New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-10-23

for money. We do not believe that he ever
thought of the dignity of literature. We should
hardly be willing to call him man of letters.
Nevertheless Mr.. Trollope makes some acute
criticisms upon the other English novelists OF
his time. He places Thackeray unquestionably
at the head of the list, George Eliot in the Sec
Ond place, and Charles Dickens in the third.
We should not arrange these names in the same
order, but Mr.. Trollope is quite right in his re-
mark that Thackeray lived with the characters
he was creating, and that Dickens's loss OF
power to do the same is the secret of the loss OF
charm in all his later books 1t is not merely an
Inference but we know as q matter of history
that Dickens was on intimate terms with Sam
Weller and Mrs. Camp, and Little Nell and Mi
cawber, and thus he could make these person
ages alive to all the world. Fifteen years before
he died the faculty left him. and from the time
Of Little Dorrit," although he produced some
amusing grOtesques, he never became absorbed
in his characters, and created none to whom his
readers became attached. Mr.. TrollOpe, whose
frank and generally admiring comments upon
his own performances make his Autobiography
one of the most amusing books of its kind, tells
us that with the best of his own personages he
lived on very close terms indeed. The Bishop
and Mrs. PrOudie and tho ArchdeacOn in the
Barchester series, the Duke of Omnium, Plan
tagenet Palliser and Lady Glencora were all very
real to him, and in carrying them through sue
cessiOn of works he used even to imagine how
their manners and characters would change in
the lapse of years. The Omnum set are evil
IDENTIFY his favorites. But none of these people
are alive to us, as they were to him. The clerical
II
Gus and unique. Plantagcnet Palliser is no
doubt what his author ingenuOusly calls him." a
very noble gentleman" but we do not know him
as we know Colonel NewcOme. We can never
be intimate with Trollope's characters, as we
can with Major Pcndennis, Becky Sharp, Mr..
Pickwck and Dick Swiveller
Mr.. TrollOpe overlooked one thing essential to
a popular character of fiction. 1t must be not
only real enough to admit of intimacy, but rare
enough to make intimacy worth while. The best
creations of Thackeray and Dickens are wonder
fully natural, but nobody ever saw their cOun-
terparts. They are not the products merely Of
observation. One and all, good and bad alike,
they are idealized by the imaginative faculty
whose subtle touch distinguishes the life -giving
power of genius. Who could bear an actual
Stggins How insuffcrablc we should find
realistic Mr. Wrinkle Anthony Trollope had no
Imagination. He declares that he wished to ex-
hibit men and women just as they are, SO that
his readers might recognize human beings like
to themselves, and not feel themselves to be
carried away among gods or demons" No great
work of fiction has ever been item upon this
line, because the life of ordinary men and women
is dull and uninstructive, and the characters of
ordinary men and women are commonplace.
Trollopcs mind was intensely commonplace.
When he made for himself set of imaginary
pcrSonages, lived with them, thought inces-
sanity about them, and studied their course of
action and manner of speech, he did not pene-
trate the secrets of human nature, he only rep
resented the commonplace conduct of common
place people. His books are popular because
they are slilfully constructed, the dialogue is
natural, the humOr is genuine, and the senti-
mcnt is true But no unimaginative writer
ever created q character.