Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-12-31
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

! AT this holiday season, when we are
| all in debt to the postal service, 1t Is
| pleasant to recall that the great Eng
! lsh novelist, Anthony Trollope, was a
| postal clerk.
For 32 years he was an employee of
| the postal administration of Great
Britain, and was perhaps the only
| postal employe in history who became
q great novelist.
His writing he carried on while en-
gagged in his clerical and later super
yisory duties in the general post
office
| He took up a clerkshlp in the post
| office at London in 1884, and stayed
| there seven years. with no particular
credit to himself according to the
records, not being much interested in
| the work.
All the time, however, he was quiet
! iY studying human nature. In 1871
| he was appointed clerk to one of the
! post Office surveyors. as they were
called, in ireland. Evidently this "sur-
| Veyor" was what we call in the
| United States today an inspector"
AS a result of this work Trollope
| turned out two novels of Irish life,
little heard of any more, as they were
more or less failures when published
THE MacDermots of Ballyclotan," in
1S47, and THE Kellys and the
| O'Kellys," in 18AS. Perhaps there was
! just a bit too much Irish in those
| titles for the public of England to
swallow. A historical work. Ia
| Fendee," in 1850, met no better fate.
| Trollope was just trying out his
| hand. 1t was after 1851, when he was
| sent to southwest England to reform
the letter carrier system there, that
| he conceived the idea of writing
novels about clergymen as human
| beings, resulting in the Cathedral
series.
| This series, upon which his fame
| solidly rests, includes "Barchester
| Towers THE Warden" Doctor
| Thorne." "F'ramley Parsonage" 1.-THE
| Small House at Arlington" and 1.-THE
| Last Chronicle of Barset."
The writer here has read but one
| of these novels as stated, "Framley
| Parsonage; but can say that, if the
| others are up to the standard of it,
| the series is a knock out, to use the
| language Of the moment.
| 1t is no wonder that Prof. Cross of
Yale declared, After suffering brief
| eclipse, Trollope has now come to be
| regarded as ranking perhaps next to
| Dickens as a great chronicler Of Eng
| lish life and manners among the mid
die classes. Somewhat deficient in
| the artistic sense, he possessed wit,
| humor. pathos and a keen intelli
| gence."
From our one dip into Trollope, we
would say that he is just the antith-
| esis of Dickens. He seems to us a
| cross between Jane Austen and VIII
| liam Thackeray. "Framley Parson-
age" lacks utterly any of the tend
| ency toward Contamination which
Dickens uses SO largely--and so well.
Trollope's heroes have their vices,
and his villains their good points.
Now, this is real life. and in picturing
such men and women Trollope is
nearer to the truth than Dickens.
Trollope, without flourish, has a
strange power to present real, moving
situations. His women-we speak of
"Framley Parsonage" of course-are
lovable in every sense. as women
ought to be.
All in all, we are quite sure that
we have been missing something, in
the reading line, when we neglected
Trollope all these years.