly, rich enough to provide
money for his impoverished son-in-law, and too ambitious and proud
to keep from offending Lord George with his largesse. Lord George
has four ugly sisters, close to a straight copy from Cinderella's
stepsisters, who intimidate poor Mary with their family position and
their good works for the poor. One of them, Lady Susanna, is worse
than the others and at one time visits Mary as an unwelcome duenna.
The eldest, Lady Sarah, is better than the others and sometimes sees
the light.

Essentially a comic novel, it is almost a farce. The curious
interrogatory title (a bit clumsy, like _Can You Forgive Her?_) is
finally elucidated after about a hundred pages when it is learned
that the hated Marquis, who has left England to live in Italy,
has (perhaps) married an Italian countess and has had a son, Lord
Popenjoy. But no Englishman can trust the Italian institutions. Is he
really married? Is the child legitimate? "Lord Popenjoy" is the title
of the heir to the Marquis. Is he really Popenjoy?

The Dean doubts it, for if the Marquis has no legitimate son, the
title will pass to his brother Lord George at his death; and then
the Dean's grandson, should he have one, will be next in line. The
Marquis's sibs are all skeptical, but they are hesitant to offend
their brother. The Dean does not hesitate.

The story proceeds as the Marquis advances from villainy to villainy;
he writes to announce the birth of his son and that he will return
home. His mother, four sisters, and brother are all to be turned out
and obliged to move far away from the family estate. He finally makes
his appearance, one third of the way into the book, and insults them
all, saving his most cutting sarcasm for the dean, whom he refers to
as "that stable boy."

Mary is a credible heroine. She likes to have fun, and she is a
bit indiscreet with her friend Jack de Baron, whom she unwittingly
encourages to the point that he falls in love with her after she has
become Lady George. And the author, who tells us a lot, never tells
us so in so many words, but she surely loves him. But the author does
tell us that she succeeds in her effort to come to love her husband.
Halfway through the book, "She was ever trying to be in love with
him, but had never yet succeeded in telling even herself that she
had succeeded." But in the process of fighting off a rival--Adelaide
Houghton, whom she never forgives--she becomes pregnant, and
enduring a separation related to her husband's resentment of his
father-in-law's interference in family affairs, she finally convinces
herself that she has succeeded in learning to love her husband.

Among the Victorian customs that jar the current reader, that of the
wife's duty to obedience is a note that clangs: "The husband would
of course be indignant at his wife's disobedience in not having left
London when ordered by him to do so."

The author indulges in some sideswipes at the movement for the rights
of women. The German advocate is shown to be a money-grubber, and the
American expert with the nasal twang, Dr. Olivia Q. Fleabody, "made
a rapid fortune out of the proceeds of the hall." Women came twice
a week to hear her preach that "a glorious era was at hand in which
women would be chosen by constituencies, would wag their heads in
courts of law, would buy and sell in Capel Court, and have balances
at their bankers."

A woman's duty was to find a husband, and the man's duty was to make
it difficult for her. All this sounds as though P. G. Wodehouse had
read Trollope and had taken it a bit farther.

   He did not mean to marry Guss Mildmay. He did not suppose that she
   thought he meant to marry her. He did not love her, and he did
   not believe very much in her love for him. But . . . [he] had run
   his bark on to the rock, which it had been the whole study of his
   navigation to avoid. He had committed the one sin which he had
   always declared to himself that he never would commit. This made
   him unhappy.

Mr. Groschut, the dean's secretary, plays Mr. Slope to the bishop.
His letter to the rude Marquis is the only flattering or kind letter
the Marquis receives. (The family tries to be nice to the Marquis,
but they don't flatter like Mr. Groschut does.) And in the end Mr.
Groschut is banished, honored only by being the subject of the book's
last paragraph: "Of Mr. Groschut it is only necessary to say that
he is still at Pugsty, vexing the souls of his parishioners by
sabbatical denunciations."

This book could be legitimately recommended in a paraphrase of the
familiar line: "If you loved _Barchester Towers_, you'll like _Is He
Popenjoy?_" No, that's not strong enough. If you loved _Barchester
Towers_, you'll really like _Is He Popenjoy?_.




TOO NEAR THE PRECIPICE

AN EYE FOR AN EYE


The Cliffs of Moher, now among the sites being considered for an
upcoming list of the Seven Wonders of the World, have become the most
visited tourist attraction in Ireland. However, there were only a few
other visitors when our own little family of five, mist swirling in
our faces, paid our respects in 1974. These sheer precipices, facing
the Atlantic from the western coast of Ireland, had shed their cloud
cover; and our primary concern was to keep the children away from the
edge.

Young Frederick Neville, the new Earl of Scroope after his uncle's
death, gave no thought to how close he was to the brink as he stood
there with Mrs. O'Hara while her daughter Kate, pregnant with the
young Earl's child, waited in the cottage. That was the problem, of
course: the young Earl paid little heed as to how near he might come
to any precipice--hence the liaison with Kate O'Hara, a beautiful
Irish lass whose cottage was not so far from his regimental quarters
as to prevent his frequent visits. This connection, so offensive to
his family at Scroope Manor in Dorsetshire, is the story of _An Eye
for an Eye_, written by Anthony Trollope in 1870.

This short novel is set both in Ireland and in England. After setting
his first two novels in Ireland, Trollope later returned to the Irish
countryside for _Castle Richmond_ and, some ten years later, _An Eye
for an Eye_, which he wrote shortly after a return visit to Ireland.
The towering physical feature of the story is the collection of
cliffs. The towering social institution is the order of the nobility
of England. Like other institutions, practices, and ideas that appear
to be threatened by common sense, this one required vigilant defense
and faithful observance of its demands. In this story we find young
Frederick Neville called, somewhat to his surprise, by his uncle
the Earl of Scroope to be his heir. It would be inconvenient for
Frederick to become the Earl. A handsome young man in the process of
sowing his wild oats, he had a few more to sow.

And so he does. Frederick returns to his regiment in Ireland and
pursues his infatuation with Kate O'Hara of the lonely Ardkill
cottage, knowing as he does so that whatever her personal attractions
and gifts, he lacks the courage to present her in Dorsetshire as
Countess of Scroope. The Earl, before his unexpected death, insists
that Fred abandon his Irish conquest and marry the fair and well-born
Sophie Mellerby.

The women weigh in pretty heavily on the issue. Kate's mother, we
learn, has been married to a Captain O'Hara, presumed to have died
after misadventures. We see her walking beneath the cliffs, where
she would remain for hours, "with her hat in her hand and her hair
drenched."

In this she anticipated the memorable Sarah Woodruff, played by Meryl
Streep in the film adaptation of John Fowles's novel _The French
Lieutenant's Woman_, hooded and patient, looking out at the storm
from the end of the Cobb in Lyme Regis. In each case, the impression
is the same: don't trifle with this woman.

But the drumbeat of the story has begun. Mrs. O'Hara reflects as
she observes the development of love between Frederick Neville and
her daughter: "Men are wolves to women, and utterly merciless when
feeding high on their lust."

After the Earl dies, Frederick must decide. Although his brother Jack
advises him to marry the Irish lass and bring her home and be done
with it, Frederick is swayed by the advice of his aunt, the late
Earl's widow. Lady Scroope, in turn, relies on information from her
friend Lady Mary Quin, who sends her regular letters with the gossip
from Ireland. Lady Mary entertained no qualms as to the young Earl's
duty: he must marry Sophie Wellerby. "There are women, who in regard
to such troubles as now existed at Ardkill cottage, always think that
the woman should be punished as the sinner and that the man should be
assisted to escape."

The die is cast. Although Frederick, as the new Earl, attempts to
have it both ways and pull a Duke of Windsor (in a century before
Wally Simpson's disruption of the monarchy), his proposal to leave
the property to his brother and take Kate to Europe and marry her
there is scorned by his brother and by the priest who advises Kate
and her mother.

And so the young Earl finds himself on the cliffs of Moher, near the
edge and confronted by the mother of the woman he has deflowered and
deceived.

Trollope framed his story by introducing us to a madwoman in a
private asylum in western England, who cornered everyone she met
with her mantra, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." The
narrator then reassures the reader that there will be no more of the
asylum story, but there will be the story of how the woman happened
to come there; and the reader thus knows in advance that this will be
a story with a violent ending.

It's a relatively short (160 pages) novel with a single thread
that leads the players to their fate. They are not presented as
bad people. The reader can have some sympathy for each of them as
they make their way along, overmatched and overshadowed by the
overwhelming Cliffs of Moher and the binding institutions of the
time.




WHAT HAPPENS IN AUSTRALIA . . .

JOHN CALDIGATE


Anthony Trollope sailed to Australia in 1871 to visit his son Fred.
(He wrote one novel, _Lady Anna_, during eight weeks of the voyage
out.) While visiting a goldfield in Currajong, New South Wales, he
met one of his son's school mates who had visited in the Trollope
home. As he described it in _Australia and New Zealand_ (1876):

   I saw him in front of his little tent, which he occupied in
   partnership with an experienced working miner, eating a beefsteak
   out of his frying-pan with his claspknife. . . . He had no
   friend near him but his mining friend,--or mate, as he called
   him. . . . He had been softly nurtured, well educated, and was a
   handsome fellow to boot; and there he was eating a nauseous lump
   of beef out of a greasy frying-pan with his pocketknife, just in
   front of the contiguous blankets stretched on the ground, which
   constituted the beds of himself and his companion. It may be that
   he will strike gold, and make a fortune.

And so _John Caldigate_ was born. It is the story of a young man
who amasses more gambling debts than he can pay while a student at
Cambridge and subsequently forsakes his inheritance of the family
estate and strikes out for Australia. He falls in love with a local
girl, Hester Bolton, after only seeing her once before he leaves, but
on the ship he has an encounter with "Mrs. Smith," also in the second
class section, and they talk about marriage. We then follow John
Caldigate to the goldfields, where his experiences are basically
those described above. And then we fast forward some four or five
years and see him returning home a wealthy man. But what about the
woman from the ship--who became known in Australia as Mademoiselle
Cettini, singer and dancer? The text is silent.

Armed with maturity and money, John patches up his relationship with
his strict father and becomes reinstated as the heir of the family
estate in the fens near Cambridge. Despite misgivings by her family,
Hester, the young girl of his dreams, agrees to marry him, and the
young hero appears to be triumphant in all. But the reader is less
than halfway through the book, and it's too early for a happy ending.

And now we begin to learn more about the woman from the ship. After
John and Hester are married and have a child, he receives a telegram
from his mining partner in Australia, asking for a large sum of
money. He then receives a letter from the woman, signed, "Euphemia
Caldigate," in which she says she will return their marriage
certificate to him if he pays the money to Tom Crinkett, his former
partner; and then she will marry Crinkett and make no further claim
on him. Otherwise "the law must take its course."

So what did happen in Australia? Caldigate immediately goes to
Hester's brother, a lawyer in Cambridge, and shows him the letter. In
response to hostile questioning from Robert Bolton, he states that it
is all true except that he was never married to her. He concedes that
he was "very intimate with her," and that she lived with him as his
wife. When a Wesleyan minister called on her to upbraid her, she said
that John had promised to marry her, and John did not deny it. When
Bolton asks him if she used his name there, he replies, "It was a
wild kind of life up there, Robert, and this was apparent in nothing
more than in the names people used. I daresay some of the people did
call her Mrs. Caldigate. But they knew she was not my wife."

Oh, these Victorians! "It was a wild kind of life up there." How does
this play in England? Answer: Not well. Caldigate is believed by
his father, his priest, and, most importantly, by his wife. It soon
becomes apparent that Hester has developed from a quiet maiden lass
sitting in the corner, into an assertive wife and mother, willing
to defy her mother, father, and brothers in defense of her husband
and herself. And here we meet one of the blackest villains Trollope
has given us: Mrs. Bolton, mother of Hester and second wife of her
husband. Mrs. Bolton was a zealot of the low church (which provided
Trollope with several of his villains), and her daughter's suitor
never convinced her by his attendance at Sunday services that he
was anything other than a "lost sinner." His father did not attend
church, and despite John's efforts to keep up appearances, he did not
have a history of perfect attendance at divine services. And there
were even rumors of a relationship with a Mademoiselle Cettini in
Australia. John made an explanation to Hester, which she accepted.
But Mrs. Bolton never gave her blessing to the match, and although
her daughter finally persuaded her to attend the wedding, she only
did so as a heavily veiled spectator from a back pew.

And then it becomes known that he has been accused of having had a
wife in Australia! With the consent of her stepsons and the grudging
consent of her husband, Mrs. Bolton lures her daughter to Puritan
Grange, the Bolton home. In a great scene of conflict, she makes her
a prisoner there. We have come to learn by this time that Hester is
endowed with all her mother's determination and stubbornness. When
Hester finds the doors locked against her, she seats herself in
the hall with her baby in her arms, opposite her mother, seated in
another chair. Hester spends the night stretched out on the floor.
Although Mr. Bolton pleads with his wife to let her go, she is more
concerned with the salvation of her daughter's soul than with such
earthly consequences as murder. "Oh, He knows! He knows! And if He
knows, what matters what men say that I have done to her." (Mrs.
Bolton shares this concern for the welfare of the soul, at the
expense of the body, with another of Trollope's zealous villains,
Aunt Charlotte in _Linda Tressel_.)

In the end Hester's half brothers decide that she must be allowed to
leave, and after a three-day standoff the gates are unlocked, and she
bids goodbye to her parents and leaves.

In this scene Mrs. Bolton had outdone even the wife of Bishop Proudie
in the Barsetshire novels. Mrs. Proudie stands as a comic figure in
comic novels, but there is little comedy about Mrs. Bolton. Her sin
is the same as Mrs. Proudie's--an excess of zeal in the cause of
religion--but here there is little to laugh at.

After this climax, the story plays itself out, but it is clear that
Hester will not be defeated. John Caldigate is tried and convicted
of bigamy. Prior to the trial he even finds himself conscience-bound
to pay twenty thousand pounds (he had received from his Australia
ventures some sixty thousand pounds) to Tom Clinkett, Mrs.
Smith-Cettini, and their two conspirators, who had not been so
fortunate as he with their market timing. (Trollope's visit to the
gold mines had convinced him that the gold seeking was all a gamble.)
At this point this reader lost patience with John Caldigate, and it
is said that his editor did, too, but Trollope refused to change the
story, saying that it was essential to the plot.

While John Caldigate is languishing in prison, further evidence in
the case is uncovered. Ever the postal service man, Trollope gives
us a detailed look at how close inspection of postmarks and stamps
helps determine whether an important envelope addressed to "Mrs. John
Caldigate" in John's hand was stamped before or after it was alleged
to have been sent.

The attitudes toward John Caldigate's wild oats are interesting. His
wife's family is horrified, as are some others who feel personally
involved. But the consensus of (male) public opinion in Cambridge was
that what happens in Australia stays in Australia. "It was a wild
kind of life up there." From what we know of the double standards in
Victorian morality, it's of interest that a popular novel dared to
present a hero with a history of such indiscretion.

This is a good Trollope novel. The plot is an ingenious one. The
long paragraphs in which the details of the characters' thoughts are
teased out and dissected can be scanned or simply skipped by the
modern reader. Some people really are as earnest and naive as John
Caldigate. I doubt that very many readers have swallowed the twenty
thousand pound gift as a plausible one, but given Caldigate's
character it's at least possible--though, in my estimation, unlikely.
I had to set the book aside a couple of times when I thought the
author was sailing into rougher seas than I cared to navigate.
(Trollope could not be relied upon to avoid maudlin unhappy endings
at times.) But in the end the reader has had a visit to the
Australian gold fields, has gone through a trial for bigamy, and has
been well entertained.




A GIFTED CHILD

AYALA'S ANGEL


Gifted children are a blessing to society, but they can pose their
little challenges along the way. Such a gifted child is Ayala Dormer.
Quick and witty, and pretty when she smiles, Ayala receives offers of
marriage in rather quick succession from a number of men, eligible
and ineligible, and she refuses them all, more than once, for a
reason she cannot disclose: she is waiting for the appearance of the
Angel of Light, the perfect knight: "How could she make her aunt
understand that there could be no place in her heart for Tom Tringle
seeing that it was to be kept in reserve for some angel of light who
would surely make his appearance in due season,--but who must still
be there, present to her as her angel of light, even should he never
show himself in the flesh."

In her adherence to this belief she shows herself to be one of
Trollope's Constant Heroines, though surely an outlier among the
lot. Others remained constant to better men, some being rewarded in
this life, some not. But Ayala's adherence is to her own ideal, thus
causing a great deal of trouble to those around her, and, I fear, to
a number of readers.

This sometimes tedious story is made palatable by Ayala herself, who
is as capable of charming the reader as she is of winning the love
and loyalty of many of those around her. Her sister's lover Isadore
Hamel captures with a vivid simile her bursts of energy, recalling
to the reader of Tolstoy the similar sudden rays of sunshine that
charmed those who knew Natasha, the heroine of _War and Peace_:

   "I remember her almost as a child, when she would remain perfectly
   still for a quarter of an hour, and then would be up and about the
   house everywhere, glancing about like a ray of the sun reflected
   from a mirror as you move it in your hand."

Ayala and her sister Lucy have been left as senior orphans (a young
Victorian woman could not live alone or move about in society
unaccompanied) who are taken in by their late mother's brother and
sister: one sister to each. Although this becomes a bit complicated
when Ayala becomes unsuitable to the aunt who has chosen her and the
girls change places, Ayala wins the love of the uncle in each of
the two households. In doing so she presents a bit of a problem to
each of the aunts--to one because she is a bit poky in assuming the
household duties required of a woman in an impecunious household,
and to the other because she outshines her aunt's own two daughters.

Providing some relief from Ayala's quest for her angel are the
subplots that constitute the comedy of manners in which Trollope
excels. These little subplots are so entertaining, why bother with a
serious major plot? It takes an uncommonly skillful genius to satisfy
the reader with nothing but pies and cakes. _Barchester Towers_, one
of the earlier Trollope novels, came close; it contains only enough
serious plot to serve as a scaffolding for the satire of the clerical
community of Barchester. And Thackeray's _Vanity Fair_ comes to mind
as a long novel of the same period designed to demonstrate what fools
mortals be. In Ayala's case, fools disport themselves around her
while she is waiting patiently for her knight.

First among these is Tom Tringle, even though the author's sympathy
for him tells us that his foolishness is temporary, and he is
destined to grow up, though not necessarily within the confines of
the present novel. Tom is a hobbledehoy, and one suspects that the
author may be recalling his own youth when he reminds us that though
a young man and woman may be about the same age, the young woman is
often more advanced in her knowledge and understanding of the world
and of how to comport herself. Tom suffers from this truth, showing
himself to be one who may yet prove himself to be a late bloomer, but
too late to be a successful suitor for such a prize as Ayala.

But though women often outshine and outperform the men in their
lives, they suffer the restrictions of Victorian society. Living in a
later age in which women have won the right to assert themselves more
successfully, the differences between men and women still provide
the basis for novels, short stories, and drama. Today a woman may
knock on the door of a man who does not return her text messages, but
men may still be boys while the girls in their lives are women. No
Victorian woman novelist knew this better than Anthony Trollope, who
described the world as he found it; and the circumstances spoke for
themselves.

And here lies the comedy of manners, presented on the stage of the
household of Sir Thomas Tringle, a wealthy man of business. Sir
Thomas is vexed by his son-in-law Septimus Traffick, a man of birth
and a Member of Parliament, but also devoid of fortune or income and
sufficiently thick of skin to ignore all Sir Thomas's efforts to
dislodge him and his wife Augusta from the Tringle home, whether in
town or country.

Augusta, the elder of the two Tringle daughters, is sufficiently
haughty to provoke Ayala, in one of the pivotal moments in the story,
to ask Augusta to run upstairs and fetch a scrapbook for her. Such
effrontery cannot be forgiven. Now more than ever, Augusta often
finds it necessary to remind both her family and the poor Ayala that
she is married to one of the most important men in the country.

The younger sister pushes herself into the comedy by asserting that
she too must be blessed with dowry and husband, and in her sequential
pursuit of two ineligible young men, she invites each in his turn to
elope with her to Ostend.

The unfortunate Tom Tringle, son and heir to Sir Thomas Tringle, may
be the biggest fool of all, betraying himself by his dress as he
adorns himself with gaudy jewels and ornate finery when he comes to
see Ayala. His offer to fight a duel with his rival Colonel Jonathan
Stubbs provides the same mockery of the code of honor as does a
similar offer in _The Macdermotts of Ballycloran_. However, the
author finally confesses to the reader that Tom Tringle is the real
hero of the novel. His folly is that of youth, and his devotion
to his ideal is his redeeming quality. Tom and Ayala share a
determination to adhere to the highest standard in pursuit of a mate,
and it may be that this youthful idealism and perseverance cause them
to be the author's declared hero and heroine.

Another variant of the relation between the sexes appears in the
on-again, off-again romance between Frank Houston and Imogene
Docimer. Lacking the means to support themselves in the manner to
which Frank has become accustomed, they have already broken off an
engagement when the reader meets them. Frank, who declares frankly
that he has no intention of working for a living, becomes the first
of two suitors for the hand of Gertrude Tringle and the handsome
dowry she is expected to bring with her. In this suit he finds
Gertrude more than willing to accept him and assume the same elevated
status of a married lady that her sister has already attained.

Already vexed by the reluctance of his newly acquired son-in-law
Septimus Traffick to vacate the premises and establish a home of his
own, Sir Thomas refuses to promise any dowry at all to Gertrude if
she marries another potential parasite upon his resources. Frank
wavers between one young woman (Imogene) who would accept him in
spite of his poverty because she loves him, and another young woman
(Gertrude) who would accompany him, or almost any Tom, Dick, or
Harry, to Ostend, the favored destination of eloping English couples.

Sir Thomas follows the foolishness of the Tringle family with
despair. His trenchant observations provide the voice of reason
in assessing the motives and machinations of the members of his
household who concern themselves with how best to capitalize on the
wealth his business affairs have brought them.

The problems of the poor are less farcical. Imogene waits to see what
the fates will have in store for her as her true and less than worthy
lover pursues the Tringle prize. Ayala's sister Lucy and her poor but
proud lover Isadore Hamel push themselves along by fits and starts to
their goal of matrimony.

And in the midst of this beehive of activity sits Ayala, stuck on
high center in her reluctance to commit herself to any suitor who
does not meet her impossible standards. Time after time she refuses
a perfectly suitable lover, Colonel Jonathan Stubbs. Here the author
repeats for the long-suffering reader her reason:

   He was not the Angel of Light,--could never be the Angel of Light.
   There was nothing there of the azure wing upon which should soar
   the all but celestial being to whom she could condescend to
   give herself and her love. He was pleasant, good, friendly,
   kind-hearted,--all that a friend or a brother should be; but he
   was not the Angel of Light. She was sure of that.

Friends and family make certain allowances for gifted children, and
Ayala's friends and family entertain the reader with scheme after
scheme for leading her to the light, if not to her own preconception
of her Angel of Light. Angels are in Heaven; men of flesh and blood
walk the earth, and it takes Ayala a long time to figure this out.
And as she does so, the patient reader is diverted by the folly of
those on this earth who are far less than angels.

And finally, another compensation for the reader is the author's
indulgence in presenting old favorites from a previous novel, _The
American Senator_, written three years before _Ayala's Angel_. (Both
were products of his later years--_The American Senator_ in 1875 and
_Ayala's Angel_ in 1878. Trollope's stroke and his death were in late
1882.) He named Larry Twentyman as the hero of _The American Senator_
in its last pages, but Larry did not win the hand of Mary Masters,
who married Reginald Morton. Hopes for a match between Larry and
Mary's younger sister Kate are mentioned in the conclusion of that
novel, but "Kate is still too young and childish to justify any
prediction in that quarter." Larry's modest reward at the end of _The
American Senator_ is that Mary gets him to swear that he will be her
friend.

But in one of the fox hunting scenes in _Ayala's Angel_, who
should appear as one of the popular habitués of the hunt but Larry
Twentyman, married less than a year to Mary's sister Kate. Lord
Rufford, "now the happy father of half-a-dozen babies," can no longer
jump a fence. Her ladyship is always telling him not to jump over
anything he can avoid, and he acknowledges that he does "pretty much
what her ladyship tells me." And we are told further, "No doubt she
generally was right in any assertion she made as to her husband's
affairs."

Trollope took care of his heroes. Had he lived long enough, surely
Tom Tringle would have reappeared at a later stage in his life with
some of the success that the author predicted for him.




KEEPING THE OLD ACREAGE TOGETHER

COUSIN HENRY


"_Cousin Henry_ is an original novel," Anthony Trollope wrote his
publisher, "but it is not for me to say so." I think Trollope's pride
in his accomplishment is justified. It's a short novel (280 pages),
and it follows with few distractions the thought processes of a weak
and indecisive young man who is summoned to his uncle's large estate
in Wales and told that since he is the only male descendent, he will
inherit it, "unless you show yourself to be unworthy." Henry's cousin
Isabel Brodrick has been living with her uncle, and he would prefer
to leave it to her, since it is not entailed and he has the right to
do so. The uncle soon deems Henry to be unworthy, but the uncle soon
dies, and the will leaves the property to Henry. But Henry knows
there was a later will changed to leave it all to Isabel. Only he
knows where it is. What is he to do? This is what Trollope considered
to be his original contribution: he follows the nephew's vacillating
attempts to resolve his dilemma so that not only does the author
consider his portrayal of these mental agonies to be plausible, he
arranges for the family lawyer, Mr. Apjohn, to guess exactly what the
young man has thought and what he plans to do.

Does he convince the reader? Yes, I'll accept it. The author holds
all the cards, of course, but I find it believable that a young man
could be this indecisive. He wants the farm, but he doesn't want
to commit a crime to get it and keep it. Everyone knows that Henry
is concealing something, and this is perceived through nonverbal
communication. The housekeeper and Isabel notice how pale, wan, and
spiritless he has become.

Isabel has a suitor, the Reverend William Owen, and they both show
themselves to be proud and stubborn lovers similar to such other
Trollope couples as Caroline Waddington and George Bertram in _The
Bertrams_. Mr. Owen withdraws his suit when he learns that Isabel
is to be an heiress (by an even earlier will) because he considers
himself too poor to press his suit on a wealthy woman. Then when
Isabel appears to be disinherited, he makes his proposal, but Isabel
refuses him because she considers herself so poor that she would
drag him into poverty. However, the author has mercy on them. After
Henry is found out by the wily Mr. Apjohn, Isabel boldly goes to her
lover's house, steps close to him and urges him to kiss her. (Here
the reticent Victorian novelist indulges in a bit of sensuality.)
Then she tells him that he could never hold his head up again if he
should refuse to marry her after "that."

   "And I beg, Mr. Owen, that for the future you will come to me,
   and not make me come to you." This she said as she was taking her
   leave. "It was very disagreeable, and very wrong, and will be
   talked about ever so much. Nothing but my determination to have my
   own way could have made me do it."

Perhaps it would be going too far to say that all Trollope's women
outclassed the men, but the women's victories far outnumbered those
of the men.

Mr. Apjohn, the Jones family lawyer, believes that Cousin Henry has
cheated Isabel out of her inheritance by concealing or destroying the
final will, and he bullies Henry into an effort to clear his name in
public by bringing suit for libel against the local newspaper, which
has taken great interest in the suspicion of tampering with a will.
Mr. Apjohn then deprives us of a courtroom drama when he correctly
interprets Henry's body language and solves the mystery. But we
do encounter the dreaded Mr. Cheekey of the Old Bailey, perhaps a
slightly less unscrupulous and unsavory barrister than the infamous
Mr. Chaffanbrass of several earlier novels, but one who still "would
make his teeth felt worse than any terrier."

Only a glimpse of a vast English country estate is sufficient to make
quite clear the importance of inheritance in the English scheme of
things. The oldest male heir gets it all. The other sibs get nothing,
unless the father or the firstborn son is gracious enough to make
some provision for them. Trollope explored variations on this theme
in _Is He Popenjoy?_ and _Orley Farm_, among others. In _Cousin
Henry_, the entire community plays the role of the Greek chorus and
condemns the suspected crime. But the tenants of the estate and the
servants are all convinced that Cousin Henry is not the true heir.
They don‘t like him, and the servants all give notice of resigning
their posts. Trollope allows the victorious Mr. Apjohn to summarize
his thoughts about primogeniture. Here is the unabridged sermon:

   "A man, if an estate belong to himself personally, can do what he
   likes with it, as he can with half-crowns in his pocket; but where
   land is concerned, feelings grow up which should not be treated
   rudely. In one sense Llanfeare belonged to your uncle to do what
   he liked with it, but in another sense he shared it only with
   those around him; and when he was induced by a theory which he did
   not himself quite understand to bring your cousin down among these
   people, he outraged their best convictions."

   "He meant to do his duty, Mr. Apjohn."

   "Certainly; but he mistook it. He did not understand the root
   of that idea of a male heir. The object has been to keep the
   old family, and the old adherences, and the old acres together.
   England owes much to the manner in which this has been done, and
   the custom as to a male heir has availed much in the doing of
   it. But in this case, in sticking to the custom, he would have
   lost the spirit, and as far as he was concerned, would have gone
   against the practice which he wished to perpetuate. There, my
   dear, is a sermon for you, of which, I dare say, you do not
   understand a word."

   "I understand every syllable of it, Mr. Apjohn," she answered.

One last detail: The landed estate appeared to confer a personal name
with it, which took precedence over a wife's using her husband's
surname. The legal maneuvers required by this requirement were quite
complicated, but after a detailed explanation by Mr. Apjohn, the
result was that when Isabel bore William a son, it is reported that
"Llanfeare was entailed upon him and his son, and . . . he was so
christened as to have his somewhat grandiloquent name inscribed as
William Apjohn Owen Indefer Jones."

There was always some question as to how Mr. Apjohn should be
recompensed for his work as Cousin Henry's "advocate." One would
guess that he was rewarded in more ways than one. Among other
compensations, he is recognized as the genius who solved the mystery
in an early example of the psychological crime study, one that
manages to hold the reader's interest through speculative passages
about how a man's mind may work under certain circumstances.




WHAT TO DO ABOUT MUDDY BOOTS

DR. WORTLE'S SCHOOL


Although Anthony Trollope traveled to North America five times and
wrote a two-volume travel book, _North America_, about his second
trip, only one of his novels, _Dr. Wortle's School_, includes any
scenes on American soil. It's a relatively short book, 199 pages,
and only two of its twenty-four chapters are set in the United
States. But it's a robust story, emphasizing action over reflection,
certainly in the two American chapters.

Dr. Wortle is a clergyman with a parish that occupies relatively
little of his time--time mainly devoted to his boarding school
that prepares boys for Eton. To this school comes an "usher" (a
subordinate or an assistant teacher at a school) who seems for Dr.
Wortle's purposes to be too good to be true. And indeed the mystery
that surrounds this overqualified teacher, a fellow of Oxford, and
his American wife, who seems equally overqualified for cleaning up
after unruly school boys, confirms that they bring with them baggage
that threatens the continued existence of the school itself. The
author unburdens himself of this mystery at the first opportunity,
with a lengthy "O kind-hearted reader" paragraph that explains his
intention of putting the "horse of my romance before the cart" by
revealing the mystery "in the next paragraph--in the next half-dozen
words. Mr. and Mrs. Peacocke were not man and wife."

Mr. Peacocke had gone to St. Louis and become Vice-President of the
College at Missouri, where he had met Mrs. Ferdinand Lefroy, whose
appearance--dark brown complexion, with hair dark and very glossy,
"tall for a woman, but without any of that look of length under which
female altitude sometimes suffers"--suggests that she must have been
a Creole, even though she was the daughter of a Louisiana planter
ruined by the Civil War. Colonel Ferdinand Lefroy had gone to Mexico
to seek his fortune, was reported to have been killed there, and
Mrs. Lefroy had then married Mr. Peacocke. When her supposedly dead
husband reappeared and again disappeared, Mr. Peacocke and Mrs.
Lefroy went to England as man and wife.

So here is a secret in an unstable state. The Peacockes' behavior
is so guarded--they accept no invitations, say nothing of their
history--that a secret is suspected, and when Ferdinand Lefroy's
brother suddenly appears and attempts to blackmail the Peacockes, the
fat is in the fire. Dr. Wortle remains loyal to his faithful usher,
but the hounds of gossip are hot on the scent, and a number of
students are withdrawn from the school, threatening its viability.

The unkindest cut of all is a paragraph in a London gossip sheet,
"Everybody's Business," alluding to Dr. Wortle's visits to Mrs.
Peacocke in the absence of her husband, who has gone to America to
seek out the truth about the status, living or dead, of Ferdinand
Lefroy.

   "It must be admitted," said the writer, "that the Doctor has the
   best of it. While one gentleman is gouging the other--as cannot
   but be expected--the Doctor will be at any rate in security,
   enjoying the smiles of beauty under his own fig-tree at Bowick.
   After a hot morning with "τυπτω" [3] in the school, there will be
   "amo" in the cool of the evening."

   [Footnote 3: Τυπτω--to "thump", that is, cudgel or pummel by
   repeated blows; by implication to punish]

How to respond? Here is the crux of the story. There are, to be
sure, interviews between Dr. Wortle and his bishop, and Dr. Wortle
seriously contemplates a suit for libel against the gossip sheet,
which will bring the bishop into court. But perhaps the most
pertinent interviews are those between Dr. Wortle and the colleague
whom he selects as his confidante and advisor, Mr. Puddicombe, rector
of a neighboring parish. Mr. Puddicombe effectively plays the role of
Jiminy Cricket, the conscience of Dr. Wortle. In Chapter XIII, "Mr.
Puddicombe's Boot," Dr. Wortle first goes to Mr. Puddicombe with his
resolution to reply to the "Broughton Gazette," which has written,
"Parents, if they feel themselves to be aggrieved, can remedy the
evil by withdrawing their sons."

Mr. Puddicombe tells Dr. Wortle that he has fallen into a misfortune
and advises restraint:

   "It was a misfortune, that this lady whom you had taken into your
   establishment should have proved not to be the gentleman's wife.
   When I am taking a walk through the fields and get one of my feet
   deeper than usual into the mud, I always endeavour to bear it as
   well as I may before the eyes of those who meet me rather than
   make futile efforts to get rid of the dirt and look as though
   nothing had happened. The dirt, when it is rubbed and smudged and
   scraped, is more palpably dirt than the honest mud."

Would that each of us had a Mr. Puddicombe to keep us out of trouble!

There is an obligatory little romantic subplot, with a romance
between Dr. Wortle's seventeen year old daughter Mary and a noble
young boarding student, Lord Carstairs, age eighteen years. Are they
too young for an engagement before he even enrolls at Oxford? Will
the young lord's father Lord Bracy accept the daughter of a clergyman
into his family? After a moderate amount of reflection, these issues
sort themselves out.

Mr. Peacocke's journey to America to seek the grave or the person of
Ferdinand Lefroy occupies the two American chapters. Peacocke goes
in the company of Ferdinand's brother Robert, an unscrupulous but
ingenious scoundrel whose inventions are matched by the determination
and bravery of the intrepid Mr. Peacocke. These adventures provide
an opportunity for Trollope to vent some of his observations about
American manners:

   He found his wife's brother-in-law seated in the bar of the public
   house--that everlasting resort for American loungers--with a
   cigar as usual stuck in his mouth, loafing away his time as only
   American frequenters of such establishments know how to do. In
   England such a man would probably be found in such a place with
   a glass of some alcoholic mixture beside him, but such is never
   the case with an American. If he wants a drink he goes to the
   bar and takes it standing--will perhaps take two or three, one
   after another; but when he has settled himself down to loaf, he
   satisfies himself with chewing a cigar, and covering a circle
   around him with the results. With this amusement he will remain
   contented hour after hour--nay, throughout the entire day if no
   harder work be demanded of him.

This is one of those Fantastic Premise books, in which a credible
story is built around the Fantastic Premise--in this case, the Enoch
Arden story of the man who goes off to fight, is presumed dead,
and returns home to find his wife married to someone else. Not so
fantastic, perhaps; considering the time, distance, and inadequate
communication techniques of the period, it is only surprising that
such occurrences did not take place more often. The story carries
itself along with a good pace; but the greatest reason to read the
book is to follow the struggles of Dr. Wortle, sucked into challenges
to his pride, wrestling with how to dig himself out.

And for readers who like to close a book with a take-home lesson, one
could do worse than to remember what to do and what not to do with
muddy boots.




THE CURSE OF CONSUMPTION

MARION FAY


I was six years old when I met Tommy Wallace. He spent a good bit
of time with his Aunt Rushie, who lived two doors down from us,
while his mother spent a year at the Booneville Sanatorium with
tuberculosis. We still see an occasional patient with tuberculosis
nowadays, but the sanatoriums are all closed or used for other
purposes. However, it still causes 1.5 million deaths worldwide
each year, trailing only respiratory diseases, AIDS, and diarrheal
diseases as the leading infectious killers.

Tuberculosis, known back then as consumption, was widespread in the
nineteenth century, causing one out of four deaths in England in
1815. It only began to subside between 1850 and 1950, when deaths due
to tuberculosis decreased tenfold, from 500 per 100,000 population
in 1850 to 50 per 100,000 population in 1950. Improvements in public
health reduced the incidence of tuberculosis even before the advent
of antibiotics in 1946 with the introduction of streptomycin. Poor
living conditions and the development of resistance to antibiotics
have contributed to its resurgence and worldwide threat.

Before the discovery of the tubercle bacillus in 1882, the common
understanding of consumption was that it was a constitutional
disorder with a strong hereditary element, giving a pale, even
"haunted" look to the sufferer. As such, it played a prominent role
in literature and the other arts. John Keats, Frederic Chopin, and
Franz Kafka died of consumption, as did Edgar Allen Poe's wife,
Virginia. Among the familiar victims in our collective consciousness
are Mimi in Puccini's _La Boheme_, Violetta in Verdi's _La Traviata_,
and Camille, played by Greta Garbo in the MGM film of 1936. Doc
Holliday died of tuberculosis in 1887, and his bloody cough figured
prominently in the 1993 film _Tombstone_. Consumption claimed a
number of characters in Dickens's novels: Little Nell in _The Old
Curiosity Shop_, Nell's friend Kit, Nicholas Nickleby's faithful
companion Smike, and both Richard Carstone and the boy Jo in _Bleak
House_. Thomas Mann's _The Magic Mountain_ portrays a sanatorium in
the Swiss Alps. Other victims include Ralph Touchett in Henry James's
_A Portrait of a Lady_; Edmund Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's _Long Day's
Journey into Night_; Fantin in Hugo's _Les Miserables_; Dostoevsky's
Katerina Ivanovna in _Crime and Punishment_ and Kirillov in _The
Possessed_; and Jane Eyre's best friend in Charlotte Bronte's novel.

Anthony Trollope's two sisters and two of his three brothers died
at a young age with consumption, an "established sorrow" described
in his autobiography as the horrid word, Consumption. With this
experience, it is no surprise that Trollope should write a novel,
_Marion Fay_, about a young woman with consumption. The wonder is
that it took him so long to write it; it was more than thirty years
after his first novel that he wrote _Marion Fay_, which was finished
in 1879.

Marion Fay's story is a sad one. A Quaker's daughter and the eldest
son of a marquis meet and fall in love with each other. She refuses
to marry Lord Hampstead, however, pleading first that it would be an
unequal match for him, but finally admitting she has a strong family
history of early death and does not expect to have a long life.
Hampstead's emotional reactions are described in great detail, and
much of their story is told from his point of view. She is determined
from the first that she will not marry, and there is little more to
think or say about it. She gradually becomes more open with him as
her illness progresses, writing frequent letters from her seaside
location. Most of the agonies belong to him, while she appears
relatively tranquil, though she does indulge in a Trollopian flop
onto the sofa to bury her tearful face in a cushion.

The reader is shielded from some of the details. For one thing, the
descriptions emphasize the mental processes. There are no bloody
scenes. The color would sometimes rise to Marion's cheeks, and those
in the room would hear only a preparation for a cough, not the cough
itself. This preparatory sound, the author tells us, is the one so
familiar to those obliged to follow the downward course of someone
dear to them. And that's it. Marion's illness is said to be a
description of the course of Trollope's sister Emily, and she is said
to have had a quiet and peaceful course and death. Apparently, if she
had a hacking cough or brought up bright red blood, Anthony missed
it. In any event, the reader is spared.

As Marion becomes more ill, a frustrated Hampstead, who has fallen
under the Victorian illusion that a woman is obliged to obey the man
she loves, fails to understand how he cannot control the situation.
He has difficulty accepting the inevitable fate she has predicted. A
woman has no right to accept such a fate. Such things must be left to
"Providence, or Chance, or Fate, as you may call it."

On the other hand, Marion's friend Mrs. Roden confirms her
understanding and acceptance, and she marvels that Marion can soar
above weakness and temptation. This angelic portrayal is surely
influenced by Trollope's recollection of his sister Emily.

Two chapters of comic relief follow the end of Marion's tragedy,
and the author's ironic touch is shown in his summation of the
Civil Service, which had figured in the novel's subplots and was
personified by Lord Persiflage: "Everybody knew that Lord Persiflage
understood the Civil Service of his country perfectly. He was a man
who never worked very hard himself or expected those under him to do
so; but he liked common sense, and hated scruples, and he considered
it to be a man's duty to take care of himself,--of himself first of
all, and then, perhaps, afterwards, of the Service."

Interestingly, the word "consumption" is never mentioned. Trollope
had written about Henry and Emily's illness in his autobiography,
saying that though she was doomed and he knew it, the word was never
spoken.

The edition published by the University of Michigan Press in 1982
features the original illustrations of William Small, in which we
see the Marquis of Kingsbury (father of Lord Hampstead) looking
remarkably like the author, who was used as the model for the
Marquis.

No one can begrudge Trollope his novel about consumption. His
brothers and sisters died from it, and he used his observations of
his sisters to create Marion Fay. The tragedy of the fatal familial
curse is presented, and, though it is quite sentimental, it is not
badly done. The artist in Trollope knew that he had to leave ‘em
laughing, and he backed away from the central sadness of the story to
return to his objects of fun. Good. He was better at comedy than he
was at tragedy.




THE DOG THAT WOULDN'T STAY UNDER THE BED

KEPT IN THE DARK


"Secret" is a powerful word--secret police, the Secret Service, The
Secret Garden, a secret passage, family secrets, trade secrets,
secret recipes, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." And secrets are
sometimes too good to keep--"That dog won't stay under the bed." Such
a secret is the subject of one of Trollope's last novels, _Kept in
the Dark_, written in 1880. Relatively simple and short, the story is
a cautionary tale, one of those that could be recommended as a lesson
in life.

A man tells a new female acquaintance about a recently terminated
engagement, and the young woman, who has also terminated an
engagement recently, fails to respond with an immediate, "Oh, really!
Why, that's just happened to me!" And then she feels that she doesn't
want to take anything away from his story by sharing her own.
And later he proposes to her, and for some reason she postpones
making the full disclosure that she knows she must make. And then
circumstances fail to provide her with a good enough opportunity;
they part, to meet again only shortly before the wedding, and it gets
harder and harder for her to tell her story.

Why doesn't she tell, the reader keeps wondering; and the reader is
told, in great detail, why she dithers, and of the great pride of the
new husband, whose wrath will now be terrible when he is told.

The frustrated reader is now diverted a bit by the closest thing to
a subplot in this short and straightforward story line: the young
bride (Cecilia Holt) has a friend, Miss Francesca Altifiorla, who is
sufficiently bored with the advantages of the single life that she
has been espousing to Cecilia, that it becomes clear that the great
secret, which of course is known to everyone except the happiest of
men (Mr. George Western) is not safe. Miss Altifiorla is not proof
against the wicked plans for revenge being plotted by Cecilia's
first fiancé, Sir Francis Geraldine, who is smarting from having
been jilted with good cause. (Instead of continuing to court his
prospective bride after the engagement was made known, he took
himself off to the races at New Market, saying that he would be back
in a few weeks in time for the wedding, thinking that his title and
relative wealth gave him such privileges. Cecilia, with more spunk
than either title or wealth, thought otherwise, summarily dismissed
him, and then refused to tell her friends who had jilted whom,
considering it to be a private matter.)

But the mischievous Miss Altifiorla succeeds in bumping into
the recently liberated Sir Francis at the railroad station and
subsequently sharing a compartment sitting opposite him on the way to
London. From this point, things are foreordained. In the course of
giving Sir Francis an opportunity of seeking revenge by letting Mr.
Western know of his previous engagement, Miss Altifiorla even has
a moment of glory as a temporary fiancée of Sir Francis in her own
right.

Their short-lived engagement is the entertainment highlight of the
book. Miss Altifiorla sets her trap in the railroad carriage with
care and skill. "You know," she said, "that Cecilia Holt was my
dearest friend, and I cannot bear to hear her abused." Sir Francis
squeezes her hand as they part at Waterloo, and he proceeds to write
his poison pen letter to Mr. Western. Considering Miss Altifiorla to
be a broadminded woman, likely to tolerate his little ways, and as
likely as any to serve his eventual need for a wife, he writes a much
more cautious last paragraph in a letter to her: "Don't you think
that you and I know each other well enough to make a match of it?
There is a question for you to answer on your own behalf, instead of
blowing me up for any cruelty to Cecilia Holt. Yours ever, F. G."

Here the clever Miss Altifiorla allows herself to be faked out, and
she overplays her hand. Soon, "The milliners, the haberdashers, the
furriers and the bootmakers of Exeter received her communication
and her orders with pleased alacrity." Unfortunately for her, Sir
Francis has already become a bit bored with the wit in her frequent
and lengthy love letters; he seizes upon a gossipy mention of his
projected marriage in the Exeter newspaper, protests in a follow-up
letter to her that he may have expressed himself so badly in his
previous letter that she may have understood more than he meant; and
then he leaves for the United States.

But as for the husband who has been kept in the dark, and the wife
who allowed such a thing to happen: we are given such detailed
insights into their backgrounds, personalities, and thoughts that
such an improbable understanding begins to seem credible. He takes
himself off to Dresden in a huff. (One would think that there must
have been a fraternity of fictional English exiles in Dresden, the
apparent destination of choice for the disaffected.) He shows all the
signs of terminal stubbornness, nursing his wounded pride and making
generous provisions for his disgraced wife, who, in her own pride and
stubbornness, refuses all such provisions. It becomes apparent that
an intervention will be required to break the stalemate, and I had
wondered if Sir Francis's disenchanted friend, Dick Ross, who told
Sir Francis that he was doing an evil thing, thus giving up his
friendship and patronage, would be the agent of reconciliation; but
it turned out to be Mr. Western's sister, Bertha Grant, who left her
husband and children to make the pilgrimage to Dresden to bring her
brother to his senses so he could make the right decision.

It's a short book that tells its story in 176 pages, much less
space than was devoted to the similar story of mutual pride and
misunderstanding in _He Knew He Was Right_. Both are intimate
stories of marital relationships. Cecilia Holt may be a little less
headstrong than Emily Rowley, but Cecilia's pride is brought out by
the mischievous letter of her "most affectionate friend, Francesca
Altifiorla": "What has Mr. Western said as to the story of Sir
Francis Geraldine? Of course you have told him the whole, and I
presume that he has pardoned that episode."

The ploy worked. On reading it, Miss Holt's immediate reaction was
that she had done "nothing for which pardon had been necessary."

Cecilia's lengthy reflections go further, of course; the more
she procrastinates, the more she dreads the unveiling of the
secret. Nothing is off the record, as celebrities and others have
demonstrated many times. The more she dithers, the more, heaven help
me, I sympathize with her husband. He deserved better. But he did
overreact a bit. A little toot would have been in order. Victorian to
the core, he indulged in a big toot.

Trollope excelled in the nuances of familiarity between man and
woman. This comes across as another variation on the theme of poor
communications; "secret" is not one of the better policies.




THE ADVANCE DIRECTIVE

THE FIXED PERIOD


Dr. William Osler, upon his retirement as head of Medicine at Johns
Hopkins Medical School in 1905, delivered a speech, entitled "The
Fixed Period," in which he alluded to Trollope's 1881 novel of
the same name with comments which, to his astonishment and dismay,
brought down a storm of journalistic and popular fury and mockery
on his head. Sharing wry and politically incorrect observations
which might better have been reserved for private conversation, Osler
described two "fixed ideas well known to my friends": the comparative
uselessness of men above forty years of age, and the complete
uselessness of men over sixty. (Osler was sixty himself at the time.)
He went on to describe the plot, which "hinges upon the admirable
scheme of a college into which at sixty men retired for a year
of contemplation before a peaceful departure by chloroform." The
comments were made in an ironic and self-deprecatory mode, and
Osler's colleagues congratulated him. Journalists, however, knew a
good story when they found one, and Osler, who was leaving the United
States to become Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, was made
miserable by the exaggerations of mischievous newspaper reporters and
the outrage of simple souls to whom it was not funny. "Oslerization"
entered the language and was listed in some dictionaries as a synonym
for euthanasia. [4]

   [Footnote 4: Bliss, Michael: _William Osler: A Life in Medicine_,
   Oxford University Press, 1999]

And what was the fate of the author of the novel that Osler
imperfectly recalled? (The planned technique was the letting of
blood from the jugular vein, not chloroform. And it was done at age
sixty-eight, not sixty.) Anthony Trollope was sixty-six when he wrote
_The Fixed Period_. He described himself as an old man, and indeed
he died of a stroke two years later, before publication of the
novel in book form. Osler was one of the few who could appreciate
its ambiguity and irony. The book sold only 877 copies, and the
publishers lost money. [5]

   [Footnote 5: Terry, R. C., editor: _Oxford Reader's Companion to
   Trollope_, Oxford University Press, 1999]

It's a rather clumsy bit of science fiction, set in 1980, a hundred
years ahead of its time. The location, Brittanula, is a small island
about two hundred miles from New Zealand. (If the readers could
imagine New Zealand, why not Brittanula?) Rapid transit is by steam
tricycle. Under the leadership of the aptly named John Neverbend, the
Parliament has decreed that each citizen is to be "deposited" in a
College in a place called Necropolis at age sixty-seven, there to
wait in contemplation until the end of the "Fixed Period" one year
later.

Though the reviews of _The Fixed Period_ showed little appreciation
for Trollope's whimsy, he was spared the violent reaction that Osler
suffered. The serial magazine publication was anonymous, and the
subsequent book publication was after Trollope's death. Even John
Neverbend, the fictitious narrator of the tale, endured none of
the ridicule heaped upon Osler. So popular and respected was Mr.
Neverbend, President of Brittannula, that he was courteously and
quietly, though firmly, whisked on board a steamship and deported to
England.

Neverbend finally acknowledges that mankind was not yet prepared,
even in 1980, for the obvious advantages of the "Fixed Period."
Public works could be funded without debt if the cost of caring for
the aged were eliminated. As an inducement to accepting the proposal,
the "College" would be an approximation of some conceptions of Heaven
on Earth. "There are twenty acres of pleasure ground for you to
wander over." Interestingly, the honoree did not see his family.
Neverbend, true to his name, never forsook his conviction; on board
the English ship transporting him back to England, however, he did
realize "how potent was that love of life which had been evinced in
the city when the hour for deposition had become nigh."

Events on the island give Neverbend every opportunity to change his
mind. His closest friend and colleague, Gabriel Crassweller, is
several years older and is scheduled to be the first to be deposited.
Even though Neverbend himself offers to do all the honors for
his dear friend, Crassweller finds himself reluctant as the time
approaches. Neverbend's son is in love with Crassweller's beautiful
daughter Eva, and she seems more nearly able than anyone else to
dissuade the old President from his fixed purpose. But she can't. The
power of the English navy, with its 250-ton steam-swiveller gun, is
required. Would this terrible weapon have really been used to level
the city? "I don't know, Sir. There are some things so terrible that
if you will only create a belief in them, that will suffice without
anything else."

Reading the story more than a century after its appearance, the
reader is brought up short by mention of the chimneys of the
College and how they disturbed the neighbors--perhaps more than did
those that later actually appeared at Auschhwitz. Eugenics, ethnic
cleansing, and the Holocaust were far in the future in 1880. And
current outcries about rationing of care and "death panels" indicate
how sensitive the public can be about issues of "life and death" that
may not be well understood.

_The Fixed Period_ is a clever joke that gets old pretty quickly.
People have strong feelings about the sanctity of human life,
especially when the issue becomes personal. There is a place for
black humor, but it must be sought with great care. The appreciative
target audience for Trollope's venture into such waters turns out to
have been pretty small. Alas, this small audience happened to include
a departing great physician.




DETAILS ABOUT ENTAILS

MR. SCARBOROUGH'S FAMILY


Our attorney smiled when he came to the passage, "heirs of his body,"
in going through our family legal documents, explaining that it was
an archaic usage derived from old English law. The term, as used in a
deed, creates a "fee tail," so that the property in question goes to
the recipient and the heirs begotten by the landowner himself. (On
the other hand, "fee simple" allows the property to be passed on to
the property owner's heirs, whatever their parentage.) Land under
these conditions was thus in tail, or entailed.

The law of entail, which was a prominent feature of Victorian English
society, is the basis of the plot of _Mr. Scarborough's Family_.
Entail was created in England in 1285 and was useful to feudal lords
in keeping property in the family and undivided, with all the real
estate going to the oldest son. Landed gentry tended to favor this
arrangement, which promoted stability in feudal society; it was
not favored by the monarchy or the merchants. Entail was abolished
in England in 1925; in the United States, only four states still
recognize entail. Similar goals may be achieved, these days, with
trusts.

Mr. Scarborough, however, succeeds in overcoming the limitations
of the entail. His property is entailed to his oldest son; since
he can't do anything about that, he changes his oldest son. When
Mountjoy Scarborough, his firstborn, demonstrates an addiction to
gambling, Mr. Scarborough declares that Mountjoy is illegitimate,
and he produces marriage documents from a marriage to Mountjoy's
mother _after_ Mountjoy was born, thus making the gambling addict
illegitimate. The second son, Augustus, becomes the eldest legitimate
son. No one has any proof of an earlier marriage, and Mr. Scarborough
has his way.

Since this was a "three-volume novel" (Trollope's last of this
length), another plot was required, and it too involves an entail.
Harry Annesley, declared in Chapter III to be "the hero of this
story," is the recognized heir to the estate of his uncle, Peter
Prosper, who is fifty years of age and has never married. Mr.
Prosper, however, becomes cross with his heir, who has failed to
show sufficient respect on his visits in his youth, and he begins to
consider marriage to a forty year old woman in an effort to "beget
issue," an heir of his own. This was a legal and accepted method
of attempting to circumvent a burdensome entail, as opposed to Mr.
Scarborough's iniquitous method of branding his eldest son as a
bastard.

Lawyers are of course involved in Mr. Scarborough's attempt to
circumvent the law, and the family lawyer is Mr. Grey. Trollope
required many lawyers in his stories, but they generally are
presented as two-dimensional role players. Mr. Chaffanbrass, perhaps
the best known of Trollope's lawyers, exemplifies the doctrine that
his duty is to his client. Defending Lady Mason in _Orley Farm_,
"To him it was a matter of course that Lady Mason should be guilty.
Had she not been guilty, he, Mr. Chaffanbrass would not have been
required. Mr. Chaffanbrass well understood that the defence of
injured innocence was no part of his mission." Mr. Camperdown, in
_The Eustace Diamonds_, is a bird dog determined to solve the mystery
of the diamonds, and he does so. Mr. Furnival, in _Orley Farm_,
proves himself to be all too human in allowing himself to be
diverted by the charms of Lady Mason. Sir William Patterson, the
Solicitor-General in _Lady Anna_, is a powerful person, a _deus
ex machina_ who forms his own opinion of how affairs should be
arranged and attempts to order them so, with little regard for Mr.
Chaffanbrass's scruples about limiting his efforts to the pursuit of
his client's interests.

But we see Mr. Grey as we see none of Trollope's other lawyers
because of his daughter Miss Dorothy ("Dolly") Grey, "motherless,
brotherless, and sisterless," about thirty years of age, whom he
sometimes calls into his bedroom in the middle of the night to
discuss his cases. They also have more formal conversations, as in
this discussion of the effort made by Mr. Scarborough and his younger
son Augustus to settle Mountjoy's gambling debts. Here she tells her
father that he should lay down the law to Mr. Scarborough:

   "The law is the law," said her father.

   "I don't mean the law in that sense. I should tell him firmly what
   I advised, and should then make him understand that if he did not
   follow my advice I must withdraw. If his son is willing to pay
   these moneylenders what sums they have actually advanced; and
   if by any effort on his part the money can be raised, let it be
   done. . . . Go there prepared with your opinion. But if either
   father or son will not accept it, then depart, and shake the dust
   from your feet."

I can't think of another such father-daughter relationship in any
of Trollope's works. The above speech so reeks of wisdom that one
suspects the author is merely using Dorothy as a mouthpiece for his
own editorial comments on the affairs of his story.

Dorothy herself is one of Trollope's finest female characters. The
one o'clock conversations, when she is summoned to her father's
room by the "well-known knock" and "usual invitation," afford us an
intimate understanding of them both. Unencumbered by devotion to a
lover, she goes about her duties with a peculiar devotion that her
father only begins to understand after he retires from his practice.
She visits her aunt's family every day, though she does not care for
them, turning "old dresses into new frocks." She has her own innings,
in a sense, when her father presents his junior partner Mr. Barry as
a suitor. She reads Mr. Barry's character better than her father has
done, and she knows better than to accept his offer.

The woman in the story who is encumbered by devotion to a lover is
Florence Mountjoy, who has fallen in love with Harry Annesley and has
pledged herself to him by a nod of her head. "A man's heart can be
changed, but not a woman's. His love is but one thing among many,"
she declares to Mountjoy Scarborough in declining his repeated
proposal, affirming the doctrine to which so many of Trollope's
heroines adhered. Florence shows spunk and determination, standing
her ground against her mother, uncle and aunt in the British legation
house in Brussels to which she has been brought to clear her head and
heart of Harry Annesley.

Trollope was sixty-six years old when he wrote _Mr. Scarborough's
Family_. He completed a short novel and almost completed another
before dying of a stroke at age sixty-seven. His skills were
undiminished. His overall themes and views were familiar ones; he was
now looking at life, if not through a rear view mirror, at least with
a bit more detachment and irony than in earlier decades. He was still
able to generate and maintain detailed story lines, and he continued
his mastery of showing many facets of his characters and events,
mostly through revealing the inner thoughts of several characters.

Memorable characters continued to appear in his landscapes. Besides
Dorothy Grey and her father, there is the old rascal, Mr. Scarborough
himself. The others all marvel at successive revelations of his
deviousness, and their assessments show us both him and them. All
"London had declared that so wicked and dishonest an old gentleman
had never lived." Mr. Barry, after traveling to Germany to unearth
the documentation of his first marriage to the same woman, in an
obscure village, concluded, "In my mind he has been so clever that he
ought to be forgiven all his rascality." And now, "Everyone concerned
in the matter seemed to admire Mr. Scarborough, except Mr. Grey,
whose anger, either with himself or his client, became the stronger,
the louder grew the admiration of the world." Mr. Merton, the medical
apprentice who stayed with him the last three months of his life,
concluded, "One cannot make an apology for him without being ready to
throw all truth and all morality to the dogs. But if you can imagine
for yourself a state of things in which neither truth nor morality
shall be thought essential, then old Mr. Scarborough would be your
hero. He was the bravest man I ever knew."

No Trollope novel is complete without several proposals of marriage,
and this story includes four to Florence Mountjoy, some of them
repeated; but the scene between Squire Prosper and Miss Thoroughbung,
in which Mr. Prosper pursues his purpose of getting an heir to
disinherit Harry Annesley, must rank near the top of all Trollope's
proposals. Miss Thoroughbung is the sister of a brewer and has money
of her own; she also has her own agenda, as Mr. Prosper learns. Her
encouragement leads him to the point, and he recites one of the
sentences he had composed for the occasion: "In beholding Miss
Thoroughbung I behold her on whom I hope I may depend for all the
future happiness of my life."

The engagement does not last; it falls afoul of the Victorian
equivalent of the pre-nup, in which the would-be bride insists on
bringing with her a pair of ponies and her friend Miss Tickle. Other
financial considerations were negotiable, but the match founders on
Miss Tickle and the ponies.

The visitor from the twenty-first century is allowed a few peeks into
the world of the nineteenth: A visitor to Mr. Prosper's country place
declines to stay for the night, pleading that he has neglected to
bring a dress coat. "Mr. Prosper did not care to sit down to dinner
with guests who did not bring their dress coats." And courtship
follows its own protocols. Harry Annesley goes to Tretton Park when
Florence Mountjoy is there, and he

   endeavoured to plead his own cause after his own fashion. This
   he had done after the good old English plan which is said to be
   somewhat loutish, but is not without its efficacy. He had looked
   at her, and danced with her, and done the best with his gloves and
   cravat, and had let her see by twenty unmistakable signs that in
   order to be perfectly happy he must be near her . . . . But he had
   never as yet actually asked her to love him. But she was so quick
   a linguist that she had understood down to the last letter what
   all these tokens had meant.

And there was a Victorian equivalent of Las Vegas, where the best
entertainment can be enjoyed for the most reasonable prices, because
a gambling house is a profitable business, and the entertainment is a
"loss leader:"

   Who does not know the outside hall of the magnificent gambling
   house at Monte Carlo, with all the golden splendour of its
   music-room within? Who does not know the lofty roof and lounging
   seats, with all its luxuries of liveried servants, its wealth of
   newspapers, and every appanage of costly comfort which can be
   added to it? . . . [At] Monte Carlo you walk in with your wife
   in her morning costume, and seating yourself luxuriously in
   one of those soft stalls which are there prepared for you, you
   give yourself up with perfect ease to absolute enjoyment. For
   two hours the concert lasts, and all around is perfection and
   gilding . . . . Nothing can be more perfect than the concert-room
   at Monte Carlo, and nothing more charming; and for all this there
   is nothing whatever to pay.

Rather a leisurely survey of one aspect of the Victorian scene. And
as the author brings the story to a close, some of the characters
are rewarded with their own chapters, in order to make their exits.
Of these, that of Mr. Grey shows us the destiny of the lawyer who
tried to be good and to do good. Disillusioned with how the world
has changed under his feet, feeling guilty and inadequate after
having had the wool pulled over his eyes by Mr. Scarborough, and
uncomfortable with his junior partner's more lenient views of
professional ethics, he retires and vows to do good deeds, starting
with his sister's family of a drunkard husband and five daughters
in need of husbands. He rings their doorbell and is met by Mr.
Matterson, a widowed clergyman with five children who has offered
to marry Amelia, the eldest. He then learns from Amelia that she
has no reservations about leaving Papa, who "is getting to be quite
unbearable," and marrying the clergyman.

   Poor Mr. Grey, when his niece turned and went back home, thought
   that, as far as the girl was concerned, or her future household,
   there would be very little room for employment for him. Mr.
   Matterson wanted an upper servant who, instead of demanding wages,
   would bring a little money with her, and he could not but feel
   that the poor clergyman would find that he had taken into his
   house a bad and expensive upper servant.

   "Never mind, Papa," said Dolly; "we will go on and persevere, and,
   if we intend to do good, good will certainly come of it."

And we devoutly hope so. There are two more chapters to tie up some
loose ends. But this pretty much wraps it up. Is this what comes from
a lawyer trying to be good and to do good?




PROMISES, PROMISES

AN OLD MAN'S LOVE


Some children discovered the first diamond in South Africa in 1867,
an event described by Anthony Trollope in "The Diamond Fields of
South Africa," [6] upon visiting the area during the last six months
of 1877. The rush for diamonds then duly turned up five years later
in a novel, _An Old Man's Love_, completed just six months before his
death. John Gordon is the adventurer in the story; he goes away to
make his fortune in diamonds when he is told that he cannot marry his
beloved Mary Lawrie because he is a pauper--even though they have
never spoken to each other of their love. He returns three years
later as a rich man, only to find that Mary has promised, only a half
hour earlier, to marry someone else--Mr. William Whittlestaff, who at
fifty years of age is the "old man" of the title.

   [Footnote 6: _South Africa_, Vol. 2, chapter VIII, 1878]

No matter that she told Mr. Whittlestaff, who took her into his house
when her stepmother died, that she loved Mr. Gordon and would always
think of him. A promise is a promise, not to be given or broken
lightly. Though she would not allow the "old man" to kiss her, she
would not break her promise. Bad timing. The diamonds don't seem to
make much difference.

They certainly don't make much difference to Mrs. Baggett, the woman
who rules Croker's Hall as Mr. Whittlestaff's housekeeper. She puts
no trust in diamonds--"only in the funds, which is reg'lar." She has
her own concerns; she is incensed that Mr. Gordon would even presume
to come speak to the young woman in her master's house, and she
sternly tells Mary that her duty is to see to it that the master has
his way.

Mrs. Baggett has her principles. Though she urges Mary to accept Mr.
Whittlestaff in the first place, and to keep her promise when the
matter appears to be in doubt, yet she maintains that she will not
stay to serve under another woman who is mistress of Croker's Hall.
Not only will she not stay, she will go to Portsmouth to take care
of her drunken one-legged husband. Mr. Whittlestaff cannot shake
her from this resolve, and she tells him he must not abandon his
engagement: "It's weak, and nobody wouldn't think a straw of you for
doing it."

The author reaches into his bag of churchmen to produce Reverend
Montagu Blake, who is addressed appropriately by his fiancée when she
says, "Don't be a fool, Montagu." We see the young curate celebrate
his good fortune at the death of Rev. Harbottle, freeing his pulpit
for Mr. Blake, and also permitting him to marry Kattie Forrester.
"But now that old Harbottle has gone, I'll get the day fixed; you see
if I don't."

What of the "old man?" Mr. Whittlestaff listens to his housekeeper's
stern counsel to be a man and keep what is his. Then he retreats
to a secluded hillside to consult his well-worn copy of Horace (the
Victorian gentlemen knew their classics) in an effort to identify
the wisdom of the ages. And finally he asks himself whether Mrs.
Baggett's lessons correspond to those of Jesus Christ. In these
ruminations he is shown as a man who rises above the cardboard cutout
of a selfish old country squire in love with his young ward. His
deliberations with himself are lengthy; though he consults his volume
of Horace, he finds that he remembers Horace's counsel well enough to
weigh it without looking; and he finds it wanting.

His moment of critical decision involves a short serious interview
with his young fiancée--an unusually tender Trollopian interview--as
he prepares to go to London to see John Gordon and offer Mary to him.
She puts her arm upon him and entreats him not to go, telling him
that he his entitled to have "whatever it is that you may want,
though it is but such a trifle."

Mr. Whittlestaff finally settles the issue when she announces that
she will burn the letter he had written to Mr. Gordon arranging to
meet him; he calls for a sandwich and a glass of wine, swearing that
he will start in an hour.

The reader must remember that her original agreement to marry Mr.
Whittlestaff was verbal, not physical; she did not allow him to kiss
her; nor did she go beyond putting her arm on him and looking into
his face on this occasion. Though this modest gesture is sufficient
to mark it as a tender interview, one cannot help concluding that
this young Victorian woman fought the battle with one arm behind her
back.

Mr. Whittlestaff shows that he understands this by the completion of
his mission. The subsequent interview with Mr. Gordon in Green Park
is hardly a tender one; indeed, it becomes a bit testy on both sides;
but the mission is accomplished.

"The most important part of our narrative" is compressed into
the last page of the book. Youth is served; but so well has the
groundwork been laid in the relatively few pages of this short novel,
that the reader closes the book feeling that it has all been a bit
more than just a fairy tale.

This was Trollope's last novel to be completed. He was in the middle
of writing _The Landleaguers_ when he had a stroke and died. _An Old
Man's Love_ was published posthumously in 1884.




RUNNING IN FULL STRIDE AT THE END

THE LANDLEAGUERS


The sense of urgency that ordinarily attends the last few pages of a
novel is absent as one approaches the end--but not the conclusion--of
_The Landleaguers_, knowing that the story is to be terminated at the
place where Anthony Trollope had the stroke that ended his writing
career and, a month later, his life. The reader, instead of racing
to the conclusion, tends to linger, watching for any clue as to the
impending blow, dreading the moment when the storyteller closes the
book for an unexpected interruption, never to return. At least the
stroke did not occur during the writing, with the pen dropping from
his hand in midsentence. He actually dictated these pages to his son
Harry on the morning of November 3, 1882; on that evening he suddenly
fell silent while everyone else was laughing at the reading of a
comic novel after dinner in the home of his friend John Tilley, and
it was apparent that he had had a stroke, leaving him with paralysis
of his right side and inability to speak.

Trollope made two trips to Ireland during his last year to
familiarize himself with the efforts at land reform and the
accompanying violence that he depicted in _The Landleaguers_; he
returned for a second visit after he had already begun writing it.
This was the most topical of his novels, and he interviewed several
government officials and other knowledgeable Irishmen, but not any
of the Landleaguers--those who advocated reform measures that would
infringe on the rights of property. Indeed, he interrupted his story
of "our three heroines," declaring it necessary to describe the
"political circumstances of the day" with an entire chapter. Although
Trollope had personal affection for Ireland as the place where he
had spent eighteen years and had begun his writing, he was a son of
England first and foremost. He had no sympathy for rebellion.

Events on the ground in 1882 marched right through his story,
including a reference to the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish on
his first day on the job as Chief Secretary for Ireland, and of his
Under Secretary T. H. Burke, in May, eleven days before Trollope
arrived to begin his research. And in August, five members of a Joyce
family were murdered--a tragedy he incorporated into his story.

Ordinarily, an unfinished work is not to be judged, but knowing what
we know about Trollope's writing patterns, it seems unlikely that any
major revisions would have occurred in what he had already written.
We do have forty-eight of the planned sixty chapters, with a short
note by Harry Trollope to confirm what any experienced Trollope
reader would suspect as to who married whom and who was to be hanged
in the end. And as we follow the misfortunes of the Jones family
members who occupied Morony Castle, we see the effects of a campaign
of terror in a quiet green countryside. Outside agitators, surely
from America, have come among the "generous, kindly, impulsive, and
docile" country Irish folk, leading them to believe that one man is
as good as another (nothing said about the women, of course), and
that those who rent land don't really have to pay their full rent
to the lord of the manor. Farmers in America don't pay rent to a
landlord, they are told. Each man has his own (small) farm. If the
lands of America were there to be taken from the Indians, why should
not the Irish farmers take it from the greedy landlords?

Mr. Jones's problems at Morony Castle begin when his sluice gates are
opened, flooding eighty acres of good bottom land. His ten-year old
son Florian, who happened to witness the event, is terrified into
silence by his father's discontented renter who makes him swear not
to tell, invoking the Catholic religion that the lad had innocently
adopted as a bit of filial rebellion. After months of pressure and
wheedling by his sisters, who guess correctly that he knows, young
Florian finally names Pat Carroll as the culprit. On his way to the
courthouse with his father to give testimony, he is shot through the
head and killed by a double barrel rifle poked through a hole in a
stone wall along the road.

This reign of terror happened to occur in rural Ireland; it could
have been the Taliban in Afghanistan, the mafia in Sicily, the mob
in Chicago, or the Ku Klux Klan in the Jim Crow South. But here in
County Galway the usual ingredients were to be found: inadequate law
enforcement, young men with more testosterone than employment, and a
fearful populace.

Less violent but more widespread rebellion had already appeared in
the disruption of a fox hunt. The author had learned fox hunting in
Ireland, and many of the momentous events in his novels take place at
fox hunts. On this occasion, whenever the hunters arrive at a gorse
covert, they find the local farmers already there, having beaten the
area so that no fox would have remained for the chase.

And the Jones family finds itself the victim of a boycott, a term
that had only come into use two years earlier when Captain Charles
Boycott, land agent of an absentee landlord in County Mayo in
Ireland, had attempted to evict eleven tenants who refused to pay
their full rent. Charles Parnell, the champion of Irish nationalism
and a land reform agitator, had already recommended that an offending
landowner might be ostracized. Captain Boycott then found himself
victim of the process that later bore his name. And in _The
Landleaguers_ all the servants but one leave the Jones household. The
family is unable to buy anything in town, and no one in the town will
buy from the farm. The daughters come to enjoy, in a way, household
duties such as cooking, making beds, and churning butter. The family,
though, is devastated.

And the women pay a surcharge. As we see Mr. Jones carving the
mutton and serving a male visitor first, the author explains: "In a
boycotted house you will always find that the gentlemen are helped
before the ladies. It is a part of the principle of boycotting that
women shall subject themselves."

As the nonviolent civil disobedience changes to murder, the story
takes on the dimensions of a western movie when the heralded lawman
comes to town to institute law and order and set things straight.
This was Captain Yorke Clayton, possessed of two attributes that
would lead any man to fame: recklessness and light blue eyes. With
these attributes he wins the hearts of both Jones sisters, Ada and
Edith. Edith, the younger and brighter of the two, tells herself
and everyone else that he will prefer Ada, the elder and the more
beautiful. By the time he declares himself to be in love with Edith,
she has such a difficult time getting rid of her story that the issue
is not resolved within forty-eight chapters. After Florian is killed,
Captain Clayton becomes obsessed with the identification of his
killer. The villain is assumed to be Terry Lax, an agitator from
another county who is guilty of murdering the other witness who was
prepared to identify the opener of the sluice gate. This was done in
a crowded courtroom with the pistol at the victim's head, and no one
could be found who would say he had seen who did it. The author did
not live to unravel the murder for us and wrap up all the loose ends;
we are assured by Trollope's son Harry, however, that the Captain
did marry Edith and that the infamous Mr. Lax was hanged by the neck
until he was dead.

Besides all this there is the subplot, a story that moviegoers in the
following century would recognize as show-biz melodrama. Young Frank
Jones, son of the lord of Morony Castle, is in love with Rachel
O'Mahony, whose beautiful singing voice on stage is her meal ticket.
"We may best describe her by saying that she was an American and
an actress," the author tells us. Rachel came to Ireland with her
father, who had "probably" been born in America, though the family
was Irish. She is accompanied by her manager, referred to by her
as the "greasy Jew" Mahomet M. Moses, who also wants to marry her.
Rachel, a tiny thing, holds out against him, but then she receives
attention from Lord Castlewell, forty years old, eldest son of the
Marquis of Beaulieu, with lots of money and a fondness for young
ladies of the theater. Frank has not the money to support her,
refuses to be supported by her, and, in short, she accepts Lord
Castlewell's proposal--only to change her mind after she becomes ill
and loses her singing voice. Harry tells us that Frank was to marry
Rachel in the end.

And so Anthony Trollope began and ended his writing career with a
novel about Ireland. He didn't live long enough to play this one out,
but we're fortunate to have the first forty-eight chapters and his
son's assurance of how it was to have ended in the last twelve. His
last work was one that reprised some of his favorite themes--the fox
hunt, a murder mystery, a young American woman with a smart mouth, a
stubborn young woman reluctant to accept a suitor whom she loves, and
the ways of the simple folk of Ireland. He was running in full stride
when he fell.




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One hesitates to implicate others in a private madness. A project
such as this one requires a certain bit of monomania. However, there
are a few who cannot escape complicity.

Chip Paris of Williams/Crawford & Associates has added great value
to this and a previous book with graphic design of the cover. Amanda
Holland's creativity has allowed _The Way They Lived Then_ to present
itself to the reader in a fashion that has been pleasing to me and
all who have been asked to comment. Kay Aclin, two of whose paintings
hang in our house, provided valuable last minute advice on the color
scheme of the cover. Chip's father Charles Paris is an old friend who
provided the photograph of the author.

Todd Stewart and I share a few eccentricities, but he is far ahead of
me in understanding how to prepare and publish a manuscript. I don't
want to know how many hours he has devoted to promoting this and our
other joint ventures.

Professor Rebecca Resinski of the Classics Department of Hendrix
College maintains a web site for classical allusions in Trollope,
www.trollope-apollo.com, which has been a handy way to try to keep up
with Trollope's training in Greek and Latin. More important has been
her personal encouragement.

My wife Mary read all these reviews, and nothing went out of the
house, nor did I ever dare punch "Send," without her ok.




[Illustration: Photograph of Taylor Prewitt]


Taylor Prewitt grew up in McGehee, Arkansas and received his BA in
English from the University of Arkansas and his MD from Washington
University. His training in internal medicine and cardiology was
at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. He practiced
cardiology at Cooper Clinic in Fort Smith, Arkansas, from 1969 to
2003, interrupted only by spending the year 1974 as a Senior Fellow
in Cardiology at the Brompton Hospital in London.

He has been reading the novels of Anthony Trollope for some forty
years. He is the author of _Reciting Robert Frost in the ICU:_
Essays in the Literature of Medicine and several other collections
of book reviews.




Cover design by Amanda Holland

Author photograph by Charles Paris




Westfield Press



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