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.