Part 3

In this arcane classification of health care providers, so strange to us today, the "general practitioner" apparently played a role similar to that of the "nurse practitioner" in a rural practice today. Dr. Thorne had been preceded at Greshemsbury by an humble general practitioner, a faithful soul who duly respected the county physicians. Though he had sometimes treated the children and servants, he "had never had the presumption to put himself on a par with his betters."

Dr. Thorne at the time of his story had been in practice in the small town of Greshamsbury for over twenty years. He is described as a proud man with a sharp tongue, but his outlook was so similar to that of the author that Trollope has been said to have poured into the character of Dr. Thorne those characteristics that he himself most admired, which comprised the ideal of the conservative English country gentleman. His integrity obliged him to be open about his fees; he had a fixed schedule of how much was to be charged for each visit, with allowance for the distance he had to travel. His colleagues considered this to be unprofessional. "A physician should take his fee without letting his left hand know what his right hand was doing; it should be taken without a thought, without a look, without a move of the facial muscles; the true physician should hardly be aware that the last friendly grasp of the hand had been made more precious by the touch of gold."

In one of our few glimpses of Dr. Thorne at work, he visits his childhood friend who has become Sir Roger Scatcherd, the wealthiest man in the county. Sir Roger refuses to accept a recommendation of abstinence from alcohol and rest from work, and he threatens to call another of the town doctors, Dr. Fillgrave. Dr. Thorne calls his bluff and dares him to call Dr. Fillgrave, requesting only that he let Lady Scatcherd remove the brandy bottle.

Of course a consultation with a childhood friend can hardly be considered a representative sample of Dr. Thorne's bedside manner. But it can be assumed that he made himself sufficiently acceptable to make a living in his country practice. We are told that he was occasionally summoned to neighboring towns to consult with colleagues on difficult cases.

The great crisis in Dr. Thorne's practice had to do with Lady Arabella Gresham. After he refused to forbid his daughter to see her son, she angrily transferred her case to the infamous Dr. Fillgrave. She still did not thrive, however, and as she became worse, the family in desperation sent to London for the great Sir Omicron Pie, who came and assessed her condition. "'You should have Thorne back here, Mr. Gresham,' said Sir Omicron, almost in a whisper, when they were quite alone. 'Dr. Fillgrave is a very good man, and so is Dr. Century; very good, I am sure. But Thorne has known her ladyship so long.'" And so Dr. Thorne was recalled to the care of Lady Arabella.

The story of Dr. Thorne himself is almost a subplot in the novel that bears his name. It is enough to say here that the author is careful to take good care of Dr. Thorne in the end. And the major plot moves along its fairy tale course. We stay with the story not so much because of the plot as because of the characters who propel it. Sir Roger's story is a rather unlikely one of a stone mason who rises to become an immensely wealthy builder and contractor, but an alcoholic (more plausible) who cannot survive long to enjoy the fruits of his labors. His son Louis succumbs a bit early to the ravages of alcohol, but this is a necessary plot device.

Frank Gresham, ordered by his mother Lady Arabella to marry money, makes a rather half-hearted effort to do so, but he is put right by Miss Dunstable, who rebukes his suit but remains a constant friend and encourages him to remain true to his love for Mary despite the prohibitions by his family. We are barely introduced to Miss Dunstable before she demonstrates her social skills by trouncing Mrs. Proudie, the ardent anti-Papist wife of the bishop, who makes a cameo appearance at Courcy Castle. Discounting Mrs. Proudie's concern that the Sabbath is hardly observed at all in Rome, Miss Dunstable agrees but says that Rome is a "delicious place" and asks the bishop's wife if she has ever been there. Of course not. It's a dangerous place--not because of malaria, as Miss Dunstable appears to assume, but because of the danger to the soul in a city with no Sabbath observations.

With that Miss Dunstable turns away abruptly and asks Mr. Gresham if he has been in Rome.

Familiar figures from the two previous Barsetshire novels, _The Warden_ and _Barchester Towers_, make infrequent and brief appearances, but they make good use of them. And we meet a personage who is to be prominent in the Palliser series when Frank is invited to a dinner at Omnium Castle by the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum. Frank feels himself insulted that the Duke not only doesn't welcome him to the castle but only makes a token appearance at the dinner, sitting alone at the head of the table and making an early exit.

If some of the conventions of Victorian life appear incongruous to us in the twenty-first century, we find that Trollope, the contemporary observer of the scene, found them grist for his mill. Some of the subtleties of rank and duty were spelled out in correspondence between Miss Augusta Gresham, the once-jilted eldest daughter of the proud Lady Arabella, and Augusta's mentor in such matters, her cousin Lady Amelia de Courcy of Courcy Castle. Augusta has received a proposal of marriage from an attorney who has been assisting with family business affairs, and she would like to accept him; but even more she would like to have the blessing of such a union from Courcy Castle.

She pleads that her younger sister is to marry a clergyman, and she pleads further that some attorneys are better than others. But Lady Amelia reminds Augusta that since "it has been God's pleasure that we should be born with high blood in our veins," duty must take precedence over inclination.

Thus instructed and vanquished, Augusta refuses Mr. Gazebee. But the author cannot forbear disclosing in an immediate epilogue that some four years after this exchange of correspondence, the proud Lady Amelia succeeded so well in overcoming her scruples that she could accept her own proposal of marriage from Mr. Gazebee.

Thus we see that in theory the attorney, the physician, the wealthy businessman, and to a large extent the clergyman, are viewed with disdain from the heights of nobility, whose inherited wealth seems to come from the land. But does that mean the lord of the manor is a farmer? Frank Gresham receives a lesson in this from his father when he suggests that since his proposed marriage to a penniless woman would destroy his chance for a large estate, perhaps he could settle for a relatively small farm. Preoccupied with the ruin to the family that will result from this injudicious marriage, his father--also preoccupied with the reflection that it was his own squandering of the family fortune that has led his son to the consideration of working for a living--can hardly bring himself to think of it. He barely hears his son say that it would take so much time to become an attorney or a doctor.

"Yes: I dare say you could have a farm."

How quaint these conventions seem to our twenty-first century American sensitivities, liberated from hereditary nobility! Or are they? In Boston, "where the Lowells speak only to the Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God?" In New Orleans, where Rex is a deity? In any city, where the names of prominent families may outlast the family fortunes and retain a meaning for those who know? What is the basis for our subliminal awareness of class snobbishness, if not from a place and time so well described for us in the novels of Trollope?

And how would this Victorian romance play out in today's world? Dr. Thorne would probably not be making house calls today. Perhaps he would be the senior partner in the family practice section of a large multi-specialty clinic. Lady Arabella would be Mrs. Gresham, but she would still find a way to run through her husband's money. Her son Frank would still marry a charming though penniless young woman; and they would succeed in some ways by virtue of their own gifts, though the measure of success would be a bit different. And with luck, some wry observer of the human comedy would tell us about it. If the observer should be blessed with a certain genius, the story would be as entertaining as _Dr. Thorne_.

AN ALL-STAR CAST

FRAMLEY PARSONAGE

_Framley Parsonage_ is altogether a charming piece in the Barsetshire collection. The major figures in the story are new ones, but familiar friends from previous volumes reappear in subplot roles, lending continuity for the benefit of faithful readers. Indeed, _Framley Parsonage_ is almost an all-star game, or Old Timers' Day at the Ball Park, with brief appearances by stars of previous and future novels--the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum, Rev. Josiah Crawley, Mrs. Proudie, Miss Dunstable, and Griselda Grantly. Mark Robarts appears as a favored young parson at Framley, and one gets the impression early on that this is the story of a Pinocchio, a naive and untested cleric who falls into bad company and does a few foolish things. Specifically, he becomes one of a large company of Trollope's young men who sign their names to bills of accommodation, basically cosigning a note, with no means of paying the sum involved. Perhaps this was a frequent route of descent for the foolish in Victorian society.

Following the course of Mark's stupidity becomes a bit tedious. There are, of course, other threads of action. Mark's sister Lucy Robarts falls in love with the young lord of the manor--Lord Lufton. The familiar problem of working out a match between a deserving but poor young girl and a highly-placed lover was just addressed in _Dr. Thorne_, and here again we have the conflict between the young swain and his mother who feels obliged to place her son's interests above every other consideration. Lady Lufton is presented as a basically kind woman who attempts to ward off little Lucy, sister of the clergyman of the parish that was "a part of her own establishment." Lady Lufton is almost persuaded to abandon her objection by Lucy's forthright presentation.

Lucy alludes to King Cophetua, a legend about a king who saw a beggar maid from his window and went out and told her that she was to be his wife. No mention is made of King Cophetua's having had a mother or an aunt to try to dissuade him from such an unequal liaison, but the efforts of such mothers and aunts have provided a useful writer's device.

Lucy's wit emerges as she tells her brother that Lady Lufton had been civil: "You would hardly believe it, but she actually asked me to dine. She always does, you know, when she wants to show her good humour. If you'd broken your leg, and she wished to commiserate you, she'd ask you to dinner."

The story rumbles along slowly but is redeemed by the great scene in which Lucy accompanies her brother to Hogglestock Parsonage and kidnaps Mr. Crawley's four children and sends them to Framley for proper care while she stays at Hogglestock to risk her life by nursing Mrs. Crawley, who has typhus, all despite the objections of Mr. Crawley, the poor but proud parson. Humble little Lucy takes action while the men at the scene, Dean Arabin and her brother Mark, just stand around.

The patient reader is rewarded for wading through familiar machinations by a number of rollicking scenes. Mr. Harold Smith delivers a lecture on the South Sea islands to the humble citizens of Barchester in which he extols the virtues of Civilization--"'And to Christianity,' shouted Mrs. Proudie, to the great amazement of the assembled people and to the thorough wakening of the bishop."

Framley Parsonage gives us our first look into the character of a singular personage who will later be the protagonist in _The Last Chronicle of Barset_: the Reverend Josiah Crawley. Mr. Crawley is the impoverished parson of the parish of Hogglestock, where he serves the Lord and the parish and attempts to feed his wife and four children on ninety pounds a year. His religion and his pride are unbending and immune to compromise. He is chosen by Lady Lufton to counsel her wayward parson Mark Robarts, and the scene in which he visits Mark in his study is one in which young Mark is chastened by a prophet of old. One does not envy Mark his position under the gaze of Mr. Crawley, whose "sunken gray eyes" make his victim quail under a repetition of the question: "I now make bold to ask you, Mr. Robarts, whether you are doing your best to lead such a life as may become a parish clergyman among his parishioners?"

Besides the Serious Interview, such as the one above, Trollope revels in the Victorian party scene, two of which are presented as the _conversazione_ of Mrs. Proudie and the subsequent _conversazione_ of Miss Dunstable. On each occasion familiar characters are summoned to play cameo roles. Lord Dumbello is introduced as a suitor for the hand of the statuesque but silent beauty Griselda Grantly, and we are given full disclosure of the extent of the courtship. Griselda observes that it is "rather cold." Lord Dumbello replies with two words: "Deuced cold." That's it. They were subsequently married, and the reader may wonder whether their conversations ever became more substantial.

Mrs. Proudie has a little tilt with Mrs. Grantly, and Miss Dunstable reappears as the good-natured fairy godmother from the previous novel, _Dr. Thorne_. But the meeting of meetings is that between Lady Lufton and the personification in her eyes of all that is evil and opposed to her interests in the county, the Duke of Omnium. Aware that the crowding in the room had led the Duke to being pressed close against her, she turns quickly but with maintenance of her dignity and removes her dress from the contact. Thus face to face, the Duke begs her pardon--the only words ever to pass between them in their lives. Retreating, she makes a low and slow curtsey.

[B]ut the curtsey, though it was eloquent, did not say half so much--did not reprobate the habitual iniquities of the duke with a voice nearly as potent as that which was expressed in the gradual fall of her eyes and the gradual pressure of her lips. When she commenced her curtsey she was looking full in her foe's face. By the time that she had completed it her eyes were turned upon the ground, but there was an ineffable amount of scorn expressed in the lines of her mouth.

Lady Lufton had conquered. If one is looking for a passage that illustrates Trollope's mastery of the subtleties of human interaction, this is it. What is not said, what is not done, and what little may be said or done when the world assumes that much must have been said or done, rarely escapes Trollope's notice. Griselda Grantly and Lord Hartletop hardly speak to each other; Lady Lufton says nothing to the Duke of Omnium; and nothing much is said at Gatherum Castle when the world assumes that the political powers assembled there must be constantly discussing matters of state.

Lady Lufton does not finish the course undefeated. Her inevitable fall comes when she attempts to dismiss the "insignificant," "brown," "little" Lucy Robarts as her son's intended bride. Lucy fears a lecture when she is summoned, and she heads it off at every turn, and when she makes her little speech acknowledging her love for her son, she refuses to allow Lady Lufton to interrupt her: "I beg your pardon, Lady Lufton; I shall have done directly, and then I will hear you. . . ."

Never fear: all ends happily. Indeed, the author develops the reader's good will with such memorable scenes and characters that repetitious themes and plotlines are readily forgiven.

THE SWELL, THE HOBBLEDEHOY, AND THE SMALL HOUSE

THE SMALL HOUSE AT ALLINGTON

The Small House at Allington may be, after all, what Anthony Trollope's novel of this title is about. Is it really about Lily Dale? She is a major figure and comes across as a strong, even dominating individual. But her fate as a rejected woman, determined to embrace a life of spinsterhood, is settled early in the book, so that the plot is finished in Part I. What is Part II for, if not to determine the fate of the Small House, which seems doomed to be abandoned by Lily and her sister and mother?

Of the subplots, the most amusing is the celebrated introduction of Plantagenet Palliser, whose scandalous affair with Lady Dumbello is discussed all over London. The reader knows that the outward manifestations of this affair are limited to one or two comments about the weather when he comes to stand by her chair at large parties. The climax of the affair occurs when Mr. Palliser dares to address her as "Griselda," and it concludes when she promptly responds by asking him to send for her coach. Around these modest happenings the Duke of Omnium and Gatherum feels obliged to threaten to cut off his nephew from his allowance and perhaps even cut off his status as heir by marrying and begetting a son himself, at his advanced age. With no interest in Griselda until so threatened, the young nephew feels obliged to challenge his uncle by addressing Griselda. However, the seeding of the wild oats is finished with the arranged marriage of the young Member of Parliament to the wealthy young Lady Glencora McCluskie. All these events are dramatized in the 1974 BBC television series, _The Pallisers_, and form the prequel to Trollope's series of six novels about the Pallisers.

Such comic relief is welcome in a rather serious novel which is destined to have no fairy tale ending. As such, it stands as a credible account of human affairs as we humans may conduct them. I suppose that sometimes women do indeed take voluntary private vows of chastity after being jilted, and sometimes keep them, and perhaps it happened more often in Victorian society over a hundred years ago than in our seemingly more open society today, but it takes a strong woman to do it; and the unusual occurrence of the phenomenon is emphasized by the author in the refusal of any of Lily's family or friends to acknowledge her statement of purpose. John Eames, faithful in his unrequited love for Lily, seems to understand it better than any of them, but he sympathizes with her position in his own profession never to love anyone else.

One could make a case for the novel's being a story about the hobbledehoy, the author's term for awkward late bloomers like John Eames. Johnny progresses toward manhood and is considered to have succeeded in this by the end of Part II; he "thrashes" Adolphus Crosbie by punching him in the eye at a railway station; he is promoted to be the private secretary to Sir Raffle Baffle in the bureaucracy, and he never allows himself to be demeaned by fetching Sir Raffle's boots; he earns the friendship and patronage of the Earl de Guest by saving him from a bull in his pasture; he escapes a foolish liaison with Amelia Roper, the designing daughter of his landlady; and he receives encouragement from the Earl and from Lily's mother in his suit. But he doesn't get the girl.

Lilian Dale is one of Trollope's acclaimed heroines, and for good reason. She dominates every encounter from first to last, from proclaiming that Adolphus Crosbie is a swell when we first meet her, to her compulsive interruptions of her mother at the last as Mrs. Dale endeavors to tell her daughter of the Squire's conversion from being an old grump to being a generous old grump. She rather quickly falls in love with the swell from London and accepts his proposal of marriage, expressing her love without qualification and making generous concessions to the prospect of marrying a relatively poor London clerk. Her loving attentions to Adolphus leave the reader in no doubt as to Mr. Crosbie's good fortune in winning her hand. No scene in the book is better presented than that in which Mrs. Dale tells Lily that her letter from Mr. Crosbie puts a definite end to their engagement. Lily had expected it, and she assumes the fortitude of a Joan of Arc as she hears it, astonishing her mother with her presence of mind and astonishing the reader when she does not resort to the universal ploy of Trollope's women, who routinely retire to their room and weep on the bed after a crucial development.

The author succeeds in showing us Adolphus Crosbie as a cad and a scoundrel in the eyes of the world. But we also see the world through the eyes of Mr. Crosbie; and from his own perspective he is shown rather non-judgmentally to be stupid and lacking in a sense of purpose that would reward him with happiness. The torments of Mr. Crosbie as the son-in-law to the Earl de Courcy constitute the just punishment that his sins deserve.

And what of the Small House? It succeeds where Johnny Eames had failed: it gets the girl. We are left with the prospect of Lily and her mother permanently in residence in the Small House, which Mrs. Dale had announced that she would leave, at the behest of her daughters, in rebellion against the authority and interference of their uncle the Squire, who allowed them the use of the house rent-free. The title of the book is indeed appropriate; the Dale women's residence in the house indicates harmony and stability in their little world in Allington. In the end, communication overcomes pride, and peace returns, even though in Lily's case it is a peace of resignation and acceptance.

One accepts certain conditions in reading Trollope, and in this instance the conditions are a bit heavier than usual. Plot concludes in Part I; Part II is one of the longer epilogues in literature. The pace is leisurely; there is a bit of repetition. But the conditions, though heavy, are not without reward. Lilly is well presented, and the reader, like her friends and family, love and admire her but wish she could be a bit more flexible. Lady Dumbello is shown in a masterpiece of irony and caricature, just closely enough that one suspects that the portrait is plausible and not far from true. The phenomenon of the hobbledehoy is given its definitive representation in John Eames. In Adolphus Crosbie's disillusionment with the noble family into which he marries, we see the difference between perception and reality in how the "quality" sometimes live. One might wish for a bit of a story; but the reader is grateful for a kindly but ironic and amusing guide to the gentle country life.

THE VICTORY OF THE RIGHTEOUS

THE LAST CHRONICLE OF BARSET

Is there a more memorable scene in all Trollope's novels than the image of the Rev. Josiah Crawley walking miles through the mud to answer the summons of the Bishop of Barchester? Mrs. Crawley had arranged for a local farmer to offer him a ride, but the ruse only took him part of the way, and Mr. Crawley forgot his suspicions of his wife as he thought of how, with his dirty boots and pants, he would crush the sleek and clean bishop in his own study--"crush him--crush him--crush him!" And the subsequent interview with Bishop and Mrs. Proudie stands as one of Trollope's great set pieces. Mr. Crawley, the underdog, the Perpetual Curate of Hogglestock, ignores the interruptions of the bishop's wife as he argues against the bishop's illegal request (which the reader knows originated with Mrs. Proudie) that Mr. Crawley vacate his pulpit at Hogglestock until his trial for theft of twenty pounds is concluded. And two more memorable words are not uttered in the Barsetshire series than "Peace, woman," when he finally acknowledges her presence. After further admonishing her that she was debasing her husband's high office by interfering, he wishes the bishop good morning and is out the door. "Yes, he had, he thought, in truth crushed the bishop."