The Amenities of Book-Collecting and Kindred Affections

by A. Edward Newton

Trollope takes, or appears to take, no care with his plots. The amazing thing about him is that he sometimes gives his plot away; but this seems to make no difference. In the dead centre of “Can You Forgive Her?” Trollope says that you must forgive her if his book is written aright. Lady Mason, in “Orley Farm,” confesses to her ancient lover that she is guilty of a crime; but when she comes to be tried for it, the interest in her trial is intense; so in “Phineas Redux,” where Phineas is tried for murder, the reader is assured that he is not guilty and that it will come out all right in the end; but this does not in the least detract from the interest of the story. Compare with this Wilkie Collins’s “Moonstone,” probably the best plot in English fiction. The moment that you know who stole the diamond and how it was stolen, the interest is at an end.

I have referred to the trial in “Orley Farm.” It is, in my judgment, the best trial scene in any novel. I made this statement once to a well-read lawyer, and he was inclined to dispute the point, and of course mentioned “Pickwick.” I reminded him that I had said the best, not the best known. Bardell vs. Pickwick is funny, inimitably funny, never to be forgotten, but burlesque. The trial in “A Tale of Two Cities” is heroic romance; but the trial in “Orley Farm” is real life. The only trial which can be compared to it is Effie Deans’s, which I confess is infinitely more pathetic, too much so to be thoroughly enjoyed.

In “Orley Farm” one can see and hear Mr. Furnival, with his low voice and transfixing eye; one knows that the witness in his hands is as good as done for; and as for Mr. Chaffanbrass,—and did Dickens ever invent a better name?—he knew his work was cut out for him, and he did it with horrible skill. One sees plainly that the witnesses were trying to tell the truth, but that Chaffanbrass, intent on winning his case, would not let them: he was fighting, not for the truth, but for victory. The sideplay is excellent, the suppressed excitement in the court-room, the judge, the lawyers, are all good.

At last Mr. Furnival rises: “Gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “I never rose to plead a client’s cause with more confidence than I now feel in pleading that of my friend, Lady Mason.” And after three hours he closes his great speech with this touching bit: “And now I shall leave my client’s case in your hands. As to the verdict which you will give, I have no apprehension. You know as well as I do that she has not been guilty of this terrible crime. That you will so pronounce I do not for a moment doubt. But I do hope that the verdict will be accompanied by some expression on your part which may show to the world at large how great has been the wickedness displayed in the accusation.”

And Trollope adds: “And yet as he sat down he knew that she had been guilty! To his ear her guilt had never been confessed; but yet he knew that it was so, and knowing that, he had been able to speak as though her innocence were a thing of course. That those witnesses had spoken the truth he also knew, and yet he had been able to hold them up to the execration of all around them as though they had committed the worst of crimes from the foulest of motives! And more than this, stranger than this, worse than this,—when the legal world knew,—as the legal world soon did know,—that all this had been so, the legal world found no fault with Mr. Furnival, conceiving that he had done his duty by his client in a manner becoming an English barrister and an English gentleman.”

I have frequently heard people say that they would like to attend a trial. It is not worth while: trials are either shocking or stupid; the best way to see a trial is to read “Orley Farm.”

Those of us who love Trollope love him for those very qualities which cause fatigue in others. Our lives, it may be, are fairly strenuous; it is hardly necessary for us to have our feelings wrung of an evening. When the day is done and I settle down in my arm-chair by the crackling wood fire, I am no longer inclined to problems, real or imaginary. I suppose the average man does his reading with what comfort he may after dinner; it is the time for peace—and Trollope. It may be that the reader falls asleep. What matter? Better this, I should say, than that he should be kept awake by the dissection of a human soul. This vivisection business is too painful. No, give me those long descriptions of house-parties, those chapters made up of dinner conversations, of endless hunting scenes, of editorials from newspapers, of meetings of the House, of teas on the Terrace, and above all, give me the clergy—not in real life for a minute, but in the pages of Trollope.

But nothing happens, you say. I admit that there is very little blood and no thunder; but not all of us care for blood and thunder. Trollope interests one in a gentler way; in fact, you may not know that you have been interested until you look at your watch and find it past midnight. And you can step from one book to another almost without knowing it. The characters, the situations repeat themselves over and over again; your interest is not always intense, but it never entirely flags. You are always saying to yourself, I’ll just read one more chapter.

After you have read fifteen or twenty of his novels,—and you will surely read this number if you read him at all,—you will find that you are as intimate with his characters as you are with the members of your own family, and you will probably understand them a great deal better. Professor Phelps says that he is constantly besieged with the question: “Where can I find a really good story?” I would recommend that he keep a list of Trollope’s best novels at hand. Surely they are in accord with his own definition of what a novel should be—a good story well told. I will make such a list for him if he is in any difficulty about it.

I am told by those who know, that Trollope’s sporting scenes are faultless. Never having found a horse with a neck properly adjusted for me to cling to, I have given up riding. Seated in my easy-chair, novel in hand, in imagination I thrust my feet into riding-boots and hear the click of my spurs on the gravel, as I walk to my mount; for some one has “put me up”; forgetful of my increasing girth, I rather fancy myself in my hunting clothes. Astride my borrowed mount, following a pack of hounds, I am off in the direction of Trumpeton Wood.