Excursions in Victorian Bibliography. Michael Sadleir
husband, with a beautiful young reprobate, whose previous intimacy with her the reader may imagine at his discretion. The fallibility of Lady Glencora is skilfully contrasted with that of Alice Vavasor, the heroine of the book; their circumstances are so similar, and yet the young women react to them so differently!
Phineas Finn is a tale of political ambition. The hero, by whose name the book is called, is a poor Irishman who comes to seek his fortune in Parliament. The ups and downs of his career; Lady Laura Kennedy, who loves him but from family pressure marries millions; Madame Max Goesler, the fascinating, mysterious widow who rejects flattering if dubious proposals from the old Duke of Omnium, combine with a mass of other material to make a really dramatic story that is continued, and equally well continued, in Phineas Redux.
Not the least remarkable feature of the second of these two books is the hero's trial for murder. Trollope has a genius for trial scenes, and to my mind it is an open question whether that in Phineas Redux is not finer than its more celebrated predecessors in The Three Clerks and in Orley Farm.
The Eustace Diamonds turns on the personality of Lizzie Eustace, a selfish but attractive little woman who keeps possession, in the teeth of lawyers and of her late husband's relations, of certain priceless jewels to which she has no right whatever. There are two or three subplots in the story, all of good quality; but the character of Lizzie Eustace, who, for all her lying and her insincerity and her cheap smartness, is seductive and appealing, stands out as the book's essential achievement.
The Prime Minister and The Duke's Children are the only two novels of the political series in which Plantagenet Palliser, now Duke of Omnium, is admittedly the central figure. The former book is so constructed as to give prominence to the love affair and unhappy marriage of Emily Wharton with Ferdinand Lopez, a stock gambler and commercial adventurer. But although the history of the Lopez ménage is admirably told, and gives scope for the reintroduction of Lizzie Eustace, as well as other strange and disreputable people, the story of the first premiership of the Duke of Omnium is the real story of the book. By the time he came to the writing of The Prime Minister, Trollope had become deeply interested in presenting in the person of the Duke his ideal conception of an English aristocrat. No praise can be too high for the skill with which he implies, but does not describe, the divergent qualities of ambition possessed by the Duke and by his wife. Throughout the book she is for ever striving to make him in the eye of the world the greatest gentleman of the greatest kingdom of all time. He, on the other hand, sees in his position only duty and responsibility and disappointment. Not the least of his troubles are his wife's insistence that the life of a public man is never private, and her expressed conviction that give and take is the essence of political compromise and therefore of premiership.
In the interval between The Prime Minister and The Duke's Children the Duchess of Omnium dies. The unhappy Duke is left to find, if he may, in the achievements of his children that completeness and success to secure which he feels that he has himself so utterly failed. Everything goes awry. His only daughter gives her love to an unknown and penniless commoner. His younger son, after ragging through his university career, resorts disastrously to cards and racing. Finally, his heir—Lord Silverbridge—stands for Parliament in the opposite interest to that of his father, and, worse still, turns from the girl the Duke has chosen as his bride, in order to throw his title and prospects at the feet of the beautiful daughter of an American savant. The Duke struggles against his own humanity; slowly and unhappily, as is his way, he adjusts himself to the changing times; at the last he sacrifices his ideals of nobility to personal affection. The Duke's Children worthily closes a series of fine novels. In some ways this last story of the political group is the best, and it speaks a good deal for the author's power of sustained imagination that he contrived, over a period of sixteen years, to maintain the interest and develop the vitality of so complex a collection of characters.
The rough classifications of novels in themselves independent may, out of respect for chronology, begin with the stories of Irish life. The Macdermotts of Ballycloran (1847), The Kellys and the O'Kellys (1848), Castle Richmond (1860) and The Landleaguers (1883), are the four books which belong, properly speaking, to this category. Of course there are Irish scenes in many other novels, for Trollope lived for years in Ireland, knew it well and loved it, and was for ever introducing Irishmen and Irish incidents into his work. The books above mentioned are, however, wholly and deliberately novels about Ireland. The first two have the faults of very early work, in that they are prolix and lack that control of character and material that marks the experienced novelist. Both, however, are worth reading, and the plot of The Kellys needs no excuse on the score of inexperience. Castle Richmond, however, is definitely an unsuccessful book. It is packed with information about the Irish famine, and the story is over-melodramatic for Trollope's method. One of his most characteristic qualities as a novelist is his refusal to keep the reader in suspense. In direct contrast to Wilkie Collins, he goes out of his way to explain, as he comes to it, each seemingly inexplicable event. It is as though he scorns to save himself the trouble of characterization by erecting between himself and the reader a screen of mystery. For this reason, the secret power exercised by the unsavoury Molletts over Sir Thomas Fitzgerald is, because it soon ceases to be secret, a weak foundation upon which to erect a story. The Landleaguers, the book left unfinished by Trollope when he died, is concerned to present the social condition of Ireland in the early eighties, as was Castle Richmond to depict that of the famine-ridden forties. And yet what a difference! In The Landleaguers the novelist presents his picture of politics in his actual story. There are no passages of blue-book instructionalism, but it is doubtful whether a more vivid impression of the state of Ireland at the time can be obtained from any other source. Even if there were no others among Trollope's old-age novels to disprove the theory, The Landleaguers alone should put an end to the contention that toward the end of his life he had lost his cunning or written himself out.
It is now necessary to examine that large and heterogeneous collection of novels which, from one point of view or another, satirize contemporary life or present some definite aspect of the English social scene. Let me once more insist that the classification of Trollope's books here attempted should not be understood too literally. All the Barchester novels, all the political novels, are in one sense wholly presentments of society; in the same way many of them contain passages definitely satirical. But they have other claims to special grouping which the numerous isolated stories now to be considered do not possess; and, while satire is mainly incidental to the tales of Barchester and to those of political life, it is in some at least of Trollope's other books the principal purpose of the story.
First, then, the books which may fairly be termed books of social satire. The earliest in date is The Bertrams, which, although the situations and characters are of the kind which Trollope was to make essentially his own, is a failure even more complete than Castle Richmond. The central theme is one to which the author more than once returns. Caroline Waddington rejects George Bertram for reasons of income and prospects. She marries his successful lawyer friend, only to find that she has sold herself to a greedy tyrant. The parallel case of Julia Brabazon and Harry Clavering immediately suggests itself; but where in The Claverings Trollope achieves an intense humanity, in The Bertrams he is dully mechanical. He allows the subsidiary plots to disturb and obscure his main story. When, as frequently, he attempts the comic in social enjoyment he comes clumsily to grief. The widow's seaside picnic in Can you Forgive Her? has only to be contrasted with the excursion from Jerusalem described in The Bertrams to make clear the difference between successful and unsuccessful satire. And yet there are points in The Bertrams. The close-fisted old man, the disposal of whose money provides the motive of most of the incident, is drawn with consistent restraint. There are touches in the description of society at Littlebath that prepare the reader for the pleasure of Miss Mackenzie. On the whole the book should be read. It is Trollope “off” (or rather “not yet on to”) his game, but it was published at an important moment in his career and helps to make clear his subsequent development.
Rachel Ray (1863) and Miss Mackenzie (1865) may, without any critical licence, be considered together. Both are bitter satires on Evangelical Christianity. Trollope inherited from his mother a hatred of the brimstone school of religious teachers, and in these novels he lets himself go with considerable effect. The earlier of the two books contains comparatively few characters, and those of modest social position. Rachel herself is delightful