Evening star., 1944-12-25
This and That
By Charles E. TraceDeH.
SILVER SPRING. Md.

Dear Sir:
"Apropos of your discussion of the
older novelists, I wish to put in a word
Tor Anthony Trolfope. I suppose that
he Is not much read today, but that is
reflection on contemporary taste, not
on Trollope.
I'm reading Jane Austen, am con-
sc1ous OF the author, and I know her
characters only as she chooses to show
them to me. 1t gives somewhat the
impression of puppet show with Jane
Austen pulling the strings
Reading her is an intellectual pleas
ure, but it does not give much emo
tlonal satisfaction. Trollope, on the
other hand. while not SO acute, is
broader in his sympathies and gives us
rounded characters whose deeper emo
tions are not kept out of sight and who
seem to belong to the real world.
Some of them are among the most
lovable characters In fiction. / would
recommend to any person of cultivated
taste who has not been so fortunate as
to discover Trollope, that he read the
Barchester novels
Sincerely. p. r. B."
Our correspondent likes the works of
Irollope because that writer was, above
everything else, an honest man. and
honesty today makes mighty appeal.
Consider Trollope's attitude toward
the Christmas story
If there is anything English authors
of the old school are celebrated for it
is their Christmas stories
In fact, when we think of such tales,
we inStinctively think of Dickens,
Thackeray ETC.
Anthony Trollope wrote such stories
but he had his tongue in his cheek, and
plainly said so in his autobiography.
This, was one of the things which
turned England against his books after
his. death. But time moves on, and
customs and manners, and today we
esteem him for the very thing they
shifted at him for in his own day and
for some years thereafter.
Il was called upon by the proprietors
OF the Graphic for Christmas story"
wrote Trollope. Nothing can be more
dlstasteful to me than to have to give
relish of Christmas to what I write.
i feel the humbug implied by the
nature of the order. A Christmas story,
in the proper sense, should be the
ebullition of some mind anxious to in
still others with desire for Christmas
religious thought, or Christmas festiv-
tiles, or, better STILL with Christmas
charity.
Such was the case with Dickens
when he wrote his two first Christmas
stories. But since that the things
ryrift ftnt, o11 &c LII
been fixed to Christmas like children's
toys to a Christmas tree-have had no
real SAVIOUR of Christmas about them"
Today we see that old Trollope was
right in his judgment of Dickens
Christmas stories.
There is an entire book of them, but
most readers, even ardent Dickens en-
thusiasts, have read only the Christ
mas Carol" and THE Cricket on the
Hearth"
1t will still be a question whether a
competent writer cannot, merely by
taking thought, write real Christmas
story even though he lacks, at the very
time of writing, the real spirit of
Christmas.
Anthony Trollope was, above all, an
honest man. He was an active, doing
sort of man, who worked at two jobs
at once, that of postal inspector and
as successful novelist He did not let
the one interfere with the other. II his
characters impress readers today as
having deeper emotions than those of
Jane Austen 1t is because Of their
creator, who saw life whole and faced
It honestly.