Trollope's Casuistry

Abstract

The puzzle of Trollope's work-its indubitable yet unexplained effectivenessmight be solved in the most obvious place, in his first success, The Warden. Because The Warden deals with a Contemporary Issue it is generally considered not as art but as history or propaganda, and the significance of its form is missed. But as propaganda it obviously fails-you can't even tell whether it's for reform or against. The issue does not lie there. We and Trollope know perfectly well that sinecures are by definition immoral and must go. We-or Trollope's contemporaries-know also that the Ecclesiastical Commission is in session, that reform is under way, and that the process will be a l'anglaise, that is, slow and by degrees. The art of The Warden lies in Trollope's carefulness not to take sides, to avoid the parti pris. For it is his delight to regard the juxtaposition of the two partis. A recent critic diagnoses Trollope's plight as the Divided Mind.' Trollope has indeed a Divided Mind, I would say, and it is no plight, but rather a distinct artistic policy. Look at this case of palpable abuse. The money left by Hiram's will for the benefit of twelve aged paupers has increased many times, and it now yields chiefly a fat income for the Warden of Hiram's Hospital. But the Warden, the instrument of this abuse, is as beneficent a man as we can imagine. Here is the donnee, the germ of the book, as James would say. But this donnee is not merely the starting-point for working out an idea for a story. It is the book. The shape of this case is the shape of the novel. Consider The Warden, by contrast, in the more usual way, as a sequential line of events. A reformer, John Bold, draws attention to an abuse: Mr. Harding, the Warden of Hiram's Hospital, is in receipt of an income far greater than intended by the original endowment. Mr. Harding gradually realizes he is indeed party to an abuse, and he resigns the post. John Bold gives up the prosecution and marries Mr. Harding's daughter. Nobody wins. The only excitement at the end is not an action but a non-action: the Bishop decides to do-nothing. Surely this is a remarkably inconclusive story, and the narrative is hardly of much interest. Very early we suspect Eleanor Harding will marry John Bold, and we are not surprised when Harding resigns or when Bold gives up the case. There is not enough story-line to hold anybody. The potency of the work is simply not in its story, but in this situation and the way it is exploited by sharp juxtaposition of different perspectives. What is called Trollope's realism functions to this end, and it functions like this: not only are we told that Mr. Harding is a good man, and not only do we see him