[1873.]
My dear Pollock,
. . . This is Sunday Night: 10 p.m. And what is the Evening Service which I have been listening
to? The ‘Eustace Diamonds’: which interest me almost as much as Tichborne. I really give the best proof I can of the Interest I take in Trollope’s Novels, by constantly breaking out into Argument with the Reader (who never replies) about what is said and done by the People in the several Novels. I say ‘No, no! She must have known she was lying!’ ‘He couldn’t have been such a Fool! etc.’
[1873.]
My dear Pollock,
. . . I am very shy of ‘The Greatest Poem,’ The Greatest Picture, Symphony, etc., but one single thing I always was assured of: that ‘The School’ was the best Comedy in the English Language. Not wittier than Congreve, etc., but with Human Character that one likes in it; Charles, both Teazles, Sir Oliver, etc. Whereas the Congreve School inspires no sympathy with the People: who are Manners not Men, you know. Voilà de suffisamment péroré à ce sujet-là. . . . I set my Reader last night on beginning The Mill on the Floss. I couldn’t take to it more than to others I have tried to read by the Greatest Novelist of the Day: but I will go on a little further. Oh for some more brave Trollope; who I am sure conceals a much profounder observation than these Dreadful Denners of Romance under his lightsome and sketchy touch, as Gainboro compared to Denner.
My dear Pollock,
Thank you for the Fraser, and your Paper in it: which I relished very much for its Humour, Discrimination, and easy style; like all you write. Perhaps I should not agree with you about all the Pictures: but you do not give me any great desire to put that to the test.