E-text prepared by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.
Copyright (C) 2013 by Taylor Prewitt
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 57792-h.htm or 57792-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57792/pg57792-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57792/57792-h.zip)
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."