Part 6

But although the House plays its anthropomorphic role by default in the absence of a powerful and ambitious Prime Minister, this Prime Minister is Plantagenet Palliser, Duke of Omnium. Trollope considered him one of his three greatest characters, and in this story he reaches the peak of his political career. Another of Trollope's trio of favorites, Lady Glencora, Duchess of Omnium, reaches the height of her own ambition as wife of the Prime Minister. (The third was Mr. Crawly in _The Last Chronicle of Barset_.) How would this portrayal fare as an isolated novel rather than as the linchpin in a series of six lengthy works? Perhaps an experiment should be conducted in which a class reads _The Prime Minister_ with no previous exposure to the Pallisers and another class reads the series straight through. Would there be enough unpaid volunteers for such an experiment? I think that those already familiar with the Pallisers would have keener appreciation for their portrayal in power. Here we see the Duke accept the position of Prime Minister with reluctance, suffer through the slings and arrows of criticism, and then face the issue of whether he should resign. And Lady Glencora pitches in with enthusiasm to the project of entertaining those who are of any importance to her husband's success, despite his objections and refusal to participate in the effort. She encourages the villain Lopez, who becomes a thorn in their sides, and she pulls back from her adopted role as the Hostess with the Mostest.

Robert Caro has been compared to Trollope for his delineation of men and politics in a recent multivolume biography of Lyndon Johnson. This similarity is particularly apparent in Caro's description of Coke Stevenson, Lyndon Johnson's opponent in the race for the US Senate in Texas in 1948. Stevenson had served as governor of Texas and despite his disdain for politics, he had received record majorities in his gubernatiorial campaigns. He was a scrupulously honest public servant, but he was also a proud man, too proud to stoop to indulging in a personal attack on a political opponent. Johnson knew this, and he capitalized on it.

Reading this, I thought to myself: I know about proud men in politics. I know about Plantagenet Palliser. Perhaps one of the most telling portraits is that painted by his wife as she tells her friend Mrs. Finn that if he should hear treason being plotted against him, he would stop up his ears with his fingers. "He is all trust, even when he knows that he is being deceived. He is honor complete from head to foot."

This is not to say that Coke Stevenson was a latter day Plantagenet Palliser. But the similarities between the detailed portrayals of the historical Coke Stevenson and the fictional Plantagenet Palliser serve to validate the authenticity of the fictional predecessor. Both even had similar political wives.

Fay Stevenson was outgoing and friendly, but in contrast to Lady Glencora, she did not establish friendships for political purposes.

Glencora undoubtedly had her political reasons. But Susan Hampshire, in an interview about the television series in which she played Glencora, said that politicians' wives told her they considered Glencora to be the model of the political wife. Lady Glen was a woman who could flatter Sir Orlando Drought during his visit to Gatherum, even though she disliked him and knew that her husband had not been gracious to him.

An advantage of the novelist is the absolute freedom to reveal the inner workings of the mind, and our understanding of Plantagenet Palliser, who says so little, is enhanced by such direct disclosures as his reflection that he had not had a happy day since he took office, that he had had no gratification, and that he was unconvinced that he was doing the country any good.

Glencora, on the other hand, is so articulate that she reveals the inner workings of her mind herself. Some of the last words we hear from her constitute a quick little aside to her young friend Emily Wharton:

"Are not politics odd? A few years ago I only barely knew what the word meant. . . . I suppose it's wrong, but a state of pugnacity seems to me the greatest bliss we can reach here on earth."

"I shouldn't like to be always fighting."

"That's because you haven't known Sir Timothy Beeswax and two or three other gentlemen whom I could name. The day will come, I dare say, when you will care about politics."

In _The Prime Minister_ we reach the culmination of the political career of two of Trollope's favorite characters, and we learn how they handled the acquisition and the loss of power. And yet the memorable part of the book is not the political drama but the occurrence at the Tenway Junction, when Ferdinand Lopez finishes his meteoric career by throwing himself under the wheels of the morning express from Euston to Inverness. As in some of his other works (such as _Can You Forgive Her?_ in which Plantagenet and Glencora steal the scenes from the protagonists of the primary plot), the subplot upstages the primary story line. Lopez preys on the weaknesses of others (as does Lyndon Johnson in Caro's biography) and shrewdly makes a place for himself. But it is a place that will not last. Emily sees the real man she has married after the wedding ceremony (as Lady Bird Johnson learned that she was to be humiliated in front of their friends by her husband's peremptory and petty orders). Perhaps the most unpalatable of Lopez's commands to his wife is his telling her to "get round" her father in order to satisfy Lopez's urgent desire for money to cover his losses in speculation in guano.

Lopez's initial conquests include not only the Whartons but even the Duchess of Omnium, who, still somewhat aggrieved after years of marriage that she was not allowed to marry the beautiful scoundrel Burgo Fitzgerald, has a weakness for charming and beautiful young scoundrels. There are no bounds to Lopez's ambition and effrontery: having lost an election in the Duke's home borough of Silverbridge and having had his campaign expenses reimbursed by his father-in-law Mr. Wharton, he writes the Duke and demands that the five hundred pounds expenses be paid by the Duke, since his wife had encouraged him to run for the office and the Duke had compelled her to withdraw the endorsement of "the Castle." Somewhat to his surprise, Lopez's letter hits a vulnerable target, and the Duke sends five hundred pounds.

Nemesis stalks Lopez in the form of the market for guano, which fails to meet his expectations and requirements, and the steadfast refusal of Mr. Wharton to send good money after bad. And so to the Tenway Junction. Like so many others, he thought he could walk on water.

So maybe this is why Trollope has a virtual monopoly on the political novel (and also the church novel). Scoundrels are more interesting. But wait; are there scoundrels in politics? Of course there are. This is where the biographer comes in with the life of Lyndon Johnson. For better or worse, that story wasn't fiction. One wishes for a latter-day Anthony Trollope to give us a story of such a towering figure, unencumbered by the requirements of nonfiction.

THE OLD ORDER PASSETH

THE DUKE'S CHILDREN

Do I identify more with the Duke of Omnium, or with Lord Silverbridge, as the Duke tells Isabelle Boncassen, "My boy's wife shall be my daughter in very deed"? Would I be so close to tears when he gives her his late wife's ring, if I had not known Glencora through the previous five novels of the Palliser series? _The Duke's Children_ stands up very well on its own, but its force is clearly enhanced by its predecessors. While the characters from previous novels may be received as old friends in new stages of their lives, their children may be presented as various mixtures of their parents' personalities. The reader greets the children in the process of making the transition to adulthood with the pleasure of recognition of the character traits of the parents.

Lady Glencora, Duchess of Omnium, has died in the interval between _The Prime Minister_ and _The Duke's Children_, but her influence persists. She has sanctioned the suit of Francis Tregear, an impoverished commoner, for the hand of her daughter Lady Mary without the Duke's knowledge. So here is a variation on the theme of Glencora's love for the worthless Burgo Fitzgerald, which she never pretended to give up after her arranged marriage to Plantagenet Palliser. We find her daughter Lady Mary perhaps less reckless but even more persistent, and successful, in her chosen love. Tregear has apparently gotten over his previous love for Lady Mabel Grex, whom the Duke favors for his son's wife, and Tregear shows himself to be a more worthy individual than the dissolute Burgo.

Lord Silverbridge sows his wild oats as one would expect of Glencora's son, but like Prince Hal, he grows appropriately into recognition of his responsibilities. The reader sees, before the Duke brings himself to acknowledge it, that Silverbridge makes a wise choice in his selection of the American Isabelle Boncassen as the object of his affections.

Gerald, the younger son, plays a lesser role but manages to repent of some relatively minor offenses: he manages to continue with college studies, and his gambling debts do not compare in magnitude to those of his older and more richly endowed brother.

New blood is brought into the family, new faces appear in the story. The woman who brings a bit of spice is Lady Mabel Grex. She has loved her childhood friend, Francis Tregear, but she decided that since they were both penniless, each had better marry for money. (Shades of Lady Laura Standish!) Tregear goes on to better things, as bees flit from flower to flower, but Lady Mabel never loses her love. She reveals herself when she confides to her older companion Miss Cassewary that Lord Silverbridge would have proposed to her if she had given him any encouragement, but "I spared him;--out of sheer downright Christian charity! I said to myself, 'Love your neighbours.' 'Don't be selfish.' 'Do unto him as you would he should do unto you,'--that is, think of his welfare. Though I had him in my net, I let him go. Shall I go to heaven for doing that?"

Isabel Boncassen, her successor in the Duchess of Omnium sweepstakes, faces different challenges from those that confront Lady Mabel. Frankly in love with Silverbridge, her disadvantage is one not readily appreciated on this side of the Atlantic: she is American. As Lady Mabel is revealed in the above passage, so we see Isabel as she walks with Silverbridge among the old graves at Matching and hears him tell her how Sir Guy ran away with half a dozen heiresses.

"Nobody should have run away with me. I have no idea of going on such a journey except on terms of equality,--just step and step alike." Then she took hold of his arm and put out one foot. "Are you ready?"

The action of the story is all carried out by the young people. They gamble and lose, they fall in love, they run for office, they scheme and dally, they sin and reform. But the story is really about the one person who doesn't do anything: the Duke of Omnium. Grieved by the sudden loss of his wife and forced to deal with issues she would have addressed--basically, the children--he is forced to learn that where the children are concerned, even the Duke is far from omnipotent. One who had stated that he would prefer the House of Commons to the House of Lords, he is found defending the order and telling his children of their obligation to marry within their rank. He instructs Miss Boncassen on the opportunity that the poorest man in England has to rise by merit to the highest office in the land, and he has long conversations with Isabel on the advantages of a decimal coinage system, but it never occurs to him that her wit and beauty should outweigh the rank of Lady Mabel Grex as qualifications for becoming his son's wife.

Lest the reader miss the irony, Trollope spells it out in telling the reader that in his heart of hearts the Duke kept his own family and his own self entirely apart from his grand theories. "That one and the same man should have been in one part of himself so unlike the other part,--that he should have one set of opinions so contrary to another set,--poor Isabel Boncassen did not understand."

The Duke must decide whether to give his blessing to two marriages to which he has been unalterably opposed. And his guide and counselor in these issues is his late wife's best friend, Mrs. Phineas Finn, the former Madame Max Goesler. Stubborn and taciturn, he is not an easy pupil. And she must first overcome his anger when he discovers that she had not come immediately to him when Lady Mary told her of her engagement to Mr. Tregear. Of course his late wife had first sinned in this way, but Marie Goesler Finn is the scapegoat for Glencora just as Alice Vavasor had been when Glencora insisted on walking in the priory ruins on a cold night, despite Alice's objections, and caught cold. Mrs. Finn refuses to be shunned by the Duke, becomes his confidante, and she continues in her role as the only character in the entire Palliser series who is always right. Married to Phineas Finn, who had once refused her own proposal of marriage to him, we see very little of their interaction in married life. But in her role as best friend to Glencora, we saw her as a voice of reason when Glencora was flighty, and later as one who would rouse the phlegmatic Duke to deal appropriately with Silverbridge's and Lady Mary's choices.

This interview occurs near the midway point of the novel, and with this the reader can guess that in the end the Duke will permit the marriage and even ask Mr. Tregear what his Christian name is. But this is a political novel. Back to business. After all, entire chapters are devoted to the maneuvers by which Sir Timothy Beeswax attempts to maintain his power with the Conservative government. Again we see politics as it is. The moves are not too complex for a Trollope novel, but they are too complex for a brief review. Suffice it to say that no government lasts forever, and the Duke is obliged to deal with political adversity. It isn't easy for him; but it is not for nothing that the Duke is one of Trollope's favorite creations.

A pleasant book. England moves on. A segment of the Liberal Party finds itself obliged to become more liberal than had been anticipated. The Palliser series comes to an end, and the readers (especially those of us who have developed a sentimental attachment to this seemingly aloof family) are entertained.

RUINS, RUIN, AND RUINED

THE MACDERMOTS OF BALLYCLORAN

I've never cared very much for junkyard photography. By this I mean rusty plows, abandoned automobiles, houses falling in, storefronts with broken glass. Of course ruins always have a certain appeal; the remains of an old well can be seen beside a trail leading down toward the river from my house. Who knows what happened around that old site? But rust and ruin have a limited appeal. Anthony Trollope encountered the ruins of an old country house on a visit to Drumsna, Ireland, in 1843, while working for the Post Office. As recorded in his autobiography, "It was one of the most melancholy spots I ever visited . . . and while I was still among the ruined walls and decayed beams I fabricated the plot of _The Macdermots of Ballycloran_." The story that resulted from this visit might do very well to pass away a dull afternoon riding through the country; but I found the leisurely pace of the six hundred page novel tedious. Ruins, ruin, and ruined.

This was Trollope's first novel. He was twenty-eight years old, and he had been in Ireland five years, traveling through the countryside as a clerk to a postal surveyor. One of the primary rules for writers is to write about what one knows about, and he did that. But he would have never survived as an author on forty-six more such novels. Over the next decade he was to write two more rather indifferent novels and then begin _The Warden_, the first of the Barsetshire novels and predecessor to _Barchester Towers_, his best known work. It's one thing for a writer to have the requisite skills; it's another thing--whether by chance or design--to hit upon a subject or a character that will "take off." Writers are sometimes surprised by what the public likes and what it doesn't. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle looked upon Sherlock Holmes as a distraction from his higher calling as a writer of historical novels, until he realized that Holmes was his meal ticket. Few readers know anything about his historical novels. And for Trollope, the worlds of _Barchester Towers_ and the Pallisers secured his place in English literature.

But back to the dreary world of the Macdermots. First, be warned that their story, which doesn't start very well, doesn't end well, either, as a visitor to the ruins of their country house might suspect. Larry Macdermot, reigning patriarch, is on the verge of losing his house, his property and his mind. His daughter Feemy is seduced by the English revenue agent. Larry's son Thady, the central focus of the story, has a violent encounter with Feemy's lover when she is reluctant to elope with him. It's an unhappy time for the clan.

It wasn't a happy time for Ireland, either, and the great potato famine hadn't even started yet. The English of that day were not very interested in reading about the details of daily life of the people whom they were oppressing. Trollope, on the other hand, was a young man just beginning to achieve some success and self-confidence in his voluntary exile to serve among these impoverished people. He used his skills to portray them with accuracy and even with sympathy, even though he was a loyal son of England and man of his times and felt no obligation to accord them any more than token respect. Describing Father Cullen, he writes, "He felt towards Keegan all the abhorrence which a very bigoted and ignorant Roman Catholic could feel towards a Protestant convert." An accurate account, perhaps, but could such a frank sentence be written today?

The plot is well laid out, and the story is well told, but the reader is required to plow through the Irish dialect--"'Yer honer won't be afther taking an innocent boy like me,' began Tim, 'that knows nothing at all at all about it.'" This is fair enough--the reader knows he's reading about a different country in a different century--but it does take a bit of adjustment.

Trollope loved sporting scenes, usually fox hunting, and in this one we have a horse race scene, described in the words of the spectators much like the scene at Ascot Opening Day in _My Fair Lady_: "There they go--Hurroo! They're off. Faix, there's Playful at her tricks already--by dad she'll be over the ropes!"

The pace of the book is leisurely, a common feature of Victorian novels. On the morning after a wedding, the reader is wondering whether any mischief came to Captain Ussher, and whether he survived the night after "the boys" had threatened to put him under the sod. But such concerns must be suspended for an account of how several of the characters felt about things. After four and a half pages of Thady's reflections, he happens to meet Ussher in the road, and the reader surmises that Ussher was not killed. We can see where minimalist fiction came from.

Another source of tedium is that the three Macdermots have hardly any redeeming features--a sleazy lot, with whom it is difficult to sympathize.

But one does find evidence of Trollope's facility to entertain. He excels in introductory summaries of his characters. About Feemy, whose mother and grandmother had died early, we are told:

Whatever her feelings were,--and for her mother they were strong,--the real effect of this was, that she was freed from the restraint and constant scolding of two stupid women at a very early age; consequently she was left alone with her father and her brother, neither of whom were at all fitting guides for so wayward a pupil. . . . Her father had become almost like the tables and chairs in the parlour, only much less useful and more difficult to move.

The trial scene near the end of the book is well done; Trollope excelled in trial scenes, particularly in _Orley Farm_ and _Phineas Redux_. When he introduces Mr. Allewinde, he shows us his frustration in attempting to examine Pat Brady, a reluctant witness whose literal responses remind today's reader of "Who's on First?"

The most successful comic interlude is that of the duel between Jonas Brown and Counsellor Webb, two of the three magistrates who hear the case of Thady Macdermot and differ on the question of his guilt. When he receives a response to his challenge, Mr. Brown's two sons comfort him by telling him not to worry about his legs because Webb will fire high. "The shoulder's the spot," unless he takes him on the head--"which wouldn't be so pleasant," and he'd rather take his chances with a chap that fired low. The other brother disagrees.

"The low shot's the death-shot. Why, man, if you did catch a ball in the head, you'd get over it--if it was in the mouth, or cheek, or neck, or anywhere but the temple; but your body's all over tender bits. May heaven always keep lead out of my bowels--I'd sooner have it in my brains."

As luck would have it, Brown catches a ball in the seat of his pants, causing a bloody and inconvenient wound about an eighth of an inch deep.

This is the closest thing to a happy ending in the book. This reviewer's recommendation: Read the review. Skip the book.

THE IRISH AS OTHERS SEE THEM

THE KELLYS AND THE O'KELLYS

If you live in an age of political incorrectness, you may as well take advantage of it. So Anthony Trollope might have told himself, had he enjoyed the advantage of looking into the future to our present age of political correctness. _The Kellys and the O'Kellys_ would not survive the scrutiny of present standards. "Faix, I b'lieve his chief failing at present's fur sthrong dhrink!" Transcription of the Irish forms of speech warns the present day reader to be wary; this is something that may be unfair to the Irish. Uncle Remus fell victim to such concerns and disappeared from view in 1986 when Disney removed _Song of the South_ from circulation, and the glimpses of the subservient blacks that we have in older films indicate that those who use language in a distinctive way can be vulnerable to being presented in a demeaning fashion.

Of course these were not the concerns of a fledgling nineteenth century English writer who had spent five years in Ireland with the postal service. One would suspect that the intended target audience resided in England, not in Ireland. (This, his second novel, did not sell well anywhere.) Features of Irish life are described to inform the reading public in England, and those who did read it were surely entertained as well. The description of an Irish kitchen is accompanied, in the Folio Edition, by a full-page pen-and-ink drawing which features a pig, two chickens, and two ragged old men sitting on the floor, all of whom are described in detail.