What has become of the
Wonderful things he was going to do
All complete in a minute or two?
Where are now his novel philosophies and theories? To ask the question is to answer it.
Constant striving for the unobtainable frequently results in neglect of important matters close at hand—such things as bread and cheese and children are neglected. Some happiness comes from the successful effort to make both ends meet habitually and lap over occasionally. My philosophy of life may be called smug, but it can hardly be called ridiculous.
IX
A GREAT VICTORIAN
FOR a time after the death of any author, the world, if it has greatly admired that author, begins to feel that it has been imposed upon, becomes a little ashamed of its former enthusiasm and ends by neglecting him altogether. This would seem to have been Anthony Trollope’s case, to judge from the occasional comment of English critics, who, if they refer to him at all, do so in some such phrase as, “About this time Trollope also enjoyed a popularity which we can no longer understand.” From one brief paper purporting to be an estimate of his present status, these nuggets of criticism are extracted:—
Mr. Trollope was not an artist.
Trollope had something of the angry impatience of the middle-class mind with all points of view not his own.
“Tancred” is as far beyond anything that Trollope wrote as “Orley Farm” is superior to a Chancery pleading.
We have only to lay “Alroy” on the same table with “The Prime Minister” to see where Anthony Trollope stands.