Anthony Trollope

“ No two nineteenth century men of letters were personally more unlike each other than James Anthony Froude{286} and Anthony Trollope. “Old Trollope, after banging about the world so long, now treading in my footsteps, and, like an intellectual bluebottle, buzzing about at Cape Town” was the historian’s characteristic comment, made in his softest and silkiest tones on the novelist’s voyage to the country, visited by himself some seven years earlier. Trollope secured his object by getting out his South African book some two years before Froude, in 1880, had published a line on the subject. ”

“ As it was, Thomas Anthony Trollope, almost as soon as his son could hold a pen, taught him the points to be aimed at in letter-writing—clearness, conciseness, abstinence from the repetition of words or ideas, and the non-introduction of any unnecessary or irrelevant matter. At the same time he instructed him by example in{20} the theory and practice of précis writing. This formed the morning’s educational routine in the Harrow home. After tea came the mother’s turn. Mrs. Trollope was a far more cultivated woman than might be supposed from her books. ”

“ Her son, her eldest son, had cast her off because she had disobeyed his orders! "His orders!" said Lady Sarah, in scorn, almost in wrath against her mother. "What right has he to give orders either to you or us? He has forgotten himself, and is only worthy to be forgotten." Just as she spoke the Manor Cross phaeton, with the Manor Cross ponies, was driven up to the door, and Lady Amelia, who went to the window, declared that Brotherton himself was in the carriage. "Oh, my son; my darling son," said the Marchioness, throwing up her arms. ”

“ His father, Thomas Anthony Trollope (1780-1835) , a barrister who had been fellow of New College, Oxford, was reduced to poverty by unbusinesslike habits and injudicious speculation, and in 1829 Anthony's mother, Frances Milton Trollope (1780-1863) , went with her husband to the United States to open a small fancy-goods shop in Cincinnati. The enterprise was a failure, but her three years' stay in that country resulted in a book on the Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832) , of which she gave an unflattering account that aroused keen resentment. ”

“ It is really too much." "Too much, indeed," said I, shuddering; "too much for the strength of any one." "Yes," he answered meekly, "indeed it is; I am beginning to feel it painfully." "Would," said I, "you could feel it—would that you could be made to feel it." But he never guessed that my heart was wrung for the poor listeners.
There was, at any rate, no tedium felt in listening to Mr. Slope on the occasion in question. His subject came too home to his audience to be dull; and, to tell the truth, Mr. Slope had the gift of using words forcibly. ”

“ Of course I am only a woman, but I always thought it wrong to offer them even a shilling." Sir William smiled and rubbed his head, fixing his eyes on those of the lady. Though he smiled she could see that there was real sadness in his face. "You don't mean to say you doubt?" she said.
"Indeed I do."
"You think that a wicked scheme like this can succeed before an English judge?"
"But if the scheme be not wicked? Let me tell you one or two things, Miss Lovel;—or rather my own private opinion on one or two points. I do not believe that these two ladies are swindlers." ”

“ Cradell?"
"Never, Mrs. Lupex. I generally go abroad in my leave. One sees more of the world, you know. I was at Dieppe last June, and found that very delightful—though rather lonely. I shall go to Ostend this year; only December is so late for Ostend. It was a deuced shame my getting December, wasn't it, Johnny?"
"Yes, it was," said Eames. "I managed better."
"And what have you been doing, Mr. Eames?" said Mrs. Lupex, with one of her sweetest smiles. "Whatever it may have been, you've not been false to the cause of beauty, I'm sure." And she looked over to Amelia with a knowing smile. ”

“ I've known her these twenty years. A great pet of mine is dear Miss Thorne. She is so very strange, you know. She always makes me think of the Esquimaux and the Indians. Isn't her dress quite delightful?"
"Delightful," said Mrs. Proudie; "I wonder now whether she paints. Did you ever see such colour?"
"Oh, of course," said Lady De Courcy; "that is, I have no doubt she does. But, Mrs. Proudie, who is that woman on the sofa by the window? just step this way and you'll see her, there——" and the countess led her to a spot where she could plainly see the signora's well-remembered face and figure. ”

“ Cradell had communicated to the company in the drawing-room the great good fortune which had fallen upon his friend, and Johnny had thereby become the mark of a certain amount of hero-worship.
"Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Roper. "An 'appy woman your mother will be when she hears it. But I always said you'd come down right side uppermost."
"Handsome is as handsome does," said Miss Spruce.
"Oh, Mr. Eames!" exclaimed Mrs. Lupex, with graceful enthusiasm, "I wish you joy from the very depth of my heart. It is such an elegant appointment." ”

“ Anthony Trollope’s personal knowledge of Thackeray began to improve itself into friendship; at Thoby Prinsep’s, also, he heard many amusing stories about a gentleman’s adventures in quest of a parliamentary seat, [15] as well as met habitually the artist Millais, whom he first knew from George Smith, and who, in the manner already described, was so appreciably to promote the novelist’s advance towards a world-wide popularity. As Prinsep’s guest also, Trollope made another artistic friendship, that with the painter Watts, whom, it will be remembered, he had already seen at Florence. ”

“ He had heard the news down on the Scotch coast, and had flown up to London, telegraphing as he did so backwards and forwards to Wharton. Of course he felt that the destruction of his cousin among the glaciers,—whether by brandy or ice he did not much care,—had made him for the nonce one of the important people of the world. The young man who would not so feel might be the better philosopher, but one might doubt whether he would be the better young man. ”

“ No word could be spoken before others that should be of any avail. But as he took her hand in his he remembered the reticence of her fingers on that former day, and thought that he was sure there was a difference.
On this occasion he made his journey back to the end of Chancery Lane on the top of an omnibus; and as he lit his little pipe, disregarding altogether the scrutiny of the public, thoughts passed through his mind similar to those in which he had indulged as he sat smoking on the corner of the churchyard wall at Nuncombe Putney. He declared to himself that he did love this girl ”

“ She was the first to speak, and this she did before she had even touched his hand. She stood to meet him, with her eyes turned to the ground, and her hands tightly folded together before her. 'Sir Peregrine,' she said, 'I did not expect from you this mark of your—kindness.'
'Of my esteem and affection, Lady Mason,' he said. 'We have known each other too well to allow of our parting without a word. I am an old man, and it will probably be for ever.'
Then she gave him her hand, and gradually lifted her eyes to his face. 'Yes,' she said; 'it will be for ever. ”

“ Slope explained that the Signora Neroni was in want of her supper.
"Pray, Mr. Slope, let her brother take it to her," said Mrs. Proudie, quite out loud. "It is out of the question that you should be so employed. Pray, Mr. Slope, oblige me; I am sure Mr. Stanhope will wait upon his sister."
Ethelbert was most agreeably occupied in the furthest corner of the room, making himself both useful and agreeable to Mrs. Proudie's youngest daughter.
"I couldn't get out, madam, if Madeline were starving for her supper," said he; "I'm physically fixed, unless I could fly." ”

“ Money was going, and each man, by sufficient energy, might hope to get some of it. They were very energetic, and so frightened the poor lady that she would certainly have fallen, had she not been kept on her seat by the pressure around her.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! get away,” she cried. “I haven’t got any more; indeed I haven’t. Go away, I tell you! Mr. Damer! oh, Mr. Damer!” and then, in the excess of her agony, she uttered one loud, long, and continuous shriek.
Up came Mr. Damer; up came Abdallah; up came M. Delabordeau; up came Mr. Ingram, and at last she was rescued. ”

“ There is something not unworthy to be called Shakespearean in the transitions that mark Trollope’s first novel. The peasant marriage-junketings, the race dinner with the ball to follow, contrast with and heighten those later acts of the drama where the curtain rises on the battered and bleeding body of the villain of the piece, while his avenging murderer stands, a doomed man, at the gallows’ foot, and his victim succumbs to the long drawn-out agonies of the ordeal which had deprived her of fair fame, of home, of brother, as well as the, through all, blindly loved author of her guilt. ”

“ Here, too, Anthony Trollope first studied the feminine types who afterwards grew into Lily Dale, Lucy Robarts, Grace Crawley, Florence Burton, and Julia Brabazon. The last of these characters, as she appeared in the first chapter of The Claverings, was, indeed, no other than Lucy Bowring herself, photographed from life. Without exception probably, the portraits of English girls that have made half Trollope’s fame are from Devonian or other West of England models. Stiffness and wrong-headedness were infirmities to which Trollope himself frankly confessed. ”

“ It was all in vain that he strove to speak; nobody would listen to him.
'Well, Mr Dean,' said the archdeacon, triumphing; 'the deanery gardens will be some consolation for the hospital elms. Well, poor Quiverful! I won't begrudge him his good fortune any longer.'
No, indeed,' said Mrs Grantly. 'Poor woman, she has fourteen children. I am sure I am very glad they have got it.'
'So am I,' said Mr Harding.
'I would give twenty pounds,' said the archdeacon, 'to see how Mr Slope will look when he hears it.' The idea of Mr Slope's discomfiture formed no small part of the archdeacon's pleasure. ”

“ If he was dull as a statesman he was more dull in private life, and it may be imagined that such a woman as his wife would find some difficulty in making his society the source of her happiness. Their marriage, in a point of view regarding business, had been a complete success,—and a success, too, when on the one side, that of Lady Glencora, there had been terrible dangers of shipwreck, and when on his side also there had been some little fears of a mishap. ”

“ I have suspected her all through, a third will declare; she has no idea of the dignity of a matron, or of the peculiar propriety which her position demands. At one moment she is romping with young Stanhope; then she is making eyes at Mr. Arabin; anon she comes to fisticuffs with a third lover—and all before she is yet a widow of two years' standing.
She cannot altogether be defended, and yet it may be averred that she is not a hoyden, not given to romping nor prone to boxing. It were to be wished devoutly that she had not struck Mr. Slope in the face. ”

“ It is very uncomfortable, as I can't exactly leave her at once because of last quarter's money, otherwise I should cut and run; for the house is not the sort of place either for you or me. You may take my word for that, Master Johnny. And I could tell you something, too, about A. R., only I don't want to make mischief. But do you write immediately. And now I think of it, you had better write to Fisher, so that he can show your letter to Lupex,—just saying, that to the best of your belief there had never been anything between her and me but mere friendship ”

“ Proudie as a realistic study—The Trollopian method of railway travelling—A daily programme of work and play.
AT each successive stage of Anthony Trollope’s literary advance, what he wrote was, throughout his Post Office days, suggested by no premeditated adventurous effort or mission such as produced the Dotheboys Hall chapter in Nicholas Nickleby, but was coloured and conditioned by the shifting circumstances of his daily routine. His surroundings, whatever for the time they may have been, provided his theme. ”

“ We have unprotected young women all about the world."
"And great bores you find them, I suppose?"
"No; I like it. The more we can get out of old-fashioned grooves, the better I am pleased. I should be a Radical to-morrow—a regular man of the people—only I should break my mother's heart."
"Whatever you do, Lord Lufton, do not do that."
"That is why I have liked you so much," he continued, "because you get out of the grooves."
"Do I?"
"Yes; and go along by yourself, guiding your own footsteps; not carried hither and thither, just as your grandmother's old tramway may chance to take you." ”

“ There was at any rate no right of way across his farmyard, and here he might keep as big a dog as he chose, chained or unchained. Harry Gilmore knew the dog well, and stood for a moment leaning on the gate.
"Who be there?" said the voice of the farmer.
"Is that you, Mr. Trumbull? It is I,—Mr. Gilmore. I want to get round to the front of the parson's house."
"Zurely, zurely," said the farmer, coming forward and opening the gate. "Be there anything wrong about, Squire?"
"I don't know. I think there is. Speak softly. I fancy there are men lying in the churchyard." ”

“ Ralph the Heir. By Anthony Trollope. Hurst and Blackett.
Mr. Trollope's novels contribute a distinct element to English fiction. He is the creator, almost perfect, of commonplace. If we limit his genius, it is not because it so embodies itself, for it demands genius as great to create the commonplace as the heroic or the grotesque. Extremes are always easy, they are the fault of all undisciplined force; only well-balanced and practised power can avoid them. The artistic defect of Mr. Trollope is that he never does anything else. He is a Paganini among novel writers ”