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

TAYLOR PREWITT

Westfield Press

ISBN 978-0615866420

Westfield Press
Fort Smith, Arkansas

For Mary and
Kendrick, Ellen, and Sally

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."